Frankly, I think data visualizations, when butchered,\u00a0sap\u00a0the\u00a0charm and wonder out of art works displayed in museums. The act of quantifying certain aspects of an art work \u2013 dimensions, color and creditline \u2013 is definitely a nod to the scientific method, which yields practical insight, but it is not a priority for viewers, especially in a\u00a0nuanced, nebulous and creative humanities field like art.<\/p>\n
(Note that I’m specifically talking about art museums. All the readings for this week are\u00a0about the way open data is utilized by art museums like the MoMA and Cooper-Hewitt, so I figured I’d make them the topic of my blog post.)<\/p>\n
Visualizations of\u00a0the nationality of artists represented in museums, trend in color use and top donors of museums (as shown in the post\u00a0by Helen Wall<\/a>) may be useful for academics, curators and other professionals who work in the industry, but\u00a0beg the question of so what, why should we care for viewers. I would imagine that for a viewer who paid either in money or time to see a collection, he or she would be more interested in the collection itself, not the minute, out-of-context details about the collection.\u00a0Would you read about the dimensions of Michelangelo’s artworks from early- to mid-1500s while standing in front of David?<\/p>\n Also, objectifying and quantifying a masterpiece like William Turner’s “Fishermen at the Sea” adds formality and rigidity to the natural thought process that occurs when one stands in front of an artwork. Data visualizations of art works, more often than not, I think,\u00a0inhibit\u00a0resonance and wonder which evoke personal connections, deep thoughts and feelings \u2013 stuff that allows\u00a0viewers to form a more lasting connection to a\u00a0museum.<\/p>\n Personally, if I were\u00a0in Paris, I would choose a visit to the Louvre over a flip\u00a0through data visualizations of art works by da Vinci that are displayed in the Louvre. And that is precisely what I did when I visited France a few\u00a0summers ago. The line at the Louvre was unforgivingly\u00a0long that day, and my very very impatient father half-jokingly asked, “What if we come back tomorrow? You know, there are so many e-tours, articles and data visualizations of the collections.” Knowing my dad (who’s a\u00a0stats and data\u00a0junkie by the way), I knew that the chances of\u00a0him suddenly becoming more patient\u00a0the next day was close to none. So, I said no and we waited hours and hours. And I am so glad that we did because I still remember how thrilled I felt\u00a0when I saw “July 28: Liberty Leading the People.” It’s art, not data visualizations, that make you feel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Frankly, I think data visualizations, when butchered,\u00a0sap\u00a0the\u00a0charm and wonder out of art works displayed in museums. The act of quantifying certain aspects of an art work \u2013 dimensions, color and … Continue reading “Week 3 Blog Post”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}