Blog Week 4

The project that I’m using is the Inventing Abstraction by MOMA.

• What (or who) are the nodes and what are the edges?

The nodes are artists; the edges are the connection/collaboration between specific artists. Influential artists like Vasily Kandinsky have more collaborations with different artists. The nodes have a few works from the artist, their birthplace, the places they worked, their interests, and sometimes a short biography. To the casual viewer this may be a little interesting but there is not much here to really explore these artists or their interpersonal relationships. The edges are meant to explain their relationships with other artists but it leaves almost nothing for one to actually see. It effectively serves as a list of collaborators without going into detail about the relationship between these artists. That may have been more work, but it would make the site more than simply a novelty. This may be good if you are in the MoMA and you can learn about these artists, but even then if the goal is to detail interpersonal relationships, I think it fails.

• How are the relationships characterized and categorized?

The relationships are characterized as ‘productive relationships’. They do not elaborate much on this, but it is likely meant to signify artistic collaborations or correspondences. I think the developers could have done a better job in making these relationships clearer. Ultimately if I wanted to learn more about the relationships between these artists I had to search for them off the website. Within the small biographies of each artist there are sometimes a few mentions of names, but not much to indicate their relationships.

• What interactions does the project allow?
  • How does this impact their effectiveness and/or your engagement?

I think the interactions are quite minimal. I wish the edges expounded on the specific connections between the artists i.e. projects they worked on, mentor-mentee relationships, competition, etc. The project makes me interested in these artists but leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of effort was put into influential artists like Kandinsky but very little for lesser known artists. Some of the artists do not have a biography at all. After spending time on it, the only interactions one really finds are some prominent artists with a lot of connections and some minor artists with very little information. I would have liked to see more from this project.