Artistocial

Team Name

Grus

Team Members

Project Description

"Artistocial" is an engaging, artist-based website that attempts to expand artists' social networks and encourage their professional development by proposing art galleries, libraries, and events. Rising artists in Brisbane who are unfamiliar with the local resources are our target audience. Moreover, an interactive art gallery game was featured during users’ registration progress, in order to retrieve their preferences of artworks and events by asking them to choose their favourite artwork. We may thus optimize our recommendations based on their preferences.

Data Story

The development of this website involved the use of four datasets. Three of them are from the Queensland government, one each for the state's public libraries (Queensland, 2021), art collections (Public Art Collection - Data | Brisbane City Council, 2015), and Brisbane city council events (Events locations - Data | Brisbane City Council, 2017). Since we aim to provide artists with practical resources, they could self-learn and conduct study at Brisbane's libraries on theoretical topics like colour theory, art histories, and visual studies. Additionally, art collections broaden artists' perspectives by exposing them to some of Australia's most famous works of art, particularly indigenous artefacts. Finally, by introducing art events in Brisbane, these emerging artists will be able to participate in more activities that will inspire them, help them identify their areas of interest, and enable them to network with like-minded people.
The other dataset used is Artsy. Artsy (Artsy) is an art collecting platform, and the dataset it provides includes descriptions of famous artworks, the date they were created, the names of the creators, and photographs of the artwork that may be used for non-commercial purposes.
Using Microsoft Excel, we manually link—artworks from the artsy dataset and Brisbane City Council events—to twelve art forms (architectures, paintings, photographs, posters, prints, sculptures, textile arts, books and portfolios, decorative arts, drawings, mixed media, and others). The former associations between artworks and forms of art are based on the materials used in the creation of the artworks. For example, concrete and marvels would be associated with architecture, while paints may be associated with books or paintings. The latter association between events and art forms is made in light of the various event categories. For instance, business workshops are tied to books, while art exhibits are linked to all types of art.
By utilizing these connections, we could rebuild the portfolio of the users and filter recommend events based on their preference during the art gallery game. Therefore, every time the users chooses different preferences of art types during the game, their preferences and artworks shown on the portfolio page and the recommended events on the event page would be renewed.