iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Nina Lager Vestberg @lagernina.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Fancy an excuse to come to Stockholm in September? Open seminar on PICTURE CULTURES with various folks involved in the project Selling Pictures: Pictorial Economy and Commoditization 1820–2020 (IFFS/VR). Speaker list in the comments!

A poster of various AI-generated cats accompanied by the following invitation to an
OPEN SEMINAR
PICTURE CULTURES

17 Sept. 09.30–16.00

Klockan Konferens

Olof Palmes gata 29-31

Welcome to a seminar where researchers as well as the advisory board involved in the project Selling Pictures: Pictorial Economy and Commoditization 1820–2020 (IFFS/Vetenskapsrådet) will present recent and ongoing research on various of aspects of how mass-produced and mass-reproduced pictures can be interpreted, datafied and studied.

Speakers:

Realism revisited. The persistence of photography in the age of AI
–Estelle Blaschke

What Did the Victorians See? Using Multimodal AI to Analyze 72,000 News Illustrations
–Thomas Smits

What Are Artificial Intelligence Models Models Of?
–Fabian Offert

Picturing Baskerville’s Punches
–Caroline Archer Parré

Proto-photographic Reproductive Phantasmagoria
–Wolfgang Brückle

Pictorial Economy and Commoditization 1820–2020
–Nina Lager Vestberg & Anna Näslund

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Daniel van Strien @danielvanstrien.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

A film catalogue tells you what a film is about, not what happens inside it. So: 1,864 public-domain Prelinger films, described every ~60 seconds by an open 2B video model. 23,148 searchable moments. Search "typing on a computer keyboard", land on the second it happens.

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Great to present our work (w. @melvinwevers.bsky.social) on applying "basic" ML to study historical visual culture at the @ihr.bsky.social Digital History Seminar!

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James Baker @jwbaker.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

#dhist If you missed @thomassmits.bsky.social & @melvinwevers.bsky.social speaking at the @ihr.bsky.social Digital History on Orientalist pixels, colonial colour palettes, and machine learning - plus the fab discussion that followed - the recording is now on our youtube channel youtu.be/kDTJToRCEHQ

youtu.be

Smits & Wevers: Orientalist pixels - revealing the colonial color palette of early photography

YouTube video by IHR Digital History Seminar

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Hi @hathitrust.bsky.social wizards and/or American #historians (espc @uofcalifornia.bsky.social), can anyone able to help me get PDFs of this record? Really appreciate any help 🤝🙏!! catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/01031...

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

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Folgert Karsdorp @folgertk.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

It's incredibly important to have a journal like Open Humanities Data. Had the pleasure working with @l-teixeiracosta.bsky.social to publish a dataset of 11k+ records from the first illustrated flora of the Netherlands (19th century) 👀 Look at that turnaround time: 1 month! doi.org/10.5334/johd...

Abstract of the paper and turnaround time from submission to publication.

Example double page of the Flora Batava series including illustration and text sections. Letters indicate the different segments of the text: a) “species names”, b) “flowering time”, c) “classification”, d) “sexual characteristics”, e) “species traits”, f) “habitat”, g) “medicinal use”, h) “domestic use”.

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Urban History @urbanhistory.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

📣 New #OpenAccess article 🏮 Margo Buelens-Terryn, Ilja Van Damme and @thomassmits.bsky.social, 'Projecting cities: illustrated lantern lectures as forgotten practice of place promotion in Belgium, c. 1900 – c. 1920' 🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S096... #UrbanHistory

Title and abstract for the linked article

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Pleased to share that I've been awarded an NWO XS grant for "Terraforming from Above: Digital Methods for Colonial Aerial Photography" Between 1920-1949, Dutch pilots systematically photographed Indonesia from above, creating an unprecedented aerial archive of the colonial landscape.

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Excited for session 2B this afternoon at #CHR2025! @melvinwevers.bsky.social presents our work (w. @folgertk.bsky.social) using Faith's Phylogenetic Diversity to quantify archival silence and bias. We're measuring the diversity of the Dutch National Archive's photographic collection. edu.nl/7cbef

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Daniel van Strien @danielvanstrien.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Building datasets to train smaller, task-focused models used to be incredibly time-consuming. Very excited to see SAM3 massively lower that barrier. Describe the class you want to detect and get annotated datasets automatically! Try it yourself: huggingface.co/datasets/uv-...!

Screenshot of a simple app showing bounding boxes for photographs detected in historic newspaper images.

$hf jobs uv run \ --flavor a100-large \ -s HF_TOKEN=HF_TOKEN \ https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/sam3/raw/main/detect-objects.py \ -- davanstrien/newspapers-with-images-after-photography-big \ davanstrien/newspapers-photo-predictions \ --class-name "photograph" \ --confidence-threshold 0.4$

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Computational Humanities Research @comphumresearch.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

📢 The #CHR2025 proceedings are out! 97 papers, ~1600 pages of computational humanities 🔥 Now published via the new Anthology of Computers and the Humanities, with DOIs for every paper. 🔗 anthology.ach.org/volumes/vol0... And don’t forget: registration closes tomorrow (20 Nov)!

anthology.ach.org

Edited by Taylor Arnold, Margherita Fantoli, and Ruben Ros

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Daniel Wilson @danielwilson.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

!Stop Press! Article on bias in digitised newspaper collections: ’Whose News’, in the new journal of @comphumresearch.bsky.social by Kaspar Beelen, @jonhistorian61.bsky.social, @kmcdono.bsky.social and me. See blog for summary & 🧵 1/7 Article doi.org/10.1017/chr.... Blog is.gd/2IFc30 #dh #c19 🗃️

doi.org

Whose news? Critical methods for assessing bias in large historical datasets | Computational Humanities Research | Cambridge Core

Whose news? Critical methods for assessing bias in large historical datasets - Volume 1

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James Baker @jwbaker.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Look at our lovely autumn/winter @ihr.bsky.social Digital History seminar schedule, including talks from @bamcshane.bsky.social @jeroenputtevils.bsky.social @rubenros.bsky.social @thomassmits.bsky.social @melvinwevers.bsky.social and more! #dhist

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Pete Orford @peteorford.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Victorianists - a little bit of silly joy in all the gloom: take a moment today to vote for this gorgeous Lego set idea of the Great Exhibition so we can all get it for Christmas! beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

Front view of the Crystal Palace exterior rendered in Lego complete with megalosaurus and horsedrawn omnibus

Interior view of Lego Crystal Palace showing various details of the exhibition

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Katie McDonough @kmcdono.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Excited to hear "Mapping Empire: A Distant Viewing Approach to News Maps in Victorian Illustrated Periodicals, 1842-1890" from Bethany Warner & @thomassmits.bsky.social next!

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Maybe I can take this oppurtunity to promote our open-access dataset of the Illustrated London News and multimodal search tool: bsky.app/profile/thom... Search the images of the ILN (1842-1889) with words or images. Easy install via Github but also happy to help with some image quests!

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Over de Muur @overdemuur.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Over de Muur lanceert een nieuwe serie! We roepen op om bijdragen in te sturen over ideeën, politieke strategieën of bewegingen uit het verleden die een linkse agenda kunnen inspireren en helpen in de strijd tegen extreemrechts. Zie de call op onze website: overdemuur.org/oproep-serie...

overdemuur.org

Oproep: Serie ‘Historische inspiratie voor progressief verzet’

Over de Muur roept op om bijdragen in te sturen voor een nieuwe serie over ideeën, politieke strategieën of bewegingen uit het verleden die een linkse agenda kunnen inspireren en helpen in de strij…

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Timon de Groot 🟥 @timondegroot.com · 31/05/2025

Ik heb vandaag een stuk in Trouw staan over hoe fossiele brandstoffen ten onrechte worden gezien als wondermiddel voor allerlei problemen. Op mijn Substack geef ik nog wat meer achtergrond bij mijn stellingen in het stuk open.substack.com/pub/werkgehe...

open.substack.com

De keerzijde van fossiele vooruitgang

Van kinderarbeid in kolenmijnen tot moderne klimaatschade

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Daniel van Strien @danielvanstrien.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Finally documented the Beyond Words dataset from the @librarycongress.bsky.social labs / @bcgl.bsky.social for the BigLAM @hf.co org! - 3.5K annotated historical newspaper pages - Bounding boxes + category labels - Photos, ads, headlines, cartoons & more

Image of a historic newspaper with bounding box predictions for "photographs" "headline" "illustration" etc.

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Nanne van Noord @nanne.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

I'm hiring a PhD and a Postdoc! 📣 The PhD is on learning from feedback for bias analysis in cultural collections, more info at: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies... The postdoc is on gender representation in generative AI and artistic potentials, more info at: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

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Kor Bosch @korbosch.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

De week dat ik op @historicivertellen.bsky.social actief was kon ik hier helaas nog niet over schrijven, omdat het onderzoek nog niet gepubliceerd was, maar een foto uit onze collectie is waarschijnlijk de oudste portretfoto van Nederland, uit 1841. Heel tof! www.geldersarchief.nl/over-ons/act...

Een zwaar gehavende daguerreotypie (een vroeg soort foto) met daarop een man met zwart haar in een pak, zittend op een stoel. Op de achtergrond zijn vaag patronen van een 19e eeuws behang zichtbaar. De geportretteerde is Carel August Nairac (1815-1883), en de foto werd in Arnhem gemaakt op 28-08-1841 door Willem baron van Heeckeren tot Kell (1815-1914).

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Lauren Tilton @nolauren.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Lin Du discussing image circulation through computer vision to better understand WWII-era photographs of the CCP. Great work using computer vision to identify retouching, repurposing, and captions to discuss misinformation. Make sure to check out her awesome work!

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Amazing visualization of parliamentary data! Can't wait for Ruben's thesis!

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Woensdag is mijn vrije dag en dan ben ik meestal in de natuur te vinden. Ook in onze fotocollectie is die aanwezig. De omgang met de natuur is iets dat steeds aan verandering onderhevig is en dat maakt het historisch erg nuttig dat hier ook beelden van bewaard blijven.

Bloeiende zevenster (trientalis), Beekbergen Spelderholt, Juni 1935; Gelders Archief: 0909 - 365-0023, fotograaf onbekend, Public Domain Mark 1.0 licentie.

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Voordat ik het stokje overgeef aan @ramonanegron.bsky.social nog een vraag: Wat vinden jullie goede/mooie/interessante voorbeelden van digitale of computationele geschiedenis? Welk onderzoek van Nederlandse/Nederlandstalige digitale historici zou iedereen moeten lezen?

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Vandaag geef ik een presentatie in de Trending Topics college series van de Research School for Media Studies (RMes). Ik gaf een aangepaste versie eerder aan de cultuurhistorici van Huizinga. Voor mij is dat een van de leukste aspecten van digitale methodes: ze doorbreken disciplinaire grenzen.

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Collega's wijzen (terecht) regelmatig op de gevaren van AI bias. Maar hoe "neutraal" kijken mensen eigenlijk naar het verleden? Soms heb ik liever een AI model waarvan ik de bias kan onderzoek dan de observaties van een historicus zonder zelfreflectie.

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Hoe kunnen we Large Language Models (LLMs), de technologie die aan de basis staat van ChatGPT, gebruiken om historisch onderzoek te doen? @cblevins.bsky.social laat zien hoe LLMs kunnen helpen bij het transcriberen en interpreteren van historische bronnen. cblevins.github.io/posts/llm-pr...

cblevins.github.io

A Large Language Model Walks Into an Archive... | Cameron Blevins

Personal website for Cameron Blevins, Associate Professor, Clinical Teaching Track at University of Colorado Denver

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Even een LinkedIn-moment: waar gebruiken jullie AI in je onderzoek? Waar zou je dit willen gebruiken? Of moeten historici hier ver van weg blijven?

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Juist de geestwetenschappen kunnen ons helpen om het gebruik, impact en de gevaren van generatieve AI (zoals ChatGPT) beter te begrijpen. Deze preprint van een aantal vooraanstaande Amerikaanse collega’s geeft een mooi overzicht. arxiv.org/abs/2502.19190

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Goedemorgen! Ik ben Thomas Smits. Ik ben universitair docent digitale geschiedenis en AI aan @uvahumanities.bsky.social. Ik onderzoek visuele (nieuws) cultuur met behulp van AI en probeer te bedenken hoe de geesteswetenschappen kunnen bijdragen aan verantwoorde AI waarin mensen centraal staan.

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Christina Riggs @christinajriggs.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Proud to be part of this fantastic special issue of Visual Studies: Colourised Histories, edited by @liziwat.bsky.social and Dominic Williams, bridging film and still photography to address questions of historical method, racialization, ethics, AI, and more. Thread 🧵 to introduce each article 🗃️📜📷📸🎥

tandfonline.com

Visual Studies

Colourised Histories, reading digital/analogue photography and film archives now. Volume 40, Issue 1 of Visual Studies

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Daniel Foliard @danielfoliard.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

The High Vision ANR project is now live (highvision.hypotheses.org). It is an interdisciplinary project (history/archives/computer vision) that seeks to explore little-document photo collections of very early news image agencies. We are hiring a postdoc, check it out emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

emploi.cnrs.fr

Portail Emploi CNRS - Offre d'emploi - ANR High Vision - Postdoc / [H/F] - Vision par ordinateur, données multimodales et photographie patrimoniale

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Research Society for Victorian Periodicals @rs4vp.org · 10/02/2025

Do you have an innovative idea for advancing periodicals research? Do you need 💰 to make this idea a reality? Consider applying for our annual Patrick Leary Field Development Grant! Applications are open through March 15. More details can be found on our website: rs4vp.org/awards/leary...

rs4vp.org

The Patrick Leary Field Development Grant – RSVP

The Patrick Leary Field Development Grant is named for long-time RSVP supporter, Board member and former President, Patrick Leary. It is intended to support one scholar or a team of researchers in cre...

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Deze even gemist maar wat een prachtig stuk van @kristofsmeyers.bsky.social over hoop als 'strijdbare praxis' voor de historicus. Ik hoop dat veel studenten het zullen lezen!

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Paul Fyfe @pfyfe.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

I hope that Thomas's work helps underscore the distinction between humanities' targeted uses of machine learning and the discourse about generative AI

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Historici vertellen @historicivertellen.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Kritiek op AI tiert welig onder vakgenoten (en op dit platform). Hoewel ik geen techoptimist ben, volgt vandaag een een iets ander (en wellicht hoopvoller) perspectief op AI en/in de geschiedwetenschap!

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Thomas Smits @thomassmits.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

📖 A huge honor to have contributed a chapter to 𝘋𝘺𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘴, 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘔𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: The Liber Amicorum for my former postdoc supervisor Ann Rigney (edited by Astrid Erll, Susanne Knittel, and @jennywustenberg.bsky.social).

degruyter.com

Dynamics, Mediation, Mobilization

Dynamics, Mediation, Mobilization provides an accessible overview of cultural memory studies, a field substantially shaped by Ann Rigney. In more than sixty short chapters, leading and emerging schola...

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Folgert Karsdorp @folgertk.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Just a reminder that our book on Humanities Data Analysis is OA and freely available from: www.humanitiesdataanalysis.org

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Patrick Leary @patrickleary.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Curran Fellowships are now open for applications (due Jan 15, letters Jan 22), and they can be a big help to anyone researching any aspect of the 19th-c. British press. Topics pursued by past winners have ranged far and wide: rs4vp.org/awards/curra... Details here: rs4vp.org/awards/curra... #19th

rs4vp.org

The Curran Fellowships – RSVP

The Curran Fellowships are travel and research grants intended to aid scholars studying British magazines and newspapers from the long nineteenth century in making use of primary print and archival so...

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Jenny Wüstenberg @jennywustenberg.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

For 18 months, over 50 people kept it a secret: our handbook of cultural memory studies, which I edited with Astrid Erll and Susanne Knittel in honor of Ann Rigney. Seeing her surprise was priceless. Should be available in open access any day now. www.degruyter.com/serial/mcm-b...

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Susie Protschky @susieprotschky.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

New research on visual culture based on a large, digitised data set. Studies at scale might well transform what we can know about the past. #photography #history #methods

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Journal of Historical Geography @jofhistgeog.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

New article! 'Projecting the world: The mediated geography of the projection lantern in Belgium c.1900-c.1920', by Margo Buelens-Terryn and @thomassmits.bsky.social. Read it here: doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...

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