The fifth edition of the international conference Digital Art History, titled Critical Approaches to Sources in (Digital) Art History, held on 16 October 2025, at SRCE.
In the opening address, Ivan Marić, Director of SRCE, welcomed participants as both host and co-organiser of the conference. He emphasised the growing importance of data in the humanities and highlighted the need for proper data preservation and sharing. Data and modern data-processing technologies—particularly those based on high-performance computing—further strengthen collaboration across different scientific fields and disciplines. SRCE is proud to contribute to interdisciplinary cooperation and new scientific insights through its services and its computing and data infrastructure.
As part of the conference programme, Draženko Celjak, Head of SRCE’s Data Management Sector, delivered a presentation entitled “What Does Data Say? How Can Humanists Use Data Services and Infrastructures?”. In his talk, he presented the benefits of using data services and computing infrastructure through examples of good practice in the field of digital humanities. Conference participants learned more about data infrastructure and the advantages of data services, illustrated through examples from the Croatian context and tailored to the needs of researchers in the humanities.
Later in the programme, examples of the application of SRCE’s advanced computing resources in digital humanities will also be presented. Participants will learn how high-performance computing can be applied to the processing of demanding datasets, such as high-resolution 3D images. The use of the Supek supercomputer for training artificial intelligence models will also be discussed, including its application to a collection of digitised portraits aimed at improving archival techniques.
SRCE has been involved in the organisation of the Digital Art History conference since its inception in 2018. This fifth edition of the conference, held under the theme Critical Approaches to Sources in (Digital) Art History, focuses on the epistemological, methodological and political assumptions that shape our relationship with the sources on which knowledge is built. During the two-day programme, forty scholars, independent researchers and artists from sixteen countries (Austria, Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States) will present their work, demonstrating a wide range of applications of modern technology in art history—from mapping and visualisation to data mining and algorithmic critique.
The conference is organised by the Institute of Art History, with SRCE and DARIAH-HR—the Croatian national node of the European research infrastructure DARIAH—as co-organisers. This further highlights the importance of interdisciplinary and international networking, as well as Croatia’s active role in the development and application of digital research methods in the humanities.
