
Art.sy, a Genome Project for the World of Art - mixonic
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/arts/design/artsy-is-mapping-the-world-of-art-on-the-web.html
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StefanKarpinski
Robert Storr's criticism is pretty vacuous. Crying reductionism is so common
as a criticism of scientific approaches from people in the humanities as to be
almost an absurd cliché by now. Pity that he either couldn't come up with
something more interesting to say or that the Times couldn't be bothered to
quote him on something more substantive.

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FreakLegion
The classification of works of art is a far cry from, say, taxonomy in
biology. I'd submit that there's nothing really scientific about it. But even
if there were, let me just quote David Perkins summarizing Benedetto Croce (on
literature, but the point is transferable):

 _The individual quality or difference of a work of art is the special locus
of its value. Since taxonomies are based on features texts share, they
foreground what is least interesting about them._

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andreasvc
That's rather a lot of assumptions packed into a seemingly logical conclusion.

I think it's perfectly possible for a text to be appreciated because of the
way it executes a specific topic or genre, such that its quality is not
something individual or different.

Secondly I can imagine taxonomies which are not based on shared textual
features, but on chronological, geographical, and genre features.

Thirdly, I don't see why a shared feature would automatically be the "least
interesting". What's interesting is rather subjective and context-dependent.
If for example I had a particular interest in literature coming out of the
first world war, this shared feature could be at the top of my list.

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FreakLegion
It is indeed a lot of assumptions and also ignores, for example, the fact that
those shared and least-interesting features are still, in many cases, what
people like most about things, which would make it a good approach for a
recommendation engine even though it's a bad approach for critical work.
Musical and narrative genres are rife with this kind of 'subscription
mentality'[1]: people who simply enjoy the genre and will like almost any
entry into it.

 _> Secondly I can imagine taxonomies which are not based on shared textual
features, but on chronological, geographical, and genre features._

Note that these aren't meant to be excluded by the quote, which is from a book
that deals largely with the three things you mention. _Il n'y a pas de hors-
texte_ and all that.

 _> Thirdly, I don't see why a shared feature would automatically be the
"least interesting". What's interesting is rather subjective and context-
dependent. If for example I had a particular interest in literature coming out
of the first world war, this shared feature could be at the top of my list._

No doubt, but the quote is specifically concerned with literary/artistic
value. Historians or critics reading through a different lens will of course
have different interests and see value in different things.

Would you not agree, though, that a particular interest in literature coming
out of the first world war is simply a filter for your data set, and that once
you get down to specific works, it's how they differ or assert themselves
against one another that is most interesting about them?

1\. I just made that phrase up; someone may have come up with a better one
already. But you know the type: the inveterate sci-fi fan, the fantasy
aficionado, the lover of all things zombie. These people are less concerned
with the quality of a particular work than with the genre trappings it
exhibits.

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andreasvc
I think that if your theory is that the quality is in the sum total of all
differences with other works, then it's not saying much. On the surface, texts
are unique as snow flakes, so that's not a useful perspective. Some
differences or features will surely play a larger role than others in
determining quality. For the features that matter, commonalities might be more
interesting than differences.

I think there might not be an effective difference between a particular
interest acting like a filter, and the rest of the differences identifying a
work. They appear to be different because the former is explicit and
particular, but in the end our taste is conceivably described as a filter.

And I don't see why this couldn't pertain to literary or artistic value. You
seem to suggest that shared features automatically imply genre works which are
typically deemed of lower value. If artistic value is said to only reside in
an ineffable difference of the whole work, then to me this is just a cop out
to avoid having to define what that value actually is.

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FreakLegion
_> I think that if your theory is that the quality is in the sum total of all
differences with other works, then it's not saying much._

I wouldn't say that quality and value are the same thing. Oftentimes works of
questionable quality are incredibly valuable because they open up new domains
for other artists to develop.

 _> On the surface, texts are unique as snow flakes, so that's not a useful
perspective._

This isn't true at all. In fact, most people, even trained critics, have
trouble telling writers apart, let alone texts. There are exceptions, of
course -- mostly the avant-garde, because you know when you're reading Joyce
or Pound -- but even then the vast majority of people can't distinguish the
real thing from a parody. When I was in grad school a quiz
(<http://reverent.org/poetry_or_parody.html>) made its way through our poetry
seminar, and it was hilarious. Two of us missed only one; the rest missed at
least six! I just retook it now, three years later, and missed three, so I
guess I'm losing my touch.

 _> Some differences or features will surely play a larger role than others in
determining quality._

Of course, but again, quality <> value. Also I'm not sure what you're
responding to with this thought. There's nothing about 'sum totals' or
anything like that in the Perkins quote, and I don't think I suggested it
elsewhere.

 _> For the features that matter, commonalities might be more interesting than
differences._

Do you have an example? The 'might' is important here: I agree that it's
possible, but I can't think of an example. Most likely I would think the
commonality would be some shared trope that the text then proceeds to spin off
in an entirely different direction, so that the commonality is only
interesting as staging for the difference. But I can be persuaded otherwise.

 _> I think there might not be an effective difference between a particular
interest acting like a filter, and the rest of the differences identifying a
work. They appear to be different because the former is explicit and
particular, but in the end our taste is conceivably described as a filter._

I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but I think it's an interesting point:
namely, that every difference is a difference _from_ , so by shifting the
context in which a work is understood, you've effectively changed what its
commonalities with and differences from other works are. And that leads us
down the oh-so-tricky rabbit hole of establishing contexts, e.g. via period
(Romanticism), tradition (form, genre), and so on.

As far as taste being a filter, that just depends on the person. It's
certainly possible to imagine tastes that can't be used as filters because
they don't involve surface properties like genre trappings.

 _> You seem to suggest that shared features automatically imply genre works
which are typically deemed of lower value._

I'm not suggesting either of those things. Shared features don't imply genre
works (all works have shared features), and genre works aren't necessarily of
lower value (they just attract certain audiences regardless of their value).

 _> If artistic value is said to only reside in an ineffable difference of the
whole work_

It's neither ineffable nor anything to do with the 'whole' work. I'm sure it
seems abstract, with us talking about all of art in one go here, but once you
get down to specific texts and contexts any competent critic is going to talk
in excruciating detail about what specifically is valuable in a given work. At
least, that's the idea -- in practice most professional critics are crap.

~~~
andreasvc
That texts are unique is simply an objective fact. As soon as you change just
one letter, you have a new text with 'difference'. I'm saying this is not a
useful perspective because it only gets interesting when you can point out
what kind of difference there is and why it is important, and then you end up
with something that higher quality texts may have in common.

While critics may have some difficulty telling authors or texts apart because
of human limitations, computers attain very high accuracies with various
authorship attribution methods. This underscores my point: if you focus on
differences, you will end up identifying very particular things such as a
particular author or even the style of a particular work, that's just the idea
taken to its extreme.

On the other hand, I believe that the quality of a work, which is one kind of
value indeed, can lie in commonalities instead of differences. I don't have a
concrete example, but from reading literature I do get the feeling that there
is something definite that they share. I don't mean something on the level of
a trope, that would be too superficial. I think it's OK to admit that we don't
know, but not a good idea to preclude it from being described as part of a
taxonomy because it's supposedly only about differences. There's simply too
much difference in all the unique things around us for that to be informative.

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jamiequint
I still can't believe that Art.sy was around for over two years before
releasing anything. That seems insane, only time will tell.

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carterac
Similar to Spotify, it took us a long time to acquire legal rights to the
artworks from all our gallery and institutional partners.

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flipside
Must have also taken some time to get such high profile investors and
advisors. Care to share your secret?

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_neil
This is a really nice project with a very clean interface for browsing art.
I've spent hours browsing different categories and links between related
works. Their team has also made great contributions to open source projects.

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hnriot
I tried it out and some of the connections are dubious to say the least, for
example for the photographer Robert Frank the first related artists is Timothy
H. O'Sullivan, which has very little in common with Frank. The same was found
with many other artist's I am familiar with. I guess it's just starting out
and will improve with time, I presume if I were to create an account I would
be able to feedback into the system to fix errors.

Painting seemed to fair much better in its relationships, possibly because the
artists are more cleanly defined.

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sethbannon
Simply gorgeous site design.

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sbochins
Yea the simplicity is really great. There is a ton of content getting
displayed all at once, but it doesn't seem cluttered. You can easily browse
all the information and be delighted at the same time.

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septnuits
I love the attention to detail. It feels super polished, and the simple design
goes well in hand with all the art.

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bearpool
This company was around for nearly three years before publicly launching.
Seems a bit dubious.

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milkshakes
That's because you have no idea how much non technical legwork has to go in
place to build something. They had to develop personal relations with
thousands of finicky galleries, then somehow convince them to try this new
thing, digitizing their art. They had all sorts of fusses about the details of
just about everything, every step of the way. See how Art.sy tries to prevent
image scraping, for example. There's a lot more behind the scenes.

