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I was thrilled to see several articles on data-manipulation this week, since I am considering working on an exploration of museum data for the final project. I also had a lot of fun exploring the different examples- it was very interesting to see how one data set from the Tate could be interpreted and presented in many different ways by a single person.<\/p>\n
Big data is a hot topic in many circles now, in part because people seem to view it as a good way of challenging the power structures and relations that exist between curators and viewers, as discussed in the Exhibitionary Complex last week. The fact that more institutions are now becoming open to sharing their data online also seems like a win for democratization of information, although it would be difficult to deny that the release also comes with questions about what kind of data they have (selectively) chosen to reveal to us, and what (if anything) they are hiding from us.<\/p>\n
On the positive side, though, Helen Wall mentions in her data visualization study of MoMA\u2019s online collection that having access to such data and the opportunity to explore it with visualization tools gives us a new perspective of the artworks that we would not be able to glean from simply visiting the gallery or reading catalogues. I agree that the insight we get from well-designed data visualizations changes the way we view artworks- I would even argue that it gives us more of a bird\u2019s eye view perspective via which to identify historical trends and artist preferences that might not be as apparent when we are viewing the works individually.<\/p>\n
Apart from the art world, where data visualizations are used primarily to reimagine information and chart historical trends, other professions have used available datasets to assess current situations and predict future trends. For instance, datasets have been used by environmentalists to conduct climate change vulnerability assessments, and by geographers to track population density. More casually, it was also used by a friend of mine who was interested in identifying trends in 800 Degrees\u2019 Instagram phenomenon Pizza of the Day, where he attempted to predict what toppings would be put on the pizzas before they posted the picture. Although he ended up not being able to develop a model with sufficient accuracy, he was able to extract information from 800 Degrees\u2019 account using the Instagram API to create several interesting visualizations that revealed the most frequently used toppings, and which pizza bases were most popular (by assuming that the number of likes and comments on a given photo reflected more interest in the pizza of that day). I leave you with some screenshots of his work, but if pizza is of any importance in your life, you should definitely check out the original post here<\/a>\u00a0for some real insight and good fun.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<\/p>\n