University of Richmond’s Distant Viewing Lab receives $1M Mellon Foundation grant to expand access to AI tools

The University of Richmond’s Distant Viewing Lab has been awarded a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to broaden access to cutting-edge AI tools that are transforming the study of art, film, and visual culture.

The lab, co-founded by data science and statistics professor Taylor Arnold and digital humanities professor Lauren Tilton, develops computational techniques that allow scholars to analyze visual culture on a massive scale.

At the center of this work is the Distant Viewing Toolkit, a platform that gives users access to AI-powered computer vision models without requiring coding skills or specialized hardware. The toolkit makes it possible to quickly scan and compare large collections of film, photography, artwork, and other media – work that would be impossible to tackle by hand.

“This grant allows us to eliminate technical barriers that often prevent participation in digital humanities research,” Tilton said. “The toolkit empowers users to explore fundamental questions in visual culture studies, like how elements such as color, composition, and iconography shift across time or regions, or what patterns emerge when analyzing thousands of images from archives and museums.”

Over the next three years, the Mellon grant will support efforts to share the toolkit and related resources with library, archive, and museum professionals, as well as faculty and researchers in higher education. Plans include training workshops, educational resources, new platform capabilities, and a culminating conference to be held at the University of Richmond.

The Distant Viewing Lab has previously received support from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. All of the tools and educational resources developed through this grant will be freely available on the lab’s website, continuing its mission to keep digital humanities research open and accessible.