Prof. Alexa Alice Joubin

• Presentation title:
  
  AI as the Publics’ Shadow in an Inquiry-Driven Society
  
  Abstract:
  
  Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, simulate human writing and complicate the inquiry-driven culture we live in. These tools use singular first-person pronouns in their textual outputs and are often associated with anthropomorphic qualities. Within the humanities, conversations tend to focus on detecting new forms of plagiarism. What is missing from the current debate are insights from performance studies. As a synthesis of human-generated datasets, generative AI is changing publics’ relationship to themselves.
  
  Since ChatGPT remixes statistically most likely combinations of words, its outputs are in fact a form of theatrical performance. It draws on users’ prompts and the publics’ collective memories to produce improvised performances, within specific parameters, for its user-audiences. As a mirror held up to the humanity, ChatGPT produces a pixelated shadow of the publics in time.
  
  If we take ChatGPT to 500 BC, it would insist, as the society did, that the Earth is flat. ChatGPT is therefore a survey instrument of the publics’ collective biases rather than the truths. It is an aesthetic instrument rather than an epistemological tool. Based on this understanding, this interactive presentation will theorize AI in the framework of digital humanities and provide pedagogical strategies for educators to teach with AI rather than against it.

Dr. Andy Chi-on Chin

• Presentation title:
  
  Transforming Humanities Research into Digital Humanities Research: The Corpus of Mid-20th Century Hong Kong Cantonese
  
  Abstract:
  
  Digital technology has created a profound impact on traditional humanities research, giving rise to the field of Digital Humanities. One notable application of digital humanities in linguistics is the construction of linguistic corpora with a massive amount of authentic and natural language data. Corpora offer quantitative and qualitative data on language use, enabling detailed analysis of language structures, and providing valuable insights into language variations, change over time, and (new) linguistic patterns.
  
  This talk is about corpus-based studies of Cantonese, a language spoken by nearly 90% of the Hong Kong’s population as the first language. In the past, Cantonese was mainly studied as a Chinese dialect under the Chinese dialectological framework. Since the 1990s, various Cantonese corpora of different nature were constructed for linguistic and humanities research.
  
  In 2013, under the support of RGC’s ECS, I developed The Corpus of Mid-20th Century Hong Kong Cantonese (https://hkcc.eduhk.hk/). The corpus, with a size of nearly 900,000 characters, was constructed by transcribing the dialogues from 80 black-and-white Cantonese movies produced in Hong Kong between 1940 and 1970. The corpus provides real time language data for documenting, preserving, and revitalizing the Cantonese language and its culture of the then Hong Kong.

Prof. Lai Chi Tim

• Presentation title:
  
  Creating a Digital Database on Daoist Literati and Gentry in Guangdong
  
  Abstract:
  
  This project is creating a database that concerns the organization of a Daoist trajectory of 50-100 personalities of the literati and gentry group, which will be shown according to a spatial-temporal line. Unlike previous approaches, which are exclusively devoted to documental analysis, this new spatial-temporal approach will not only be able to show clearly the transformations in the Daoist trajectory of a given historical figure according to source materials of different periods. Still, it will also be able to show the specific geographical position of the various Daoist temples, spirit-writing altars, and Daoist scenic spots visited by these historical figures. Using this spatial-temporal platform, therefore, the user will be able to search and read documents related to a given historical figure and Daoism, as well as appreciate related works of art, such as calligraphies, paintings, and inscriptions, and also to access a map page that shows the footprints of a given historical figure about Daoism, and the information on the Daoist background of the places visited by the historical figure.

• Presentation title:
  
  Legislative Council Archives: Digital Initiatives in preserving and providing access to its archival holdings
  
  Abstract:
  
  The Legislative Council (“LegCo”) Archives is responsible for selecting, preserving and providing access to the original records and related materials which document LegCo’s functions and activities in law-making, scrutiny of government policies and expenditures, and consideration of issues of public interest. Its holdings serve as invaluable primary sources to the history of Hong Kong’s legislature and collective memory of the community.
  
  In response to the digital era, the LegCo Archives has embraced digital technologies and tools to enhance records visibility and access. There are two ongoing digital endeavours: 1) Catalogue for Archival Records of the Legislature (CAROL), a comprehensive archives management system-cum-online catalogue developed in-house for internal management of and public access to its archival records; and 2) In-house digitization to convert its paper holdings to high-quality digital images under stringent quality control with creation of different types of metadata which supports digital access and long-term preservation needs. Meanwhile, the complexity of LegCo archival records entails challenges in meeting increasing digital openness and certain regulatory requirements.
  
  This presentation will introduce the LegCo Archives’ digital initiatives, current challenges and new standards, tools and technologies which are being explored to expand sustainable records accessibility of the Archives’ holdings.

Joyce Chen

• Presentation title:
  
  Bridging Art Archive to the World Largest Linked Open Database - The Wikidata Ecosystem
  
  Abstract:
  
  Wikidata, one of the Wikipedia sister projects released in 2012, has became the fastest growing project among all of the Wikimedia projects. At this moment, Wikidata has over one hundred million items, which is double the size compare to the sum of Wikipedia articles from all languages.
  As a linked open database, Wikidata can be easily accessed both by machine and human. It’s utilizing CC0 public domain license, also allowed everyone to reuse and buildup. Other strengths include data analysis from a broader scale and the visualisation of connections between data forms. Nowadays, Wikidata serves not only as the center of structural data for all Wikimedia projects, but also the index for most of the major databases across different disciplines of knowledge around the world.
  Many established art museums and independent art & cultural organizations also provision and started to exercise the advantages of interactive Wikidata. However, to bridge art archives with structured data can be challenging, and the real situation differs case by case in each institution or community. The speaker aims to provide her observations and experiences about the potential of expanding the depth of art archives with the use of Wikidata.

Dr. Lau Chak Kwong, Daniel

• Chak Kwong Daniel LAU (PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara; M.Phil., The University of Hong Kong) is Associate Professor and Associate Director (Research) of the Academy of Visual Arts, HKBU and Member of the China Calligraphers Association. He has served as a Visiting Scholar at both Peking University and Academic Sinica, Taipei. Before joining HKBU, he taught at the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo and the University of California (UCSB), where he received the GSA Outstanding Teaching Award Honorable Mention in Humanities and Fine Arts.
  
  Project to be discussed: Synergy between Tradition and the Contemporary – Brush-and-Ink, Materiality and Multimodality: Chinese Calligraphy and Seal Engraving by Lau Chak Kwong Daniel (劉澤光書法篆刻)