Being extremely processed oriented, I began this project very early on. I wanted to take full advantage of the class, and I knew the earlier I started, the more I would enjoy every step of the process. I have always been curious about the rise and fall of SoHo’s artist colony. Being an avid art lover, along with having a personal interest in the gentrification of SoHo and New York’s downtown I felt my topic was and still is a good choice for me. I chose to focus on George Maciunas and Fluxus for two reasons. The first being, George Maciunas is a legendary figure who is known for establishing SoHo as an artist colony. Second being, Fluxus used various forms of media, to create a new form of art, a hybrid form of art. Fluxus was grounded in collective projects, which required communication networks. I had wanted to include the Abstract Expressionists which preceded Fluxus, and the minimalists and pop artists which proceeded Fluxus. However, due to time I could not include the hundreds of locations I had originally wanted to plot. I decided to focus on the relationships between artists which created a cultural hothouse. I wanted to map buildings, artists, relationships, performances and “Happenings”. I had come up with several ideas on which way would be the best way to map art production throughout SoHo. I brought my ideas to Shannon and Rory and we had come up with, what I think is the best possible model. We decided on “many to many” – which creates a rich web of relationships between artists. In object oriented databases information is represented in the form of objects. I chose to use the relationships between artists, locations and performances as an object. By looking at their relationships as objects, it allowed me to create a tightly woven web. I believe my project’s biggest strength, is the relationships I revealed. I found myself having learned an incredible amount of information. Mapping the information allowed me to absorb the information in a rapid and rich way. I also have found, on a personal level I feel much more connected to my surroundings in lower Manhattan and much more connected to the art which I have always loved. Out of all of my projects I have worked on at the New School, I found mapping the art production throughout SoHo was the most enjoyable and engaging project I have worked on. My project is near completion now, and I still find myself constantly thinking of new ideas for it. My only wish, is that I had more time to further expand my project. I found starting early, finding a topic I was incredibly interested in and enjoying every step has allowed me to produce a project I really love.
Congratulations, Danielle. Your careful planning yielded a fantastic project. And I agree: although your data model perhaps felt a bit “heavy” — each relationship required that we essentially plot three things: the two entities in the relationship and the relationship itself — this model, as Rory has said, allowed you to exploit the capabilities of the database to characterize the *nature* of each of those relationships. Thus, your entities aren’t simply “in a relationship”; they’re in a *particular kind* of relationship. You’ve found a way to both spatialize *and* give nuance to that web of connections.