Rethinking data browsing through embodied knowledge

In the age of digital and big data, the interaction with machines is central and emphasizes the sophistication of user interfaces and browsing tools. However, in the domain of digital artwork collections, most platforms propose access to images through keywords or pre-processed categorisations. Retrieval of information that is led by metadata and where specific requests have to be translated into words, requiring previous knowledge in the domain. They do not make use of computer vision or sensing tools that could allow a query on the content of the artworks. Other exhibition systems that include more innovative or immersive scenarios seem to focus mostly on the spectacularity of the display apparatus and its technical performance and are unsuitable for proper art historical research. It is based on these observations that a new browsing interface was envisioned in the context of research on hand gestures in Early Modern art. A new tool that allows researchers to directly interact, via their own gestures, with painted hands from the past, placing the human at the centre of the querying system. A system where the hand becomes an actor of the thoughts, allowing to navigate an art collection through poses as embodied forms of knowledge. Fostering new exploration possibilities, the project directly questions the need to re-invent the access to digital data for research purposes and to propose new approaches to our digital tools and browsing interfaces through embodied knowledge. Furthermore, it questions the position of the digital humanists, what they can fundamentally bring to the different fields they tackle and their responsibility towards digital data curation.