Virtuwall & Curatorial Learning David R. Eicke

i263 Technologies for Creativity & Learning

PROBLEM AREA:

As a discipline of study, Art History can give its students critical and interpretive tools to more

effectively think about about how historical and cultural context have influenced not only

artists and artworks, but other cultural artifacts as well. Ideally, students will learn how to

“read” a piece of art, and will take away a vocabulary for discussing art in a more meaningful

way. Most of this learning, currently, is traditionally done via readings, exposure to seminal

works, and lectures, all followed by writing assignments.

With my project, Virtuwall Galleries, I set out to create an online tool for art education that uses

a Constructionist approach, allowing students to become curators of their own virtual space

given access to a giant and very traversable database of real-world art. My hope is that this

system can get students to think about art in a deeper way, linking works not only to other

works but also to concepts and stories and issues in their world. I also hope it can accelerate

discovery of which subsection of art or art history students are personally interested in. In a

standard art history class, it may be three quarters of a semester before students come across

something that speaks to them.

EXISTING APPROACHES:

Traditional Art History Education:

As I mention above, traditional art history classes serve to educate students about how to think

about art contextually, how to recognize formal choices and styles, and how art movements

flowed into one another. I am not in any way attempting to replace this. My project is designed

to augment an art historical education and to engage students in building something that is

meaningful and personal and that they can share. The only artifacts emerging from a typical

student’s Art History class are critical essays, which aren’t particularly well suited for sharing.

On top of that, students who dislike writing will probably be minimally invested.

Pinterest:

“Content Curation” has been a buzzword online over the past several years, and Pinterest has

been the leading platform for virtual collection of (usually) artistic works. Users find content on

the Internet and post it to “Boards” which usually have specific themes that the user chooses.

Users’ boards are usually public, and other users are able to “follow” them if they so choose. This

easy sharing and facilitated organization of artistic works informed some of my design choices

with Virtuwall. The popularity of Pinterest indicated to me that many can enjoy the activity of

curation and organization as long as they are given the freedom to collect what they enjoy

collecting and share their collections with friends.

Artsy.net Curation Contest:

Artsy’s Art Genome Project, the source of my database for this project, held an “Emerging

Curator” contest in 2014. The conditions were that the collection be related to the works of

Robert Rauschenberg and that the works included must be in the Artsy database. The winning

entry included art from ten different artists in different mediums which coalesced around a

theme of peace. While this collection is far more sophisticated than what might result from an

assignment in high school or early on at the University level, it exercises many of the same

principles I’d like to have embedded in my project. In hosting this contest, Artsy engaged the

participants with Rauschenberg’s work. From this work, they extracted concepts and ideas, then

took those concepts and extended them in order to find related works from the rest of the art

world. Artsy also imposed constraints that participants had to deal with.

Exhibbit:

Exhibbit is a new website that would be a great model for our gallery interface. The site allows

users to populate galleries with art that they upload. You can then send the galleries you create

out for people to explore. The interface’s “exploration” mode (upon receiving a gallery) mimics

the way a person normally goes through a gallery following the wall in order to look at each

piece straight on. On the other side, the creation tool allows the users to design the space the

artwork is in, which is a feature I’d like to incorporate into Virtuwall. However, this alone lacks

the exploratory functionality at the heart of what I’m trying to accomplish.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES/RATIONALE:

Facilitate Critical Thinking and Meaning Making:

Where Pinterest is lacking as a tool for learning about curation is that the contents of “boards”

are grouped by shallow organizational concepts, usually formal (e.g. “wreaths”, “pottery”,

“origami”) or occasional (e.g. “Easter”, “autumn”) . Sometimes, users will even have a board

simply labeled “Favorites” or “Inspirations” whose organizing principle is simply degree of

admiration. I’d like the system to avoid simple classifications like this and encourage students

to look for deeper connections concerning meaning and context. Art History can be thought of

not as “learning about art” but as “a discipline of study that teaches close reading, historical

analysis, and critical thinking through the lens of art” (Tani), so it’s vital to the success that

these goals be helped along by my project.

Encourage Personal Investment:

The level of motivation students have is critical to their learning, and sometimes this

motivation comes from outside influences like parents or personal ambitions. But this is not

always the case. The source of motivation was something I strongly considered when working

on VirtuWall. I wanted the investment to come from within—from students’ wishes to make

something they are proud of and show it off. This idea of sharability as a motivating factor is

something I found notable in the DigiQuilt study. They note some research from Papert:

“Constructionism suggests that engagement, and thus learning, is particularly efficacious when

learners can design personally meaningful artifacts to share with an audience (Papert, 1991).”

(Lamberty 2)

Introduce Complexity and Constraints:

In an effort to simulate real-world curation efforts as closely as possible, I’d like to impose

certain constraints on users. Constraints can be great opportunities for critical thinking, as they

force students to make tough decisions and weigh different options and approaches. We saw

students wallow in this sort of complexity in Blikstein’s observations of the students making

the model rollercoaster. Natural limitations forced them into a solution that they may not have

considered otherwise (Blikstein). Complete freedom to create anything, while being possibly

and exciting prospect, is not reflective of the real world, and it would work against any attempts

at simulation. In this specific context, an endless gallery allows for more works, and more works

allows for less deep thinking about what belongs and what does not—which is likely to result in

less thematic or ideological cohesion.

Promote Expression & Storytelling:

While I agree that the “best learning experiences occur when individuals are encouraged to

explore their own thinking process and their intellectual and emotional relationship to

knowledge, as well as the personal history that affects the learning experience” (Bers 9-10), I

would like students using Virtuwall to think even beyond their “personal history” and into the

history of their communities or nations or families. Learning to curate involves a lot of thinking

about your own decisions. It also involves an element of storytelling, which is, I think, what

separates it from “optimization.” For this, I find it useful to think of Fantasy Football, which can

also be considered a curatorial process. When curating your team from a selection of NFL

players, you face constraints like maximum size of your team, the requirement of having a

player at every position, and the fact that your competitors have selected certain players for

their team. However, your selection of players is unlikely to tell a story or even have any sort of

cohesion other than having been optimized for points. I’d like the Virtuwall system to

encourage curation that reflects a personal emotional or intellectual engagement with the

members of the collection.

Professional Feel:

Tying into personal investment is an idea of making something that seems to be beyond the

scope of a “school project.” Reminding students that they’re students is a great way to

discourage hard work. We saw evidence of this in Paolo Blikstein’s paper when he noted that

“the fact that the products generated in the laser cutter and the 3D printer were aesthetically

pleasing had a strong impact in students’ self-esteem— instead of taking home asymmetric and

fragile cardboard prototypes, they were building functional 3D objects with a near-professional

finish—it wasn’t ‘school stuff,’ it was the ‘real thing.’” (Blikstein 7)

Situate Students within the Environment:

As was stressed in the “Situated Cognition” paper, “The idea that most school activity exists in a

culture of its own is central to understanding many of the difficulties of learning in school.”

(Brown) The authors go on to argue that “authentic activity” is important for students to

engage in “because it is the only way they gain access to the standpoint that enables

practitioners to act meaningfully and purposefully.” (Brown) While it is difficult to say what a

“practitioner” of art history would be, a curator—who engages with meaning, style, and context

of artworks—is pretty close. I’d like to get students as close to the professional curation process

as possible so they can learn the most.

DESIGN:

The concept for Virtuwall arose from Artsy.net’s Art Genome Project, which allowed for an

unprecedented way of exploring the art world. The way Artsy’s database is set up allows for

undirected and interest-based perusal of works based on plain-language links between them—

perfect for those uninitiated to Art History as a discipline.

Thus, the tool started as simply an interface for layman’s exploration and discovery. Eventually,

I realized that, if used within the context of an introductory art history class, it could be very

useful as a tool for education.

In order for curators to do their job, they must have very broad knowledge of the visual art

domain and the ability to think deeply about meaning and context. High school students, my

target demographic, lack this broad domain knowledge, which can only really be acquired

through years of immersion in the art world. However, I believe they do have the ability to think

deeply about meaning and context, which is a skill I’m hoping this tool will help hone.

Context & Process:

I imagine Virtuwall being used as part of a two-week unit within an introductory art history

class. The unit would start with a trip to a local art museum or art gallery, where students will

hear from the curator about his or her creative process and be able to ask questions. Next, the

students will design their own gallery space using a basic architectural portion of the Virtuwall

application, and after that, they will populate that space with art. When they complete their

gallery, students will write about each piece they selected, why they selected it, and how it fits

with the other pieces in their gallery. With the pieces and their explanations in place, students

will pair up and go through each others’ galleries, providing feedback on their choices. Students

will each suggest one addition to the gallery they’ve visited. Armed with this feedback, students

will make any necessary revisions to their galleries (maybe this piece doesn’t fit, maybe I needed

to make this explanation clearer, etc.). Finally, the galleries are ready to be shared with family

and friends via private links and the students will be granted access to the class’s “gallery of

galleries” where each student can explore all the other students’ galleries.

Field Trip: The first activity in this system is intended to help with my design principle of

“situating the students within the environment”; students hear from a professional curator in

the environment in which he or she does the job. They not only get an idea of the thought

process, but they also may find out for the first time that this is a viable career option, and is

not necessarily just a school project. In a perfect world, students would get the chance to work

under a curator for an extended period of time engaged in “Authentic Activity” as discussed by

Brown, et al., framing art or positioning placards. However, resources are scarce, and there is no

real way to facilitate this. A one-day immersion will hopefully do some good.

Space Design: This was a decision I’ve gone back and forth on a number of times. Should we let

students design their own space or not? The advantage of allowing students to design their own

gallery is that it can help with their storytelling. A labyrinthine gallery could tell the story of a

long, confusing process or journey, or a wide-open gallery could allow for self-directed

navigation and may help a student achieve an “overall impact” by letting the attendee see the

gallery as a whole, which could enhance a gallery that was linked by visual qualities. The

disadvantage is that allowing users to create their own space is not very reflective of reality.

Gallery owners or museums can’t always build a new building every time they want to house a

new exhibit. Also, in allowing gallery design, we miss out on another opportunity to impose

constraints. Finally, though, I arrived at a decision to allow for design of galleries but limit the

length of wall students are allowed. That is, students can arrange and chop up a length of wall in

any manner they see fit, but they aren’t allowed to use more than that. This prevents galleries

from growing too large. Another possible solution is to pass the decision on to the individual

instructors. Perhaps the instructor can create a virtual replica of the gallery the students visited.

Art Selection: This is where I’d like students to spend the most time and effort, and the

interface for this process is the key to its functionality. Therefore, I’d like this phase to look and

feel very professional, as Blikstein suggested was optimal (see Appendix for images). Here,

students basically go ‘shopping’ for art to include in their galleries. The trouble with this is that

most students will have no idea where to begin or what they even like. Artsy solves this with

something called “genes” with which each piece of art is tagged. These genes can be about

medium (“watercolor”), time period (“17th century”), format (“triptych”), subject matter (“race”),

depictions (“uptopia”), origin (“Thai art”), and a number of other characteristics. This allows

students to choose works that speak to them and see what characteristics it has. Then they can

choose a characteristic and see what other works have that characteristic. This process allows

for undirected exploration and “self-directed learning,” a guiding design principle for

Montessori as outlined by Oren Zuckerman (Zuckerman 3).

Authoring: Writing about decisions and rationale helps designers to understand their own

work better, and in that way, this step is a check on whether they’ve chosen their work

thoughtfully. More than that, however, it is a large part of the way students will tell their

“story.” We need stories to make sense of the world around us (Bonsignore, et al. 18:3), and it is

essential that students use this opportunity to say something that isn’t simply “I like these

pieces of art.”

Sharing and Feedback: In the course of its design, I started to realize that if left as a

completely solitary enterprise, this unit may not be as effective. “[S]cholars of innovation have

discovered that innovation is rarely a solitary individual creation. Instead, creativity is deeply

social” (Sawyer 2). Because this project is so focused on self-expression, the collaboration

seemed best left to a revision activity. This revision will be the first exposure to someone who is

not the user and will bring a much needed outside perspective to the gallery and its themes.

Revisions: As Resnick suggests, “tinkerability” is an important aspect of a good program that’s

“designed for designers” (Resnick 4). Virtuwall should provide an easy way to swap pieces in and

out of your gallery. A learning moment may arise when a student would like to replace a piece of

art with one that perhaps does not fit the space. He or she may have to go back and use the size

filters and engage in some mathematical calculations, thereby creating a multidisciplinary

experience. Adjusting and reordering should also be simple to allow for adjustments to the

“story” flow.

Exhibition: In an effort to encourage personal investment, I would like to suggest that, at the

end of this two-week Virtuwall unit, the students include their galleries in a “gallery of galleries”

which other classmates are free to explore. If students know that their work will be seen by

others, they are more likely to invest effort in making it meaningful and high-quality. Requiring

this step would be too much, I think, in case there be a student who developed a gallery around

something extremely personal and doesn’t want the entire class to be able to access it. Several

studies cite sharability of student-design artifacts as a design principle, and I firmly believe it

should be incorporated and encourage with Virtuwall. After the exhibitions, students are free to

send the link to their galleries via email to friends and family.

SCENARIOS:

Undirected Search: What I’d always pictured since first conceiving of this project is a student

going into this project having had very little exposure to fine art, but he’d seen a poster once in

a friend’s room of a painting called Starry Night. He remembers liking it. With nothing else to

search for, he begins his search with that. The painting he remembers appears in front of him,

and he can see that it’s by someone named Vincent Van Gogh, and that it has the following

characteristics: Iconic Works of Art History, Post-Impressionism, Hatching, Times of Day, Oil

Painting, Cypress Tree, Town, and Images of France. Post-Impressionism sounds the most

interesting in that list, so he clicks that. New works appear. What do these have in common? He

is able to glean from looking at them what Post-Impressionism might possibly mean. He sees

one that’s done in colors he finds striking, so he clicks that painting. It turns out to be by

someone named Henri Matisse. This one has the following characteristics: Fauvism, Iconic Works

of Art History, Post-Impressionism, Color Theory, Individual Portrait, Hat, and Woman. Since color

is what first drew him, he chooses Color Theory. The results show a bunch of brightly colored

paintings, some of which he likes, some of which he doesn’t. The one he likes most is a cityscape

of London done in vibrant reds and yellows and blues, so he selects that one. It’s by Andre

Derain and it’s from 1906. He’s surprised, because it looks like modern art. He looks at the

characteristics of this one and sees Fauvism again. He’s never heard of that before, but it keeps

popping up on art he likes, so he selects Fauvism. The art repopulates with all Fauvist art, and he

likes just about all of these pieces.

At this point he calls the instructor over to ask what Fauvism is. The instructor says he

doesn’t know, but that we should search for it. So the two go to a search engine and look for

Fauvism. They end up on Wikipedia, reading about what Fauvism is, what characterizes it, and

what sort of political and social influences gave rise to it. Next time someone asks him what sort

of art he likes, he is ready to respond with Fauvism, and he can explain where it comes from and

how to spot a Fauvist work of art. Teaching another person about it solidifies that knowledge in

his mind and possibly even instills curiosity in another mind.

Meaning Making: A female student wants to make a gallery as a tribute to her grandmother

who just passed away. To do so, she designs a gallery with a defined path and decides that she

will take the gallery patron through the life of her grandmother, who was born in the 1920s.

Unsure where to begin, she uses the filters and searches for “farm” between 1920 and 1930.

Nothing shows up, so she adjusts her range to go up to 1940. A few paintings and a photo show

up from 1936. Two of them remind her of her grandmother, so she decides to add both of them

to her collection, where she can decide between them later. She knows that her grandmother

worked in a factory during WWII, so she next searches for factories. None really go with the

paintings she’s already selected visually, so she pauses to consider whether or not that is

important. She decides that it’s more important to tell the story than to have visual cohesion.

And perhaps this reflects the dramatic change her grandmother went through, having lived a

pastoral farm life, and then having been crammed into an urban factory. Maybe she could add

several images of the pastoral near the beginning to establish a rhythm! Decisions like this one

that take into account meaning and expression are ultimately what studying art is all about, and

if Virtuwall can inspire this kind of thought, then I would consider that a success.

EVALUATION

To help measure the success of the Virtuwall unit, I’d like to collect several usage metrics.

• Time spent in exploration: Are students going through the database quickly and picking

random art that they like or are they traversing different artistic styles and carefully

considering their choices? I would hypothesize that the longer a student spends exploring

and looking for the right pieces, the higher that student’s chance of success.

• Number of revisions: Are the students happy with their first draft? Those that revisit

their galleries and make adjustments might be those who are more receptive to feedback

and more invested in the end product. Students who finish and never return were probably

just trying to get it done and would probably have lower levels of investment.

• Number of links sent to friends and family: This could be another way of looking at

students’ investment. Is the student proud of his work and wanting to send to his friends?

However, this metric could be more indicative of extroversion or confidence, and it could

be thrown off by a student who created a gallery with a very personal theme and may not

want to share it even though he or she is thoroughly invested and proud.

• Post-unit endeavors with application: I’d like to make this tool available publicly, and

it would be interesting to see if anyone went back and made another gallery after the unit

ended.

• Interest shown in exploring others’ galleries: Another interesting metric would be

how much time a student has spent exploring other students’ galleries. I would

hypothesize that students who were especially engaged with their own projects would be

interested in seeing and attempting to understand what other students put together.

Beyond these quantitative measures, the most obvious measure of success is the depth of

meaning and cohesion in the end products. Did the students look at the artworks beyond their

physical appearance? If not, did they at least examine the uses of an uncommon formal quality?

This will be up to individual instructors to decide, and he or she can give feedback accordingly.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Right now, the galleries and Artsy’s database are only set up to house art that can hang on a

wall. Missing is the whole evocative world of sculptural and architectural art, not to mention

installations that may hang from the ceiling or rest on a pedestal. A way to handle this would be

for Artsy to start collecting and assigning characteristics to an inventory of 3D scans of art.

These could then be placed in a virtual gallery and made available for students to explore.

Another issue that may arise is the fact that many piece of art contain nudity or violence, which

could potentially upset some parents. That said, it may be important for teens to learn to take

on those issues, as they are fast becoming adults. A filtering system or a permissions system (or

both) may help to ameliorate the situation, so that’s something I’d like to take on eventually.

Bibliography Blikstein, P. (2013). Digital fabrication and ‘making’in education: The democratization of invention. FabLabs: Of Machines, Makers and Inventors, 1-21. Bonsignore, E., Quinn, A. J., Druin, A., & Bederson, B. B. (2013). Sharing stories “in the wild”: A mobile storytelling case study using StoryKit. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 20(3), 18. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational researcher, 18(1), 32-42. Lamberty, K. K., & Kolodner, J. L. (2004, June). Towards a new kind of computational manipulative: children learning math and designing quilts with manipulatives that afford both.

In Proceedings of the 2004 conference on Interaction design and children: building a community (pp. 143-144). ACM. Resnick, M. (2007, June). All I really need to know (about creative thinking) I learned (by studying how children learn) in kindergarten. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI conference on Creativity & cognition (pp. 1-6). ACM. Sawyer, R. K. (2006). Educating for innovation. Thinking skills and creativity,1(1), 41-48. Tani, E. (2015, May 2). Email interview. Umaschi Bers, M. (2006). The role of new technologies to foster positive youth development. Applied Developmental Science, 10(4), 200-219. Zuckerman, O. (2006). Historical overview and classification of traditional and digital learning objects. Accessed (February, 2011) from (2006).

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