DHSI 2025 Institute Lecture: Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel (Université de Genève)

DHSI 2025 Institute Lecture: Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel (Université de Genève)

by Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel

Humanities, Social Sciences & Thought Computing & Cybersecurity UXApplied computingUXADigital Humanities
🎙 Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel 👥 63 📅 September 10, 2025 ⏱ 49 min 👁 54 📄 expert opinion 🧭 2026-08-16
Available in: English (current) Français

Keywords

digital art historydata-drivenvisual globalizationdistant viewingart history

Summary

In this DHSI 2025 lecture, Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, professor of digital humanities at the University of Geneva, argues for the value of data-driven approaches in art history. She begins by situating her own background as a historian who turned to digital methods to address questions of art market, social history, and circulation. She introduces the ARTL@S project, which uses thousands of exhibition catalogs to trace the internationalization of avant-garde art, revealing patterns like Picasso’s absence from Paris exhibitions despite his fame abroad. She then discusses her more recent project, Visual Contagions, which applies computer vision to millions of illustrations from periodicals to study visual globalization. She acknowledges significant limitations, including algorithmic biases, the need for close reading, and structural constraints like digitization inequalities and legal issues. She responds to critiques from scholars like Claire Bishop, arguing that digital methods, when used critically and with attention to data provenance, can enrich art history. The lecture emphasizes the importance of combining distant and close reading, and the need for transparency and reproducibility in digital research.

172 words

Critical Evaluation

Value of the Information & Strength of the Argument

The lecture provides valuable insights into the practical applications and challenges of digital art history. Joyeux-Prunel effectively demonstrates how data-driven methods can reveal patterns invisible to traditional approaches, such as the detour through international exhibitions for career advancement. She also offers a balanced perspective by acknowledging the limitations and critiques, particularly regarding AI tools and corpus biases. The argumentation is solid, grounded in her own extensive research experience, and she convincingly refutes some of the common criticisms by showing how digital methods can be integrated with close reading and archival work.

Scientific Rigor, Source Quality, Title Accuracy

The lecture demonstrates scientific rigor through the presentation of concrete projects and methodologies. Joyeux-Prunel cites specific sources, including her own books and the ARTL@S and Visual Contagions projects, and references scholars like Claire Bishop and Franco Moretti. However, the talk is not heavily referenced, and some claims lack explicit citations. The title accurately reflects the content, which is a lecture on the role of data in art history. No comments were provided for analysis.

180 words

Title / Content Match

The title accurately reflects the content: a lecture on the role of data in art history.

Quality & Reliability

8/10

The lecture is delivered by a recognized expert in digital art history, with extensive experience leading large-scale projects (ARTL@S, Visual Contagions). The arguments are grounded in concrete examples from her own research and acknowledge limitations of digital methods. However, the presentation is an opinion piece rather than a peer-reviewed study, and some claims are not fully referenced.

Key Moments

Markers derived by PSI from the transcript: the creator did not define chapters.

Cited Sources

Concurring Sources

Dissenting Sources

Contribution & Novelties

The lecture offers a nuanced perspective on the integration of data-driven methods in art history, emphasizing the importance of combining distant and close reading. It provides concrete examples from large-scale projects and addresses common critiques, contributing to the ongoing debate on digital humanities.

Pour aller plus loin :

  • Distant viewing — A concept analogous to distant reading, applied to visual materials.
  • Computer vision — The technology used to analyze images at scale.
  • Digital humanities — The broader field encompassing digital methods in the humanities.

84 words

Radar Profile

The radar profile shows high scores in quantity and quality of information, reflecting the lecture's rich content and expert delivery. The technical level is moderate, indicating accessibility to a broad audience. Overall, the lecture is well-balanced, with strong contributions to the field.

Reliability 8/10