Professor for Cultural Data Analytics
Baltic Film, Media and Arts School
Tallinn University
About
Maximilian is a multidisciplinary scientist and art historian, who collaborates towards a systematic understanding of art and culture, using critical and creative aesthetics, qualitative inquiry, quantitative measurement, and computation.
Bio (2020)
Maximilian Schich is a Professor for Cultural Data Analytics and the CUDAN ERA Chair holder at Tallinn University. A multidisciplinary researcher, Max aims to understand the nature of cultural interaction via a systematic combination of critical and creative aesthetics, qualitative inquiry, quantitative measurement, and computation. Ongoing research builds on a background in art history, network science, computational social science, and an applied experience in cultural “database pathologist”. Max’s PhD monograph pioneered network analysis in art research, focusing on antique reception and visual citation. In 2014, “A Network Framework of Cultural History” in Science Magazine and the Nature video “Charting Culture” made global impact. In recent years, Max has focused on the upcoming “Cultural Interaction” book, which will outline a systematic science of art and culture based on two decades of work. Max has studied at LMU Munich, HU-Berlin, and Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome. Following a postdoc phase at BarabásiLab in Boston and the group of Dirk Helbing in Zurich, Max joined UT Dallas as an Associate Professor in Arts & Technology and a founding member of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History. In June 2020, Max moved to Estonia to build, manage, and sustain the CUDAN research group, leading the ERA Chair project, which is funded within the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program of the European Commission.
CUDAN Publications
Ohm, Tillmann, Andres Karjus, Mikhail V. Tamm, and Maximilian Schich. “fruit-SALAD: A Style Aligned Artwork Dataset to reveal similarity perception in image embeddings.” Scientific Data 12, no. 1 (2025): 254 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04529-4 PDF SUPP GITHUB-CODE ZENODO-DATA ARXIV
Asadchy, Yan, and Maximilian Schich. “Descriptions of women are longer than that of men: An analysis of gender portrayal prompts in Stable Diffusion.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.18994 (2024). https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2411.18994 PDF
Asadchy, Yan, Andres Karjus, Ksenia Mukhina, and Maximilian Schich. “Perceived gendered self-representation on Tinder using machine learning.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11,1 (2024) 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03801-z PDF
Mets, Mark, Andres Karjus, Indrek Ibrus, and Maximilian Schich. “Automated stance detection in complex topics and small languages: the challenging case of immigration in polarizing news media.” Plos one 19,4 (2024) e0302380. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302380 PDF DATA & CODE
Oiva, Mila, Ksenia Mukhina, Vejune Zemaityte, Andres Karjus, Mikhail Tamm, Tillmann Ohm, Mark Mets, Daniel Chávez Heras, Mar Canet Sola, Helena Hanna Juht & Maximilian Schich. “A framework for the analysis of historical newsreels.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11,1 (2024) 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02886-w PDF
Oiva, Mila, Tillmann Ohm, Ksenia Mukhina, Mar Canet Solà, and Maximilian Schich. “Soviet View of the World. Exploring Long-Term Visual Patterns in “Novosti dnia” Newsreel Journal (1945-1992).” Journal of Cultural Analytics 9,4 (2024). https://doi.org/10.22148/001c.118495 PDF
Tamm, M. V., M. Oiva, K. D. Mukhina, M. Mets, and M. Schich. “Quantifying world geography as seen through the lens of Soviet propaganda.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.15938 (2024). https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.15938 PDF
Zemaityte, Vejune, Andres Karjus, Ulrike Rohn, Maximilian Schich, and Indrek Ibrus. “Quantifying the global film festival circuit: Networks, diversity, and public value creation.” Plos one 19,3 (2024) e0297404. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297404 PDF SUPP DATA CODE
Ahmad, Tasweer, and Maximilian Schich. “Toward cross‐domain object detection in artwork images using improved YoloV5 and XGBoosting.” IET Image Processing 17,8 (2023) 2437-2449. https://doi.org/10.1049/ipr2.12806 PDF
Canet Solà, Mar, Antonina Korepanova, Ksenia Mukhina, and Maximilian Schich. “Quantifying Collection Lag in European Modern and Contemporary Art Museums.” ACM Vinci'23: Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (2023) [1-8]. https://doi.org/10.1145/3615522.3615562 PDF
Ibrus, Indrek, Andres Karjus, Vejune Zemaityte, Ulrike Rohn, and Maximilian Schich. “Quantifying public value creation by public service media using big programming data.” International Journal of Communication 17 (2023) 24. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21035 PDF
Karjus, Andres, Mar Canet Solà, Tillmann Ohm, Sebastian E. Ahnert, and Maximilian Schich. “Compression ensembles quantify aesthetic complexity and the evolution of visual art.” EPJ Data Science 12,1 (2023) 21. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00397-3 PDF SUPP
Ohm, Tillmann, Mar Canet Solà, Andres Karjus, and Maximilian Schich. “Collection Space Navigator: An Interactive Visualization Interface for Multidimensional Datasets.” ACM Vinci'23: Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Visual Information Communication and Interaction (2023) [1-5]. open access: https://doi.org/10.1145/3615522.3615546 + extended preprint with case studies: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.06809 & open source code, demos, tutorials website: https://collection-space-navigator.github.io/ https://doi.org/10.1145/3615522.3615546 PDF SUPP CODE
Zapata-Carratalã, Carlos, Maximilian Schich, Taliesin Beynon, and Xerxes D. Arsiwalla. “Hypermatrix algebra and irreducible arity in higher-order systems: Concepts and perspectives.” Advances in Complex Systems (ACS) 26,06 (2023) 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219525923500078 PDF ARXIV
Roller, Ramona, Maximilian Schich, Hyejin Youn, and Mikhail Tamm. “Editorial for Topical Issue on Cultural Complexity”, Advances in Complex Systems (2022). https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219525922020027
Roller, Ramona, Maximilian Schich, Mikhail Tamm, and Hyejin Youn, eds., “A Topical Issue on Cultural Complexity”, Advances in Complex Systems (2022). https://www.worldscientific.com/toc/acs/25/05n06
Alvarez-Rodriguez, Unai, Ginestra Bianconi, Natasa Przulj, Maximilian Schich, Alice Schwarze, Leo Torres, and Anatol Wegner “Unification of Higher-Order Models”. in: Higher-Order Graph Models: From Theoretical Foundations to Machine Learning” (Dagstuhl Seminar 21352, Schloss Dagstuhl/Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, Germany, 2021), edited by Tina Eliassi-Rad, Vito Latora, Martin Rosvall, and Ingo Scholtes. Dagstuhl Reports 11,7 (2021) 139-178 [159-160]. https://doi.org/10.4230/DagRep.11.7.139 PDF
Ibrus, Indrek, Maximilian Schich, and Marek Tamm. “Cultural Science Meets Cultural Data Analytics.” Cultural Science Journal 13,1 (2021) 1−15. https://doi.org/10.2478/csj-2021-0001 PDF
Ibrus, Indrek, Maximilian Schich, and Marek Tamm. “Digihumanitaariast kultuuriandmete analüüsini.” Keel ja Kirjandus 64,8-9 (2021) 671-688. https://doi.org/10.54013/kk764a2 PDF
Sato, Daisuke, Yuichi Ikeda, Shuichi Kawai, and Maximilian Schich. “The sustainability and the survivability of Kyoto’s traditional craft industry revealed from supplier-customer network.” PLoS ONE 15,11 (2020) ARTN e0240618. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240618 PDF SUPP
Lee, Byunghwee, Min Kyung Seo, Daniel Kim, In-seob Shin, Maximilian Schich, Hawoong Jeong, and Seung Kee Han. “Dissecting landscape art history with information theory.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117,43 (2020) 26580-26590. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2011927117 PDF SUPP DATA
