Recreate the physical, fine art gallery experience by developing a web based multimedia management system that exploits the natural relationships between interconnected, digital media forms.
This site exists to help to explain the project and process regarding my MFA Thesis. The menu to the left references the major areas of my development so far, and is intended to offer a look at the pace and progress so far.
This section will describe the actions to date, what was successful, and what was less successful.
Project Scope
The scope of this project is intentionally large (to read more about the scope, please refer to the Thesis Brief) as it is an attempt to create a stand-alone system to address a broad, unanswered question in interactive art and design: "How can we do justice to a physical work of art in digital form?" What I have learned over the course of my research is that my question should be preceeded by: "Assuming our intention is to recreate the physical gallery experience,". My original audience was also very broad, as it included the needs of artists, curators and gallery/museum owners as the primary focus. My assumption was that they all shared a common goal, to promote their collections in digital form. What I have found is that while this is true of artists, the goal of the curators and owners is to bring people in the door, as that is how the show is judged as successful. Online gallery augmentation is desirable to owners, but as sales are still primarily (very primarily) made by in-store patrons, the online or digital gallery is seen as a secondary source of information. Gallery owners also agree with this stance, but differ slightly in that they are less focused on the popularity of an individual show as they are with the reputation and esteem of their gallery as a whole. Museum owners, specifically art museum owners, also measure their success by the number of people in their building, and are supported financially by the number of people that attend their museum. They are therefore closely aligned with curators and gallery owners in their concept of the need and function of the online gallery. Educational museum owners are very different than all of these three, and though they were not an initial audience, they are aligned more closely with both my initial thesis, and the needs of the individual artist, as they are primarily focused on the education of the public and the reputation of their collection.
Time Management
The main areas of this project are the collection of survey data, the research into information architecture of a taxonomically related, media database, the development of this database, and the development of the front-end/user application of this system. Additionally, due to personal research, I have decided to use the relatively new programming language/environment of Ruby on Rails. Ruby on Rails (RoR for short) is a natural language, that is designed for web applications of this nature. It is very flexible, and promises quick development times once the language is mastered. The learning curve is not too severe, yet the customization of the development environment was something that I had not anticipated to be so complex. There were also compatibility issues and downtimes with my existing web host, so the process was delayed more than I had expected. The design of the database has not changed dramatically since the inception, and when working, the prototype management system I have developed seems to fit the needs of this project. Looking ahead, the timeframe for this project has extended from a completion date of Thanksgiving 2006, to the June of 2007, as I have adjusted my work load as a reflection of the time management problems and scope of this project. This summer, I will take an independent study course on developing a media management system in RoR, the prototype for my final thesis. This will give me the opportunity to test multiple configurations of the system before being locked into one for the final thesis. Also, there needs to be significantly more planning time for the front-end/user web application. This has changed with the difference in needs of my audience members, and I will have to reassess my goals of which audience to cater to, or continue to proceed with the intention of meeting the needs of all of the groups (artists, curators and owners). This front-end research and development process will take much more than the three weeks I had originally allotted, and this development process will be undertaken in the fall quarter, either in an independent study, or in the Dynamic Database Programming class offered online.