Inventing Abstraction is an interactive historical web project that elaborates upon the vast network of artists, musicians, choreographers, and poets who contributed to the birth of abstraction — a radical element of modern art that was critical in the development of post-modernism. As a supplementary web document to the Inventing Abstraction exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, this illustrated network of artists serves as additional context for the curatorial statement, which names a few key players in the 1910’s and 20’s whose relationships formed this conceptual movement.
This web project features the following sources, processes, and presentations:
Sources (assets): Scans (images) of original paintings, drawings, scores, and books are included in this web of artists, in addition to copious amounts of background text (such as birthplace, affiliated studios, interests, and short bios). Each artist’s node in the interactive web map has additional links which describe in detail the production, inspiration, and conceptual trajectory of selected works from their careers, in addition to mp3’s of their compositions (if musical). There also exists a PDF checklist of all work included on the site.
Process (services): The home page of the website is embedded deep within the MoMA website infrastructure, nestled within the interactive exhibition folders circa 2012. The direct link provided by this class to this web page is convenient, as it simplifies the visitor’s ease of access. The network diagram of artists featured on this website is the main point of interest, and offers a minimal amount of interactivity via clicking on the nebulous, bobbing nodes, which then link the visitor to additional information about each artist. This complex node network system was made possible by the design company Second Story in collaboration with MoMA’s curatorial and design team. Upon further inspection of the html code, one will find that the node network uses a google analytics node script, which offers the visitor a dynamic and accurately linked experience at which they may explore each artist’s web buried within the larger network infrastructure.
Presentations (display): This site utilizes general design motifs and color schemes that mimic those of the Bauhaus style, which was an experimental art school (1919 – 1933) placed at the latter half of the timeline focused on in the Inventing Abstraction exhibition (1910 – 1925). The layout of the node network page is generous and avoids any claustrophobic pitfalls of a cramped page that tries to fit too much into the window at one time; whenever a node is selected, the network narrows in size and focuses on a much smaller web of related individuals to give the subsequent text room to breathe.
Nice job, Echo — very thorough. I especially like your comments about the “Presentation” layer.
A very concise breakdown of the website! Since I have also worked on analyzing this project, I know that its structure and content are very complex. However, I think you did a great job of giving a coherent analysis of the intricacies within this project. Great work!
Interesting! I didn’t get a chance to view this project in depth since I covered the Photogrammar project, but this is also really interesting. Love seeing the network diagram that goes beyond the shallow Excel sheet inputted into a network program (ie Gephi). It’s cool how they embedded Google analytics into the code in order to show a more in-depth network diagram, the social networks nerd in me is dying right now.
Good stuff! I enjoyed how clearly structured your breakdown of the various parts is.