I explored the Museum of Modern Art’s “Inventing Abstraction.” a project that maps relationships between key figures in the development of abstraction. This project is a network visualization in which the nodes represent artists, composers, writers, and academics who contributed to the abstraction movement. The edges between them signify documented interactions, whether through direct collaboration or influence. Some figures highlighted orange on the map serve as highly connected hubs, emphasizing their important role in the movement. The highly connected areas of the map represent people who were very influential to the other people within the movement and, therefore, very influential to the development of the movement.
The project’s interactive design significantly enhances engagement. You can click on individual nodes to reveal biographical details and examine more detailed data about the connection between specific people. Unlike a static chart, the interactiveness of the chart and data could allow you to investigate new connections between figures you might not have known about before. Another benefit to this structure is that you can choose to look into specific connections and see, whether by word of mouth or teachings, how abstraction changed over time from one person to another. Allowing for additional analysis when it comes to the role specific people played in the movement.
The interactive mapping technique within “Inventing Abstraction” allows for detailed analysis and data exploration regarding the people involved in the abstraction movement. It turns historical relationships into an engaging, exploratory experience that informs and allows you to see who was highly influential and who contributed to other thinkers and creatives in the development of abstraction. For me, specifically, it was super interesting to see how connected the more modern abstraction artists and creatives were to the people at the beginning of the movement. Whether connected by many different people or directly linked to their creative ideas, the map really displays the abstraction movement’s interconnectedness.
