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EventThursday TalkBRAID x IDI Hybrid Seminar – Ananda Rutherford
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Do ‘Words Matter’ in Machine Learning?
This presentation will reflect on the distinctions between what is needed to produce equitable, anti-racist information on artworks and what it is possible or desirable with the application of machine learning. What word choices in the cultural sector can or should ML be taught to make? Can machine learning be applied to address structural inequality and systemic bias within art historical and museological practice? What relationship should we be crafting between machine learning and the histories of art as presented through museum labels and interpretation?
The focus of this research was a dataset of texts from Tate’s Art and Artists online collection, identified as biased in terms of language and interpretation. The research was conducted as part of the AHRC Towards a National Collection Programme, on the Transforming Collections project. Reviewing the Tate texts against Hodan Warsame’s essay ‘Mechanisms and Tropes of Colonial Narratives’, part of the pivotal publication Words Matter: An Unfinished Guide to Word Choices in the Cultural Sector (2018), alongside the development of an application to analyse object label texts revealed the need for deep contextual understanding, both of art historical writing conventions and the artwork itself.
Bio
Ananda Rutherford is a Research Fellow with UAL’s Decolonising Arts Institute. Her research for the AHRC/TaNC funded Transforming Collections project explored the language of museum catalogue texts and the potential application of machine learning to evidence and problematise issues of colonialism and racial bias. She is also interested in ethics in practice at the intersection of academic research, data and technology, and GLAM and heritage organisations. Ananda is a former museum collections and documentation manager, with a career focus on the digitisation and dissemination of collections information online and continues to work and consult in this area.
Running Order
16.00 – Talk by Ananda Rutherford
16.40 – Q&A
17.00 – End
In-person: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB
Online: Zoom
Please note limited seats are available at Inspace for in-person audiences, so please book tickets in advance. For those joining online please visit the online event page for the Zoom joining link and password.
For inquiries about accessibility, please contact the DI team at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk or visit the Access webpage for more information about the venue: https://inspace.ed.ac.uk/venue-access/
Inspace or Zoom