Algorithms for Social Curation: Designing and evaluating an embodied and subjectively situated visual art Interpretation and navigation system (VAINS)

Abstract

VAINS, the <em>visual art Interpretation and navigation system</em>, is an interdisciplinary work in progress, an interactive website which offers repository, search and content recommendation tools for art content in an online environment. This paper will put the VAINS system into a historical curatorial context as well as explaining and analysing the VAINS project and its methodology, outlining our reasons for placing the body at the forefront of its navigation systems. The paper will also present a narrative of interaction with the tools we have created, showing their impact on a range of users and illustrating the value of embodiment in the context of online curation. VAINS, <em>visual art Interpretation</em> <em>and navigation system</em>, is an interdisciplinary work in progress, an interactive website which offers repository, search and content recommendation tools adjusted to art content in an online environment, drawing upon the Computer Fine Arts database of digital artworks. The site is a response to the expected changes in content consumption as part of the movement towards a more complex web 3.0 generation, offering a customizable and personalized art viewing experience. The VAINS system aims to be in part a text free environment, where visual experiences are interpreted through their contextual categorization and through the use of other sensual means, such as icons, sounds and textures. VAINS also deploys the embodied and situated nature of human users as core resources in its underlying computational structures, drawing upon enactivism and embodiment as core computational principals. The paper will put the VAINS system into a historical curatorial context as well as explaining and analysing the VAINS project and its methodology, outlining the reasons for placing the body at the forefront of its navigation systems. The paper will also present a narrative of interaction with the tools we have created, showing their impact on a range of users and illustrating the value of embodiment in the context of online art curation.