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Blogpost 8: reflection & moving forward

Since April 2019 I’ve been lucky to dip my toes into the pool of practices that belong to the daily hustles of a (web-)designer. Making a switch from (academically trained) curator to a designer didn’t come without any challenges, but I’ve experienced the overall process as very rewarding and exciting. Below I’ve listed down my biggest take-aways, and added ways in which I hope to be able to move the project forward.

Theory The independent study kicked off with two pieces of literature: Laurel’s “Computers as theatre” (1991) and Buxton’s “Sketching user experiences: getting the design right and the right design” (2010). Even though the texts were guilty of an early-2000 optimism towards technology that is rarer nowadays, I really appreciated both readings. They helped me switch my understanding of (UX) design as something static and material towards something that is ultimately about experience and performance. This includes:    

When designing a webpage it is ultimately experiences that one is designing, not products. This means my main focus point when creating a well-functioning webpage, is paying attention to the quality of its experience.

Laurel writes about interfaces that, “its interesting potential lay not in its ability to perform calculations but in its capacity to represent action in which humans could participate” (1). This quote really stuck with me, as it forces me to focus on the user’s interaction with the webpage. Time, phasing and feeling of a webpage become the main points of attention (as oppose my ideas on what makes a webpage look slick or pretty for example).

Sketching is a crucial part of any design process, and it is much messier and more vulnerable than any academic work I’ve ever done before. Sketches are not prototypes; they are supposed to be ambiguous, quick, plentiful, disposable and have minimal details.

Design as research-method The majority of the independent study was based on practical components, which has been a completely new approach to doing research for me. Being used to reading large quantities of literature on my own to consequently transform everything I’ve read into a new text-based document (with strict presentation format) it was really unusual for me to translate my findings into visual and interactive components. The major lessons I’m taking away from designing as a method of research are:  

In my Masters program, a lot of focus is directed towards critiquing arts and art exhibitions. I found however that - when designing something - one is faced with a lot of real-world challenges that are impossible to foresee when only working theoretically. Creating exhibitions is largely based on doing much theoretical research, while I found that the real challenge lays in translating my ideas to a sensible product for the user. Although I understand that theory plays an essential part in any design-process (similar in this independent study) I hope to be able to add practical components to my practices as a curator/student moving forward, as it forces me to - as perfectly described on usability.gov - “add a layer of real-world considerability” to my ideas.

Different from writing academic papers, I experienced more room for play and failure doing this Independent Study. Errors in academic writing are never really correct, while I found that making ‘mistakes’ playing around with interface-designs in Photoshop led to very useful insights and cool new design-choices. 

Although I am not sure how many people will actually engage with The Exhibition Challenge, I really appreciated there is currently a tangible product that came out of this Independent Study. Working towards a webpage that users can run through felt good: as a graduate student it is not always standard practice to contribute to something practical.    

Skills There are a couple of practical skills I’ve improved during this independent study. I’ve listed the most notable ones below:

By doing literary research and online research I’ve created a better understanding of effective UX-webpage and Interface design, particularly how they relate to online exhibitions. 

Although still slightly uncomfortable to me, I’ve practiced reflecting on my design-processes writing blog-posts on Tumblr. It helped me write more succinctly and allowed me to include a more personal approach towards writing.  

I’ve experimented with new web-building tools for the first time, such as Balsamiq, InVision and Bootstrap.

I’ve updated my skills in Photoshop when experimenting with making different interface designs.

I’ve become better at project management, having to oversee my own design-trajectory, but also making sure everyone else involved was kept up to date and informed.  

I’ve improved my skills in webpage design, using HTML, CSS5 and Javascript.  

Moving Forward Looking into the future there are a few minor adjustments I’d still like to add to The Exhibition Challenge, but I’m also thinking of ways to move forward after the webpage is completely finished.  The Exhibition Challenge - Add 5 functioning gifs created by Midas van Son.  - Add highlighted words (key terms) that - when clicked - will make the text expand, and provide additional information on particular topics.  - Add a 2-minute timer in the ‘Subject Matter’-section.  - Create more of a dialogue with the user by adding a hashtag in the ‘about’ section, so people can respond to the challenges by uploading photos on their social media accounts. 

General - Present the project to curators/artists I know (classmates, professors, friends)  to hear what they think and which features they would have like to see added to the webpage.   - Have a meeting with Gijs (developer) to think through different iterations of the project. Discuss with him the suggestions and findings of the meeting mentioned above.   - Sit together with Gijs (developer) and Midas (gif-artist) and make something customized for a specific exhibition.  - Send over the project to some art & culture blogs?

[ireneannajasmijn]

Blogpost 8: coding & coding strategy

These two weeks I’m busy building the webpage, so I can present a finished end-project by the 17th. I’ve consulted with my friend (full-stack developer) and we’ve set out the following approach:

- I’m using Bootstrap and Bootstrap MDB as ‘building blocks’, and will overwrite the interface-design with my own CSS-code to style it accordingly.   - I’ll mostly be coding in HTML and CSS, and will barely need to use Javascript, (as these interactive parts will be taken care of by Bootstrap). I’m using Sublime Text as editor, and am using Google Chrome 'inspect’ function to check the functionality and design. - I’m first making sure the UX functions well, then I’ll focus on adjusting the interface design. I’m using placeholder gifs until my partner has designed the final graphics. - To make sure I can present a link to a website that people can run through I’ll upload my code to Github.

[ireneannajasmijn]

Blogpost 7: graphics

These weeks I’ve narrowed down my project to five themes. All of them zoom in on different aspects of art-exhibitions and probe the user to look more critically at a show. The themes are:

Subject Matter

Title

Framing

Artist(s)

Funding

Although the copy still needs some revisions, I do have a clear idea of the challenges and questions each theme addresses. That’s why it was perfect timing to sit with my partner to discuss the gifs that will accompany the texts. Using design techniques from Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, we created both five different sketches for each of the themes. After presenting our ideas we distilled the best elements from each theme and made storyboards for our final proposition. My partner will now have approximately four weeks to further develop the sketches into gifs. In two weeks we will check back in to choose on a final color palette, and to see how the process is going.

[ireneannajasmijn]

Blogpost 6: aesthetics & interactivity

This week I’m focussing on two things: 

1. Different explorations look and feel I’ve made a couple of basic templates in Photoshop from the wireframes I created in Balsamiq. These templates give me the liberty to play around with color, fonts and different style choices (a couple of examples above). I am looking to convey a fresh, simple and playful image, and try to achieve this by using light colors and basic designs.   I’m also considering what works well in terms of effective communication and user experience, experimenting with:

- deciding how many colors is too much (choosing one main color and one or two complementary colors)   - looking how colors can be used to emphasize certain elements - which details can be added to better communicate the intention of the project and function of the webpage - which elements are distracting (and can be removed) to improve communication

2. Developing Interactivity Prototype using InVision

On a less explorative note, I’m connecting interactive elements of the wireframes with each other using InVision. Creating these mockups for my designs helps me get a better sense of the exact organization schemes that are needed to develop the page. I can test the webpage and try out if the navigation feels organic and complete (instead of finding out during the development phase).

[ireneannajasmijn]

Blogpost 5: wireframing

The image above displays a couple of examples of the wireframes I’ve created using Balsamiq: a great software that lets you easily create webpage and application wireframes. Because the software has created playful icons and tools, the designer (me, in this case) can focus on the interactivity and user experience and doesn’t have to worry too much about the slickness of the design.   To make sure I had a basic understanding of the different elements that make up a successful webpage, I’ve researched different approaches to UX-design. I’ve learned useful information about organization schemes, classification schemes, organization structure of data and the various user interface elements.

Because my webpage will be quite basic, it doesn’t require a very complicated information structure, but I nevertheless think it’s useful to quickly outline the following terms, and how they apply to my design. Organization schemes: have to do with how one categorizes content and the various ways relationships are created between each piece. I’ll mostly be working with subjective ‘Topic’ organization schemes, where I’ll organize content based on the specific subject matter (such as ‘art’, ‘about’ and ‘help’), and perhaps Metaphor schemes (which relate content to familiar concepts, such as ‘Trash’, ‘Folder’, etc.).

According to usability.gov, topic-based organization and works well for most content. Especially when you organize everything in a way that makes sense for the user.

The organizational structure will be matrix-like (as opposed to hierarchical or sequential), which allows users to determine their own path. This is needed as the content is linked in numerous ways. Unlike for example a step-by-step guide, where users need to run to a very specific set of instructions, users need to be able to navigate through the webpage freely.  

To present the information in such a way that it makes sense for the user, I’ll have to use clear interface elements. These can consist of Input Controls (checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdown lists, etc), Navigational Components: (slider, search field, pagination, icons, etc), Informational Components: (icons, progress bar, notifications, message boxes, etc). I’m mainly using navigational components as the webpage is static and will not be able to capture any responses from the user.

[ireneannajasmijn]

Blogpost 4: framework of usercases

A Framework of Different Use-cases for On/Offline Mobile Exhibitions: In order to wireframe two designs with Balsamiq, I first had to sketch out possible use-cases of different ways my final project could take shape. This forced me to consider all the different options available to me, and prompted me to think more extensively about the practical outcome of my intentions.  I’ve decided to further develop: - Option number IV.  A 10-step guide that consists of questions, assignments and artworks which are intended to be experienced in a specific order. This curatorial project is intended to offer the user an enriched exhibition-visit (of any physical art-exhibition), and has a strong educational component.  

- Option number V. An online exhibition with art-works that have been specifically made as a reaction to an already existing art-exhibition. In this curatorial project enough attention should be given to the navigation of the user through the actual space, as this project is meant to be experienced in multiple rooms.  These designs follow most logically from the research I’ve conducted so far. Additionally - because both projects differ strongly in execution - it offers me a broader understanding of the challenges one faces when working with online curatorial projects designed for mobile environments.

[ireneannajasmijn]

Blogpost 3: personas

Documentation personas 

“Personas help to focus decisions surrounding site components by adding a layer of real-world consideration to the conversation” (Usability.gov)

This week I looked further into UX design and focussed on creating personas. I have created three persons for whom I think this project can be interesting: an ‘artist’-art-student that would be commissioned for the project, an art-student as ‘user I’ of the project and a high-schooler as ‘user II’ of the project. Designing personas helped me concretize my ideas, direct my focus (by deciding who were not personas) and also added a useful ‘real-world consideration’ to my ideas. 

I. OBSERVATIONS: Positive:

- Designing personas forced me to critically consider what could be motivations for people to either contribute or participate in this project. Some important and valuable takeaways are: 

Artist: Anticipates on working for a couple of hours (±12) on a project that offers room to explore own style within a specific context. Expects good collaboration on a project with a promising outcome. The artist's needs are: Payment, Clear communication, Support, Motivation (Enthusiasm)  

User I: This person is motivated by the opportunity of a new experience. They are looking for inspiration and relaxation, and hope to engage with an exhibition-visit that feels relevant (and fun?). The user’s needs are:  Clear communication of intention project, Engaging selection of artists, Interesting work, Entertainment, Humour

User II: This person is primarily looking to pass time and is motivated by the promise of entertainment. The user's needs are: Entertainment, Humour, Good design. Probably won’t visit the physical exhibition, but will access the webpage.

- According to my research (source 1, source 2), all focus groups spend a considerate amount of time online, and use their phone as the primary medium to access the web.

Negative:  - I’m directing my webpage to a relatively young audience (15-25), but that is not necessarily the audience to visit museums. I don’t know how realistic it is they will visit the museum because of it. 

- If I want to reach people outside of OCAD U (user II) I have to think of effective ways to reach them. 

- Majority of personas not based on research -> chasm between my ideas and reality? 

II. COMMENTS / SUGGESTIONS

- Clear communication of the intention of the project is an important focus point. Started doing more research into Interface Design Methods. 

- Will start brainstorm on ways to reach an audience outside of OCAD U. 

[ireneannajasmijn]

Blogpost 2: four relevant projects’ reviews

PROJECT 1: 

Contemporary Art Club - Online Exhibition

What? An example of an online exhibition by curatorial collective Contemporary Art Club. 

Why? To offer users an online encounter with (digital) art

How? By facilitating a platform for online art, but also by providing clear navigation and enough information about the project

So what? This is useful as it offers insights into how the navigation and outcome of an online exhibition might look like in a successful case. 

PROJECT 2:

Peer to Space - Claiming Needles

What? An example of an online exhibition by curatorial collective Peer to Space

Why? To offer users the possibility to learn and experience (to a certain extent) a selection of physical art in an online exhibition.  

How? By presenting the results of extensive research and a keen curatorial eye, but also by providing clear navigation through the project

So what? This example is useful as it offers other clear insights of what an online exhibition might look like. Especially the way the artist’s works are highlighted and ‘framed’ is of interest to me. 

PROJECT 3:

PROJECT 4:

Actionbound - Queer Tour (App: no link)

What? An alternative ‘queered’ self-guided tour through the Hull-House Museum using Actionbound’s scavenger hunt app

Why? To offer users information that cannot be found just by walking through the museum and in this way let them engage with the exhibition’s objects, images and information in an enriched manner 

How? By taking the user on a very precise - directed - tour through the museum, while providing information (and posing questions) about certain objects.

So what? This example is useful as it offers other insights in ways you can guide users through a physical exhibition using only directions through your phone.  

Jessica Walsh & Thimothy Goodman - 12 kinds of kindness

What? A webpage that presents 12 ways of being kind. 

Why? To present an experiment the founders conducted, and in this way inspire and educate users about ways of being kind.   

How? By presenting in clear vocabulary, eye-catching visuals and effective layout twelve ways in which people can be more kind. 

So what? This example does not directly tie into the theme of arts-exhibitions but is useful as its super simple layout offers a very clear ‘12-step’ experiment that could be adapted to an exhibition context. 

[ireneannajasmijn]

Curating on the web: a provisional typology

When trying to say something substantial about either ‘the internet’ or ‘the arts’, I think of an ouroboros: the symbol of a snake eating its own tail to denote a self-reflexive entity in a state of constant flux. Both the internet and the arts aren’t easily captured by definitions and - as they both develop with the speed of annoying Youtube commercials - their relationship is constantly redefined through a myriad of unexpected and often subversive combinations. This makes writing about curating on the web, a fully self-imposed pain in the butt and most likely perishable act. This being said, I have made a first attempt in writing a provisional typology that maps out influential theories and perspectives on using the internet as platform for exhibiting art. Today, I see many ways in which online curatorial practices take form, but in order to understand some of the parameters at play, it is vital to sweep over the relationship between the arts and the internet from the beginning.

Curating art after new media: three defining developments

The birth of the internet was quickly followed by the birth of Internet Art, and - after some of the initial buzz of networked technologies had cooled down - became soon a popular vessel for institutional and social critique. Performing through a then-alternative space than the traditional art-circuit, these Net Art-projects often worked around institutional critique and gender, but also questioned distinctions of taste and hierarchy. Net Art here, is often interpreted as an expression and continuation of movements such as Dada, Fluxus and telematic art (Ippolito, 2002); their networked, interactive and collaborative nature are seen as vital characteristics of their existence. Early Net Art was often more about process than about outcome (Greene, 2002; Graham, 2010), which did not make it easy to categorize and exhibit them through traditional museological approaches. Internet in these cases was both used as medium and ‘exhibition’-platform, celebrated by its decentralized, networked and collaborative character. (Nowadays, some might argue it also coincided with a slightly naive look at the internet being a virtual space of unprecedented freedom, liberated from bias and capitalistic motives.)   Of course, the networked possibilities of the web did not only have consequences for art objects itself, but also to their regulation and facilitation. From the 1990s onwards, internet and digital technologies influenced a new approach towards curatorial practice. I will outline three important ways in which art travels across the internet, and the internet is used as platform to display art.

First, one can think of the giant splurge of art that became available through - relatively - decentralized online practices. With improved bandwidth infiltrating our schools, homes and libraries, artists did not necessarily needed to be represented by a gallery to reach an audience, but could display their art online. Through purposefully designed art-platforms such as Ello or Behance, to more general (social) media platforms as Facebook, Vimeo or Instagram, art has nowadays nestled in the nooks and crannies of the internet, or unexpectedly pops up in our feeds. In some of these cases, art is created solely through digital software, making the internet the first - or even the most natural - place to use as platform for display. Other times, art is created physically, and the internet is used as vehicle to bring a visual counterpart of the piece to an audience.  In these examples, the online presentation of arts does not share the ‘typical’ characteristics of Net Art, but the internet forms a vital - or even most important - platform for their display.

A second way to look at curating on the web are through academic texts on the consequences of the internet for curating arts - written by various key figures from the new media arts scene. Influential authors are Dietz, Krysa, Paul, and ONeill, and although their vision towards the early-day promises of internet and web art differs, they all have profound experience in curating new media art and a vast understanding of the internet and its constituting elements. What most of these approaches have in common are the following characteristics as defined by Christiane Paul (Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum). She writes online curatorial practices differ in the way art-objects are selected, presented, ’filtered’ and being ‘gate-kept’. “With its inherent flexibility and possibilities for customization and indexing, the digital medium potentially allows for an increased public involvement in the curatorial process, a ‘public curating’ that promises to construct more ‘democratic’ and participatory forms of filtering (2006)”. Whereas some of these scholars view the web as a virtual ‘immaterial’ place, and mostly focus on curating new media art through alternative forms of organization, others embrace more traditional institutionalized bodies and describe how museums very early on tried to embrace and experiment with new forms of curating new media art (such as Walker Art Center’s Gallery 9, MOMA’s e-space and Whitney Museum’s artport). An important distinction from the third point outlined below is that the majority of these scholars focus on New Media Art, and thus, consider art practices and projects that consider the internet or a new media environment as their natural habitat.  

Third, there has been a large impetus from museums to render visible their collections outside of the confines of the museum walls. In these instances, it concerns traditionally organized, hierarchical institutions or organizations that are finding ways in which the internet can be used as tool for displaying objects that were not developed to be exhibited in an online environment. Scholars who have written about these approaches are Foo (2008) and Koon (2014) and consider online exhibitions fore mostly as online display of archival and library content. These exhibitions are sometimes considered as an online counterpart, or extension of a physical exhibition organized at an actual venue. One could think of the feminist exhibition that produced a specially named website called WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, curated by Connie Butler for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in 2007. As Art Historian Greenberg (2018) - who analyzes the roles of history and memory in recent exhibition practices - writes, “the stated purpose of the WACKsite was to “enrich viewer understanding” of the exhibition and its many components. The exhibition itself was the first comprehensive historical examination of the international foundations and legacy of feminist art. It combined the display of 120 artists with extensive programming. The website was conceived as an integral component of the exhibition and was designed to incorporate multimedia and interactivity.” In these cases the internet is often used as web-based multimedia information system and intended to offer the user respectively more depth and interaction in addition to their physical counterpart. When these initiatives sprout from institutionalized arts environments there is usually an educational incentive present as well.

Provisional Typology

Today, the internet has permeated into every aspect of our lives, which has led some art-scholars to dub the current (digital) climate as the postinternet era. ‘Postinternet’ does not suggest that the Net and all its technological developments are behind us and finished, but entails a movement past the internet as novelty (as was usually the case with early Net Art), and using the internet and digital strategies for a more broader range of artistic practices and objectives (Artspace, 2014). As cultural critic and curator Micheal Connor quotes artist Mark Tribe in his influential article on postinternet art on Rhizome:  

“postinternet artists stand on the shoulders of Net art giants like Olia Lialina, Vuk Cosic, and JODI, not in order to lift themselves higher into the thin atmosphere of pure online presence but rather to crush the past and reassemble the fragments in strange on/offline hybrid forms.” (Connor, 2013)  

Whereas early literature on curating often presumes a false binary between the online and offline sphere, today’s environment acknowledges that practically everything is touched by digital influences. In a Western context, Internet is seen as integrated part of everyone’s lives, and postinternet art often incorporates to a higher degree the physical world; implementing a crossover between online and offline formats. Although I do not argue that online exhibitions should be considered post-internet art, I do think this approach towards the ubiquitousness of the internet helps illuminate some of the ways that the arts and the internet intertwine, or ‘crush’ in strange, hard-to-summarize formats.  

Considering all of the distinctions and differences in ways to approach curating on the web, I like to end with some examples. The following provisional typology shows different ways in which online curatorial practice can manifest:

Using the internet as a platform to exhibit art that exists on the internet

https://anthology.rhizome.org

https://whitney.org/artport

https://thewrong.org/

https://www.galeriegalerieweb.com/

https://www.artcontemporaryclub.space/

http://digitalsweatgallery.com/digital-sweat/

https://movingthestill.tumblr.com/

Using the internet as a platform to exhibit physical art

http://www.claiming-needles.net/

https://www.pattymorgan.net/home/showroom

Using the internet as a platform to exhibit both physical art and digital art

http://www.mermaidsandunicorns.net/

https://www.seditionart.com/

https://www.rareart.io/

Art editorial webpages:

https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/

https://www.itsnicethat.com/

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/

https://www.booooooom.com/

Using the internet as a platform to exhibit art that exists both physically and digitally

Illustrators who work in digital formats and enjoy a large online audience, but sell their work in physical limited editions prints 

Artists who make physical art, but design it specifically for an Instagram environment because that is the place where the biggest audience will ‘meet’ the art-object.  

Using the internet to display archival material or as an extension of a physical art exhibition

http://www.myseumoftoronto.com/program/myseum-presents/

http://entropy8zuper.org/godlove/

https://www.avantgarde-museum.com/hr/

http://bigbangdata.somersethouse.org.uk/?_ga=2.163762687.171501393.1540156585-23324632.1540156585

(Almost any museum)