The talk explores how the history of the digital transformation of art history might be narrated as a successful succession of failures. In contrast to established narratives that portray art history as a latecomer to the field of the digital humanities, the project presented here draws on historical sources demonstrating that art history engaged with digital technologies at a remarkably early stage and often quite actively, albeit frequently without achieving immediate results. Despite the challenges posed by its objects of study—artworks, objects, and images—which are particularly difficult to digitize, art history can thus be understood as an early adopter and, in the long run, a successful actor in a field of the digital humanities otherwise largely oriented towards text-based research.

As a media-historical point of departure for a critical historiography that examines the methodological and epistemological implications of the digital transformation of art history, the talk focuses on selected digital art history projects from the 1960s to the 1990s. Alongside specific configurations of software and hardware, these projects involved the practical use of a succession of different (proto-)digital processing and storage formats, many of which quickly became obsolete: punched cards, magnetic tapes, microfiches, LaserDiscs, CD-ROMs, and others. The talk will also examine project structures and research infrastructures in relation to the thematic and intellectual orientations of digital art history and its historical development. Topics include collaborative practices and research logistics within institutional and international networks; third-party-funded research; the role of foundations and research funders, such as the Thyssen Foundation and the Volkswagen Foundation; research and funding policy, particularly that of the German Research Foundation (DFG); and the commercial interests of the IT industry, including IBM, and of publishing houses.

What constellations of factors enabled digital projects to achieve success in the medium and long term? What can a critical historiography of digital art history contribute to our understanding of contemporary digital culture and digital cultural heritage in the age of AI, as well as to our understanding of the role of the (applied) humanities in relation to the digital?