Overview
- Combines the deep historical knowledge of the material, knowledge of relevant scholarship in cinema studies and Slavic studies, and the systematic use of quantitative studies throughout the book
- Highlights the use of quantitative methods for collecting comprehensive empirical data from films and using it as an aid for further analysis
- Considers the films and writings of the Russian director, Dziga Vertov, in the realm of digital humanities
Part of the book series: Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences (QMHSS)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book highlights the quantitative methods of data mining and information visualization and explores their use in relation to the films and writings of the Russian director, Dziga Vertov. The theoretical basis of the work harkens back to the time when a group of Russian artists and scholars, known as the “formalists,” developed new concepts of how art could be studied and measured. This book brings those ideas to the digital age. One of the central questions the book intends to address is, “How can hypothetical notions in film studies be supported or falsified using empirical data and statistical tools?” The first stage involves manual and computer-assisted annotation of the films, leading to the production of empirical data which is then used for statistical analysis but more importantly for the development of visualizations. Studies of this type furthermore shed light on the field of visual presentation of time-based processes; an area which has its origin in the Russian formalist sphere of the 1920s and which has recently gained new relevance due to technological advances and new possibilities for computer-assisted analysis of large and complex data sets. In order to reach a profound understanding of Vertov and his films, the manual or computer-assisted data analysis must be combined with film-historical knowledge and a study of primary sources. In addition, the status of the surviving film materials and the precise analysis of these materials combined with knowledge of historical film technology provide insight into archival policy and political culture in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Adelheid Heftberger is a Slavicist and Film Scholar, and currently holds the position of Head of Access in the Film Department of the German Federal Archive in Berlin. She is the author of the book Kollision der Kader. Dziga Vertovs Filme, die Visualisierung ihrer Strukturen und die Digital Humanities and has written countless articles, as well as lectures and seminars, on topics such as digital humanities, archival research, Russian/Soviet film, film restoration and the dissemination of audiovisual cultural heritage collections via digital media. She is a Dr. phil. in Russian Studies, which was received at the Universities of Innsbruck and Vienna.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Digital Humanities and Film Studies
Book Subtitle: Visualising Dziga Vertov's Work
Authors: Adelheid Heftberger
Series Title: Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02864-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Mathematics and Statistics, Mathematics and Statistics (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-02863-3Published: 23 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-02864-0Published: 02 January 2019
Series ISSN: 2199-0956
Series E-ISSN: 2199-0964
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 311
Number of Illustrations: 100 b/w illustrations, 91 illustrations in colour
Topics: Statistics for Social Sciences, Humanities, Law, Film History, Russian, Soviet, and East European History