User:AllyD/Help/Art:Networks

Art: Networks workflow (draft)

(Envisaged to link from How_you_can_help, possibly entitled as How you can help/Workflows/Art:Networks?)

Artists often use informal or organised networks to pursue joint projects. It can be difficult to describe how the participants and their involvements changed during and across projects. These may be better explored using diagrams, and resources such as Wikidata can underpin such explorations.

This page describes several steps to construct a set of information resources which describe and display any particular network of artists in any field who have used a network to pursue their joint projects.

Check what already exists

The basic building blocks are Wikidata items which describe

• each artist, working as an individual or collectively (e.g. Gilbert and George, Goldin+Senneby, Art & Language);
• any location or venue closely involved in the project.

These may already exist in Wikidata and as Wikipedia pages, so a useful first step is to search Wikidata and take a note of their QIDs.

Create a Wikispore Art: page about the project

Create a page here on Wikispore, describing the project and what it has accomplished. (Page wizard desirable?) It is useful to include links to other resources:

• link text to the item QIDs found in the previous step, like this: [[wikidata:Q5603|Andy Warhol]]
• if there is already a Wikidata item about the project, cross-link it at the top or bottom of your new Wikispore page like this: [[Q72823|documenta]]
• at least one External Link to media coverage about the project and perhaps to the project's own website.

In the next steps, we will create and then cross-refer a matching Wikidata item.

Create a Wikidata item about the project

If the project does not already have a Wikidata item, the next step is to create one. The important properties for an art project are:

• P31 Instance of: for example art project, art exhibition
• P276 Location: ideally fine-grained at city level (to help with map displays)
• P571 Inception: date (to help with timeline displays)
• P576 Dissolution: date (to help with timeline displays)

and link your Wikispore page:

• P7721 Wikispore ID: the name of your new Wikispore page.

Create event information

A project often evolves through a series of events (for example documenta) or interventions. Creating separate Event items for these is useful, as it makes evident the project's changing participants and locations through time. The important properties for each event under the project are:

• P31 Instance of: for example art project, art exhibition
• P276 Location: ideally fine-grained at city level (to help with map displays)
• P571 Inception: date (to help with timeline displays)
• P576 Dissolution: date (to help with timeline displays)
• P361 Part of: linking to the QID of the project

and link to a Wikispore page:

• P7721 Wikispore ID: the name of a Wikispore page for this event or the overall project.

Add participant information

Once the Project and Event items have been created, information can be added about the people who were involved:

• P1640 Curator: if a particular person or group can be said to be prime mover of this project or event
• P710 Participant: linking to one or more person QIDs.

Create diagrams for exploration

At this point, it becomes possible to create graphical images showing the events and the networks of connected artists and to add dynamic links to the Wikispore pages. The Wikidata query service provides the tool for this.

Here is an example for producing a network diagram showing the project, events and participants.

#defaultView:Graph
SELECT DISTINCT ?item ?itemLabel ?itemDate ?itemPart ?itemPartLabel WHERE {
{ ?item wdt:P361 wd:Q999999. } . # or { ?item wdt:P1640 wd:Q999999. } for curatorreplacing wd:Q999999 with the project's Wikidata QID
?item wdt:P571 ?itemDate. # or P580 instead
?item rdfs:label ?itemLabel. ?item rdfs:label ?itemLabel. FILTER((LANG(?itemLabel)) = "en").
{?item wdt:P710 ?itemPart} UNION {?item wdt:P1640 ?itemPart}. ?itemPart rdfs:label ?itemPartLabel. FILTER((LANG(?itemPartLabel)) = "en").
} ORDER BY ?itemDate ?itemPartLabel

Simply switch the first line to #defaultView:Timeline to obtain a time-based view of each event's participants.

Once you are happy with the diagram, your may choose to take a snapshot or your query can be saved for future use by clicking the Link button and choosing Short URL to result. Linking that from your Wikispore page can give the page reader the opportunity to explore the artists' project networks.