Mapping Models for Online Galleries (geography, typography, chronology & network)
Until recently, the creation of a ‘map’ of online galleries seemed unnecessary and to a degree antithetical to the nature of the community that exists between these spaces. Akin to the peoples of Zomia — the disparate enclaves of culture that retreated into the highlands of South East Asia — the terrain of net and digital art practices were kept difficult to traverse. [1] Certain waystations at intervals along the mountainous routes offered directions, [2] however, even these were only frequented by a particular clientele of foragers hunting rare herbs and mushrooms. Every two years a festival of activity would bring clans from the valleys together, at The Wrong Biennale the online galleries, projects and pop-ups would aggregate. Though even here sparse methods of indexing denied unaccustomed navigation.
Whilst the vast majority of the art-going peoples stay within the flat open regions — travelling along routes that have been charted on maps, standardised and catalogued on Art Rabbit — the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic did instigate notable shifts. As the lowlands went into lockdown the brick-and-mortar galleries turned to the hills to continue expressing their cultural relevance in ‘unprecedented’ times of challenge. Excruciating detail of these attempts can be recounted another time, [3] though suffice to say a wave of Forced Net Art [4] flooded the valleys, interjecting a difficult to assimilate focus. [5] With the influx caused by the first lockdown summer, [6] and the subsequent growth of the online art gallery scene that followed, we are left with a primary question as to whether mapping ourselves presents a means of self-preservation or whether it will only establish more in-roads and erode what exists of the niche cultures [7] that have sprung up outside of the eyes of the art market? As well as a secondary question regarding what values we see as being inherent to this disparate community of practice and whether mapping systems can preserve these in a lived capacity?
Further relevance of these questions centres on the second wave of interest in digital arts practises generated by the NFT art market, which has injected a potent combination of traditional art market and pyramid scheme logics into an area not used to extreme monetisation. [8] However, in the scope of this text we will avoid explicit discussion of this factor. It is too complex to integrate and too fluid in its effects to properly summarise yet.
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Heavily footnoted preface dispatched, we can proceed to the purpose of this text: to assess the relevance, value and pitfalls of certain models of map making in relation to the landscape of online galleries. First we will address four types of map: the geographic; the typological; the chronological; and the network, before examining what their application to the subject might mean. Finally, having conducted this speculative analysis we will describe a proposition of a map that fits values considered relevant to the community being mapped. Regarding this last aspect of ‘values’, our assertions are approximations based upon experience, by no means are they fully-founded, empirical, statistical or objective. The undertaking of this exercise is meant to create a proposal that may or may not gain traction in the court of sub-public opinion.
Culturally ubiquitous, geographic maps need little explanation but warrant at least some discussion. By means of scale and abstraction they convert geological and manmade features into iconographic representations located in approximate relation to one another. Combined, their borders and scales limit what they can contain. A geographic map cannot show what is beyond its frame (unless superimposing an externality over an internal area not deemed worthy of representation) nor can it show details that are too minute to be captured on the page relative to the scale. [9] Modern expectations and technologies ensure that there is a strong correlation between sites in the world and in the map, relative to other sites in the world and in the map. However, this is not necessarily the only way a geographic map can be structured. Exceptions to the rule include maps that relay hard to pass terrain in greater detail, creating areas of geographical prominence where additional navigable information is pertinent. Another case are historical maps that were created before scientifically accurate tools and processes were developed. Delve backwards in time and the ‘inaccuracy’ of maps increases. Certain maps were created in relation to a specific journey, contributing to a narrow yet long region of documented land that appears straight but may in fact follow a flowing linear path.
A typological map is by other names a chart, a graph, an infographic. Highly statistical, this methodology of mapping exposes the collectivisation of the subjects, each becoming an unattributed quantity amongst larger quantities. A survey takes place asking a number of relevant questions and gaining a large pool of data. Questions can be purely quantitative, e.g. age, or they can be qualitative, e.g. asking for a written or verbally communicated reaction. Either way on the backend they are summarised and assessed — and depending on whether participants were anonymised or not the data is dislocated from the subject. Or a material is measured, be it an economic output or a political vote, turning it into data. The analyst or mapmaker then transforms the accumulated data into diagrammatic representations which further invisibilise the individual opinion. The resultant map tells us about a thin slither of information and only ever in a generalised fashion. Though it would be incorrect to consider this bureaucratic model of mapping to be entirely unimaginative or without sympathy. The construction of fair questions is a fine art and to question with care requires a highly empathetic insight. One need only look at the graphs of W. E. Du Bois to see how creative deviation and artistic licence can marry deep insight with vital communicability. Importantly, these maps cannot often function alone, complexity requires multiple interacting maps read in relation to one another. Through contrast and comparison the results of various maps may permit statistically-hidden interpretations to emerge, subconscious narratives contained within the data that require advanced interrogation to unlock.
Fourth dimensional perspectives don’t naturally fit our understanding of a map. Yet with a little reorientation we can consider timelines as a chronological extension of mapmaking processes. Timelines may be arranged along a singular horizontal or vertical line, either side of which perpendicular lines mark key events and pieces of information. Or it may measure the start and end points of certain events, stacking them above and below one another to create a visualisation of parallel activities. They may be retrospective or predictive, for example a Gantt Chart is used to plan deliverables and activities within a professional context, even going as far to show chains of causality and helping to pinpoint critical moments. Even flow-diagrams and future cones [10] can be considered within the realm of a chronological map, though rather than simply predicting one ideal outcome they can chart multiple forking possibilities and plausibility. Nor do timelines need to arrange themselves around a diagrammatic structure, they can easily be organised as a listed succession of events. Notable for us is The Broken Timeline produced by Annet Dekker, Marialaura Ghidini and Gaia Tedone, first published in the book Curating Digital Art. [11] Organised at the back of the book, the timeline was structured first by year and then alphabetically, noting over two-hundred and fifty online art galleries and projects. Dating from 1982 to the beginning of 2021, it is divided into the left-hand page for relevant technological innovations and the right-hand page for the projects themselves. In effect it offers two parallel timelines that can be read between, creating a space of conjecture.
Finally, amongst these first four models of mapping is the network strategy. Increasingly common in light of social media, this model sees each individual as a node in a wider network. Connections between individuals tie them together, turning a disparate set of dots into a woven fabric of relations. Depending on the range of connections individuals in the network have — you may have some with very low numbers of connections and others with huge personal networks — the network will look to be evenly distributed or will feature a number of centralising hubs. Following the biblical parable “For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (Matthew 25:29), hubs in networks often feature underlying positive feedback loops. In a prior article titled Exhibition as Hub, we spoke of the digital art chronicler Silicon Valet that by featuring exhibitions and tagging all participating artists was able to rapidly grow a substantial following. [12] The account’s activities were virtuous but demonstrate an inherent danger with networked structures, though seemingly distributed they can quickly manifest hierarchical segmentation. Eventually these quantifiable perspectives can develop into utilitarian ideas of friendships, missing other qualities. On top of network diagrams it is worth drawing encompassing circles and more amorphous shapes to try and identify spheres and scenes. [13] Sub-cultural formations that may tell you more than counting connections can.
Each methodology for map making contains its own biases, preferences and history which inform an exploitable set of possibilities and a negotiable set of constraints and challenges. The below chart lays out some of these pros and cons as we may consider them into relation to the online art scene.
Finally, to close this section, it makes sense to recap the methods, qualities and measurable subjects these four models contain within them. Not only will this give us a set of possibilities to recompose but it will also help identify what is missing.
Geographic: Spatial; Cartesian; XY Axis; Navigable; Representative; Colonial; Empirical; Fixed; Borders; Scales; Inaccurate; Obsessive; Enlightenment; Coordinates; Locations; Terrain; Features.
Typological: Count; Fraction; Percentage; Survey; Qualities; Conditions; Measures; Opinions; Questions; Perspectives; [Un]conscious Biases; Statistical; Numerical; Abstracted; Anonymous; Data.
Chronological: Past; Present; Future; Causality; Events; Durations; Lifespans; Narrative; Canonical; Start Point; End Point; Definitive; Directional; Speculative; Possibilities; Planning; Retrospective; Predictive.
Network: Connections; Nodes; Hubs; Scenes; Spheres; Quantitative; Decentralised; Centralising; Individualising; Atomising; Impersonal; Organisational.
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Beyond these four models of map making, there are multiple other criterias and directions we can follow to plot a landscape via. A good way to think through these possibilities is to take a system outlined above and to switch out an aspect with a different value. Take the resultant hybrid model of mapping and apply the imagined data set, in this case online galleries and art project spaces.
For example, we may borrow from the geographical model of relating relative proximities between subjects, but instead of measuring physical distance we might measure emotional connection. Using this system we need to register participants’ feelings towards each other using a scale from love-to-hate. The more they like one another the closer they are located to each other. However, in the execution a number of problems will quickly emerge. Foremost, whether you can get individuals to publicly disclose negative feelings. And secondarily, what to do when the interrelation of likes and dislikes forces subjects to be positioned in contrary positions? X cannot be close to Y, but must be close to Z, who likes Y a lot. A logistical nightmare wedding table scenario.
Or we might imagine a chronological map that fractures a single timeline into a set of influences, composing a network map arranged as a family tree of inspiration. For this to work, individuals within the system would need to cite one or more key influences that informed their project’s inception. Though again the problems are easily apparent. Any cited influence would need to be mapped and many may not comfortably sit within the data we are trying to map. Or you would need to provide each individual with a set of projects that preceded them and ask which were influences. Triggering compound problems such as ensuring you account for all the possible relevant influences. Let alone accounting for memory biases.
And nor should we forget that both these systems would require a huge amount of primary research and community responsiveness for either to work. Which if factored would veto any maps that create a high-bar of participation that may exclude certain projects from being incorporated.
Considering all of the above, what are the qualities we may wish this map of online galleries to have? As a guideline we may propose:
- that it paradoxically draws attention to but does not make easily knowable the community that it documents;
- it aids the preservation and continuation of online artistic activities;
- hybridises modes of map making to create a new methodology;
- abandons rigid geographical definitions and the colonial connotations of this model;
- does not require extensive data-submission from those mapped;
- is open so that new data may be added and the results updated;
- becomes a future orientated and positive speculative tool.
These are high aims and not necessarily always conducive to one another. The proposal that follows is a first attempt at imagining how such a map may function, it will doubtlessly need rounds of trialling and revision before we can even say if it is scalable and useful.
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Maybe before moving forward we need to go backwards and into a problem. When considering the colonial legacies of the geographically accurate map it can be useful to read the accompanying diaries that from a first-person-perspective communicate the perspectives and interests of the explorer.
Consider two examples. First the journal of Gregory Blaxland, who in 1813 crossed the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia. In his account he writes of trying to “procure mineral specimens which might throw light on the geological character of the country” as well as the disappointment when it “appeared to consist of sand and small scrubby brushwood”. Second look at the language of David W. Carnegie who in 1898 also addressed Western Australia. Writing on the repetition of the landscape he explains that “the first and second day can stand for the rest of the march” and doubles down on the unchanging nature by deploying an undistinguished list of fauna and minerals: “Spinifex plains, undulating sand-plains, rolling sandhills, steep sand-ridges, mallee scrubs, desert-gum forests, and dense thickets of mulga.” [14] These are to him “most unpleasant to travel through”.
What these narratives extoll and demonstrate is the drive that underpinned the financial investment in exploration. Each character is a speculative gambler risking significant financial investment in the search of great returns. Every day where riches are not discovered is a disappointment in the march for grand resources. The colonial map is a map of where to dig and where not to bother.
Now invert the logic of this map. What if instead of man-master-of-the-universe mapping the resources of a given landscape, what if the landscape mapped its own resources? Each node becomes a territory of self-declared abilities, skills, knowledges and assets. Now add to this map an ability for territories to ask one another for advice, support and help. What is created in such a system is a map that acknowledges relative positions of power and yet against the notion of stratification encourages exchange. A resource rich territory with years of experience and significant public funding may assist a smaller newer territory with issues of sustainable development; whilst the smaller region may trade specialist knowledge they have generated thanks to their niche specificities. Unlike the unpaid labour implicit within the creative and cultural industries, systems of trade require negotiation and ensure equitable exchange. Importantly, they are also generative and future orientated, suggesting the slow weaving of sustainable partnerships instead of singular financial transactions.
To explore this concept further we may need to delve into the mechanics of games, video games such as Civilisation and board games such as The Settlers of Catan. Both visualise resources and both incorporate means of fractions building alliances through exchange.
Though that study can wait until a later text. For the moment, we conclude with a brief breakdown of what such a system would require and how it might exist if it was brought to life.
Requirements:
- gather a core group of purely-online and hybrid-physical/online galleries and arts projects who wish to be part of the map and would participate in modes of exchange;
- set up a taxonomy of resource types — with classifications dividing into sub-classifications;
- create a reporting system via which members may announce their resources — consider adding a quantity system / an share allocation system;
- code a dynamic website which shows the members and their resources + allows for members to flag requests for assistance or support and facilitates responses;
- consider whether an alternative currency system is needed, for when direct resources trades are not possible;
- launch and tend the emergent map, then invite other members to join.
Result:
In an ideal world the map articulates and facilitates a form of collective intent and investment. It signals that the online art world is governed by shared values and seeks to support all actors working within the space. On a day-to-day basis it allows organisations to ask for help and by making resources readable promotes faster and more dynamic development. Coding skills that seem impossible are now accessible. Advice on a funding application becomes easier to ask for. Access to an event space or AV equipment can be traded instead of rented. Whilst in the long-term it becomes a tool that shares some properties with the future cone. It envisions a more collaborative union of organisations, places transparency at the forefront and possibly works against the infection of the inflated market. In this sense it may become a border that helps the cultures of the hills remain unique, though this is very much wishful thinking.
A more reasonable appraisal recognises in the requirements listed above a great number of pitfalls and challenges that would need to be overcome. The next stage of thinking is about editing, amending and recomposing — taking the ideals of the proposal and revising it through repeat critical and practical examinations. At the end of this process we should aim for a new mapping strategy that maintains the values espoused but manages them with less infrastructure maintenance. At which point we may become cartographers.
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FOOTNOTES
[1] In his anthropological study The Art of Not Being Governed (2009), James C. Scott addresses the cultural characteristics of the highlands of South East Asia in specific relation to the centres of power situated in the flatlands. His analysis presents a “barbaric by design” system of “state avoidance” predicated on using “culture, farming practices, egalitarian political structures, prophet-led rebellions, and even [a] lack of writing systems” to avoid assimilation. As an analogy we recognise that we are playing upon a problematic tendency to employ colonial constructs to divide the ‘digital native’ from a non-digital centre, we employ the analogy for its descriptive potency conscious of this issue.
[2] Examples of the ‘waystations’ we refer to would be sites such as Cosmos Carl (http://www.cosmoscarl.com), a self declared “Platform Parasite” that hyperlinks together spaces of interest; Silicon Valet (https://www.siliconvalet.org), that through extensive exhibition re-communication on Instagram has become a nodal network centre for online exhibitions; and [ANTI]materia (https://anti-materia.org), that functions to translate information between the anglosphere and the hispanosphere. Antecedent forms include web-ring hyperlink networks and the Nast Nets (http://archive.rhizome.org/artbase/53981/nastynets.com/) community of Post-Internet artists that formed in the early 2000s.
[3] Grievances surrounding the UX standards of blue-chip gallery attempts to make ‘online exhibitions’ are numerous, though the true insult of this moment was the news media attention it generated, which frequently cited the move online to be ‘new’ and a ‘first’, creating a level of historical displacement.
[4] We borrow this term from a conversation with the net artist Sarah Friend who in turn attributed it to artist / academic Olia Lialina. Though we have not been able to find a direct citation, we believe the term originates as a misquoting of a Tweet dated April 4th 2020 (https://twitter.com/gifmodel/status/1246440367936897024), in which Lialina highlights the “forced” nature of a new generation of artists moving into net based practices. We however, use the term ‘Forced Net Art’ to denote the forced translation of analogue mediums into digital materiality and their subsequent display in poorly conceived online exhibitions.
[5] This ‘focus’ results from a mix of mainstream arts media highlighting the lockdown actions of established galleries and institutions, which created a tensioned requirement to deliver online cultural activities as part of a COVID-19 lockdown. A sort of public service. The position taken by Matìas Reyes and Guido Segni of Green Cube Gallery (https://greencube.gallery) exemplifies this pressure, in response to the demand for action, the curators shut-down activity and left a message on their landing page reading: “URL ISN’T ENOUGH | covid online events are lockdown propaganda (we’re closed: you don’t need another crap online exhibition).”
[6] For the moment this position is based upon personal observation, though we suspect a surveying exercise would prove the hypothesis correct. Since March 2020, we have noted a significant increase in the number of online art projects. Several intersection seasons may be responsible for this growth, including: the media attention paid to online art programming broadening the legitimacy of the field; the lack of access to physical space and social distancing measures; the lack of access to physical space due to rising costs in metropolitan centres; the increase in digital artistic practices, possibly related to economic factors, e.g. material costs; an increasing interest in technology and its social impacts; the rising accessibility of coding
[7] Visibility leads to commodification and with commodification in the art market comes a need to exemplify sole practitioners over a community of practice. The market’s need for the extreme ratification of individual talent over collective aesthetic development stands against the open visual exchange that underpins our current culture of networked image exchange and which can be seen as informing DIY art movements such as Crisiscore. See Wade Wallersteint’s Magic at the End of the World published by Outland (https://outland.art/magic-at-the-end-of-the-world/) for details of the genre.
[8] Based primarily on observation and anecdote, we would suggest that the hype around NFTs and cryptocurrencies in early 2021 was a double-edged sword for the digital art scene. It both offered artists a means of monetising practices that had previously been ignored by the market or that had failed to garner respectful prices, whilst drawing a wave of speculators into the arena whose interest may be described as disingenuous or as being part of a goldrush. These influxes play into the earlier Zomia metaphor, though they certainly require a separate text.
[9] The problem of scales and detail is to a certain extent solved in digital geographic maps that facilitate levels of zoom. One day it may be conceivable to cross-pollinate Google Earth with the micro-to-macroscopic view of the Eames’s Powers of Ten (1977) video, creating a map that extends Borges’s On Exactitude in Science to the nth degree.
[10] A future cone is a design thinking tool that starts with the present at the tip of the cone, expanding to concentric rings of possible futures at the base. These rings range from the tightest and centralised Projected, through Probably, Plausible, Possible and Preposterous. A further ring can intersect across the probability rings, identifying the Preferable future.
[11] As interviewees featured in Annet’s book we received a copy in the mail before its public release. That evening we went to our local pub to celebrate and discovered the timeline. Everytime we found a friend and their project was mentioned we took a photo and sent it to them on Instagram, contributing to a small interpersonal ripple of recognition and historicization. The emotional impact of that was huge, knowing how many years people had spent creating spaces online for artists but never seeing the niche brought to light. Maps as timelines as historical records are incredibly potent.
[12] This issue may also be linked to a trend of larger group shows in terms of participating arts. We explored this notion in our 2020 paper Volume: Social Media Metrics in Digital Curation where we noted that online shows were becoming biennial sized in terms of featured artists.
[13] We began discussing the potential of spheres/scenes over the more contemporaneous network after attending a panel discussion hosted on the occasion of Tell Them I’ve Gone to Papua New Guinea, an exhibition celebrating the life and work of performance artist Leigh Bowery. In the discussion BISHI — founder of WITCH: The Women in Technology Creative Industries Hub — critiqued the overuse of the term ‘networking’ and its implication of business relations into creative cultures. Instead they advocated replacing networks with spheres and scenes for their more organic connotations and less utilitarian appreciation of individuals.
[14] Employed by Carnegie this list of fauna and mineral betrays disappointment, though a rolling receipt of encountered specimens needn’t be so. Almost one hundred years later Cormac McCarthy would account for the slowly changing landscape across the border of Texas and into Coahuila, Mexico. Through the steady pace and contemplative character of McCarthy’s writing, this style of language is elevated to romantic levels and instead of suggesting a separation from nature informs us of the protagonist’s sensitivity to it.
