As part of this lab, I altered code developed by Nick Montfort. Since I do not know a way to upload my HTML file to WordPress without a paid account, I will link to a page containing the code here. (I also submitted the HTML file with this URL for the assignment.) Additionally, here is the source for the photo used in the HTML code: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/391039180123064558/.
General Thoughts
Anyway, this lab allowed me to re-enter into the mind of a programmer, which I have not had to do for about two years. Even then, I was only working with simple Java programs, so it was nice to explore something with a little more depth and purpose, even if I did not have the coding background to give expression to all my thoughts. (In this sense, writing code contains many parallels to writing prose essays, because both require one to give expression to abstract thoughts in a manner understandable to the intended reader. One of the main differences, however, is that in the case of the former, one of the intended readers is the computer processing the code, in addition to the human readers working with the code.) For example, I wanted to display the names of colors in their actual color (so the word “red” would look like “red“), but I could not figure out a practical method of doing so, despite scouring the web for answers. Other than this little snafu, however, I am proud with how my final product turned out, especially with how the text appears to materialize on the page of a blank book. Moreover, I was able to modify the code to allow various nouns with different verb conjugation patterns, which allowed for more freedom of expression while maintaining grammatical accuracy. While it may not be as complex as some of the other remixes of Nick Montfort’s work, I think it went well for my first foray into HTML.
Data in the Digital Humanities
This lab thoroughly demonstrated the different ways data can manifest itself in the Digital Humanities, and highlighted how the distinction between raw and processed data is not always well-defined. For example, Nick Montfort’s original source code was raw data for me, because it was on what I based my own project. Based on Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto’s definition it was “data in its original format” that had to be processed and modified to fit my purposes (32). However, once one looks at the web-page itself, and not the source code, the distinction between raw and processed data becomes blurred, as one could argue that after the computer runs the code, the data has been “collected and organized” (32). This brings up an interesting question for studies in the digital humanities: what is the “real” data that one analyzes? Is it the text which appears on the screen, or the code written by the programmer? Or, is the “real” data the 1’s and 0’s housed in the computer’s memory banks that neither the analyzer nor the original author ever have direct access to? Are Gardiner and Musto correct in claiming “the digital ‘0’ and ‘1’ reduce all humanistic material to the same common core of data and mode of representation” (36)?
While there are no clear answers to these questions, a significant component lies in how the data is being used. For example, I would argue that the raw data in this lab is the source code, because that was my main focus in developing my program, while the processed web-page was processed data, as this was the final product. However, if someone were to discuss the content of the web page itself, then that would be that person’s raw data, as it is the artifact under investigation. In this case, the object would be studied as a text, like a book or a poem, but because of its non-static nature based on random number generation, the text becomes an independent object of study. As Gardiner and Musto describe, “Human agency traditionally conceived in terms of the active author, passive text and reader must now give way to theories that dethrone both author and reader and grant autonomy to the text as an independent agent, itself presenting and shifting meanings in a multipolar, digital environment” (35). The code itself is a fixed structure, unless I manually change it, but how it is processed depends substantially on the whims of a digital system, giving subjecthood to the computer as an interpretive and creative being.
Montfort’s work also demonstrates a question in how the digital itself relates to our access to data. In particular, while one could simply print-out the program’s code and present that as a text, the “true” work can only be accessed via digital means. Whereas one can fully read and interpret a traditional book through print or through a digital reader, the beauty and purpose of “Taroko Gorge” rely on the random number generation only possible through computers, and thus it can only be fully realized through a web browser. In this case, the computer transforms the text into a document that one can study, as it “places the raw data or text into a more active relationship with the investigative process” (Gardiner and Musto, 37). Like the relationship between “a star in the sky” and “a photograph of it” (qtd. in Gardiner and Musto, 37), the digital transforms code into a work of art that markedly differs from the original while still relying on the original for its existence.
This provides great evidence for Thomas Rommel’s argument that computers have substantial use in humanistic studies. While Rommel mostly focused on digital tools supplementing human readings of traditional literary texts, Montfort’s poem supplies a more literal example of how “computers can supplement the critic’s work with information that would normally be unavailable to a human reader” (Rommel). I say literal, because Montfort’s poem could not possibly be read without a computer. In this sense, while computers allow for greater variety in how one chooses to access and process data, they also limit one’s abilities when the raw data can only be processed through purely digital means. Humanistic data, both raw and processed, can exist an entirely as an immaterial object, which causes “the very notion of material existence [to come] into sharp focus in face of the all-leveling ‘0’ and ‘1’” (Gardiner and Musto, 43), and forces one to ask how data can and should be represented.
Works Cited
Gardiner, Eileen, and Ronald G. Musto. The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students
and Scholars. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Rommel, Thomas. “Literary Studies.” A Companion to Digital Humanities, Blackwell
Publishing, digitalhumanities.org/companion/view?docId=blackwell/97814051
03213/9781405103213.xml&chunk.id=ss1-2-8.
Another Digital Humanities Blog 