Multimodality

This course introduces the fundamental principles of audiovisual grammar through six complementary modules: CUT, OBSERVE, HEAR, CONNECT, SHOW / HIDE and CHOOSE. Combining original video episodes, detailed analyses, key concepts and practical activities, it explores how editing, framing, sound, association, off-screen space and selection shape meaning and guide the viewer’s perception. Designed for teachers, trainers and anyone interested in image education, the course supports both critical analysis and audiovisual experimentation.

This lesson from Ranke.2 looks at how digital technology has stirred our imagination and enabled us to create new (and sometimes virtual) realities; and covers topics ranging from ancient Greek myths to snapchat filters. However, the availability of this technology to transform both us and the world around us should be treated with skepticism, as the merits of an all-encompassing digital lifestyle do not completely outweigh its disadvantages and pitfalls.

This interdisciplinary course addresses how principles of textual, visual, oral, and place-based storytelling challenge and enhance the conceptualisation, construction and experience of digitally-created worlds connecting to real-world places, locations, and landscapes.

This course invites you to discover the world of digital multimodal literacies through history, examples, experiments and editing tools. In the last unit you will be able to build your own multimodal editing tool, an eTalk.

Have you ever reflected on the origin and authenticity of a historical source that you retrieved from the web? This lesson offers insights into how the practice of applying source criticism has been affected by the digital turn. What are the new questions that historians should ask of digitised and digital-born historical sources, and what new skills should they master to be able to answer these questions?

This resource is an introduction to Digitisation Methods for Material Culture. The resource explores basic topics with regards to the study of material culture, while also looking at types of media as means to communicate and share information about it, as well as digitisation methods to capture material culture data.

Understanding how digitisation of legacy data and digital technologies involved in those processes is key for a critical appraisal of digital history. This lesson examines the transformation of information from analogue to digital, using a collection of wire-recorded interviews conducted by psychologist David Boder in 1946 as a basis.

This resource provides guidance on how to use digital storytelling, deploying 3D data, annotations and combining media to enable users to access and explore information about digital heritage assets over the web.

Born-digital culture refers to materials, environments and practices that originate in a digital form. In the 21st century these have rapidly expanded, with many of our contemporary cultural practices increasingly mediated in some way by digital media and technologies. In this course, designed by the Digital Humanities Research Hub at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, you will explore key concepts associated with digital culture and archives, ethical issues, and how to collect and analyse born-digital materials.

In a keynote lecture at the DARIAH Annual Event 2020, John Unsworth revisited his seminal concept of scholarly primitives as the foundation of research activities across disciplines, theoretical frameworks or eras.

This resource aims to acquaint both DH experts and the general audience with the general idea, the workflows and advantages of transforming manual object reassembly and restoration into a digital twin.

This resource introduces the fundamental concepts of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), presents contemporary AR/VR headsets and their capabilities and explains how immersive technologies can support the use of Reactive Heritage Digital Twins (RHDTs) for information visualization, annotation and collaborative interaction within virtual environments.

This resource introduces learners to audio material segmentation, transcription, text annotation and dictionary creating using the tools ELAN and FLEx.

This module explores how framing, off-screen space and visible traces shape what viewers see, infer and imagine. Through contrasting variations of the same domestic situation, learners examine how audiovisual language can reveal a presence, suggest an absence or withhold information. Analysis, collaborative annotation and practical activities provide tools for exploring the relationship between the visible and the unseen.

This module explores how framing, camera distance and point of view shape the viewer’s relationship to a scene. Through five variations of the same situation, learners compare documentary, subjective, fragmented, object-centred and selfie perspectives. Analyses, key concepts, collaborative annotation and practical activities provide adaptable tools for observing and experimenting with audiovisual point of view.

This module explores how sounds, silences and points of audition shape the meaning of audiovisual sequences. Through analysis and practical activities, learners examine how different sound choices can transform their perception and interpretation of the same images.

This module explores how editing shapes audiovisual meaning through cuts, duration and rhythm. Using a short original video, learners examine how shot length and transitions organise time, guide attention and create emotional effects. Conceptual explanations, close analysis and practical activities provide adaptable tools for teaching, discussing and experimenting with audiovisual grammar.

This module explores how meaning emerges through the juxtaposition and sequencing of images. By comparing shots, gestures, objects and fragments of action, learners examine how audiovisual sequences create expectation, causality, contrast and continuity. Analysis, collaborative annotation and practical activities provide tools for understanding how viewers actively construct relationships between images.

This module explores how selection, classification and juxtaposition shape audiovisual meaning. Through five variations of the same shared sorting activity, learners examine how framing, editing, repetition, facial expression and the arrangement of objects can transform a practical decision into different narratives and interpretations.