MetaData Drawers

What is archiveThing

What is archiveThing?

  • a living archive built from a poetic /open 'metadata' system.
  • we open this archive as a place to share details and specifics of creative practices that are often overlooked by the time a formal exhibition occurs
  • artist-focused metadata - the stories  of the works and practices come from the artists themselves.
  • we are interested in archiving the studio practices, the ideas,  experiences and processes in making the works.
  • the 'drawers' are meant as prompts to surface discussions about facets of the work, we assume each artist will bring the particularities of their practice to these archive-drawers.
  • not all drawers need to be 'filled' immediately, making it a living document that artists can return to at any time.
  • we hope archiveThing  will offer a place for artists to find new collaborators and audiences.

What is artist metadata?

  • it is the stories surrounding the making of artworks.
  • we have designed a set of virtual archive-drawers to hold these stories.
  • our system is designed as a dynamic catalogue of 'drawers' that artists and designers can pick and choose from. 
  • you don't have to use every drawer.
  • each work or series can have as much or little metadata that you want to contribute.
  • you can easily and always return to add, edit or remove any metadata content.
  • our metadata schema is purposefully meant to be open and poetic - allowing artists the space to discuss and show specifics about their work and processes.

The drawer system

archiveThing is a system with 42 independent drawers that artists can use to build unique portfolios. The sections below outline the potential for each set of  'drawers'. They have been organized in 9 sections: Images, Thinking, Process, Making, Methods, Technical, Object-as-Subject, Sharing, and Bibliographic.

Inside each section you will find more drawers at your fingertips. You can use as little as 1 drawer - all the way up to all 42 drawers.  

Please take a peek at the artists who have started building portfolio pieces on archiveThing to see how unique and varied their approaches are to creating and thinking about art, and then sharing these with you!

Each drawer is a dynamic space and the layout and presentation is up to the artist. Each drawer can contain as many images, texts, video, links as needed.

Images

This archive drawer is a space that can be used to show a series of images. 

Many artists work in multiples, or in a series. Use this drawer as a place to share any images for this portfolio. You can design the drawer to contain as many rows as needed in many configurations. For instance, rows of images, or image with texts, or videos.

 

Thinking

This set of archive drawers offers space to discuss various aspects of artwork that ranges from concept to theory to proposal. 

Concept and Idea drawer is a place to describe the topics, thesis, and conceptual framing of the works.

Intention & Speculation is a place where you can show and discuss your intentions in the making of the works. Speculation may be interpreted as a place to discuss potential of the works. This could be material intention and speculation, or theoretical intention and speculation. 

Strategy is a drawer for you to discuss aspects about the work that involve planning. This could mean planning for scale, material, theory, exhibition, publicness.

Research methodologies can be a complex network of interconnected methodologies. Artists often combine various methods of research, making, with associated reflection (analysis) to create unique interdisciplinary methodologies. Researchers from other disciplines are beginning to look to artists' methodologies - such as practice-led research methodologies.

References

If there are texts, or other references that you want to share for a specific metadata discussion, feel free to add the reference here. As we often like to share readings, papers, journal articles, books, films etc we think a specific reference section is a place to connect to your discussion here.

Alternatively, we have added an drawer for References if you want to collate them together, or find references that are more general to a body of work.

Theory and the theoretical frameworks you use or reference for each work can be offered here.

We have added an 'Artists' Notes' section to every large drawer schema for artists to note things that may sit outside of the set of drawers.

Process

Different than making, this set of archive drawers offers space to discuss your production and processes.

Sketches can take many forms, from sketchbook, to digital, to maquette, to back-of-napkin.

All variety of forms that the work manifests itself as. For example, a work could be all of these animation, projection, drawings.

The work(s) may transform and present new ideas through material investigations.

Production in studio, or at a lab, can manifest itself in many ways.

Here we can address how the processes of making have changed from the first approach to how we are currently considering the processes employed. We can also speculate how we would change it in future works; change the tools or materials to address related concerns.

We have added 'Artists' Notes' section to every large drawer schema for artists to note things that may sit outside of the set of drawers.

Making

Making is about material investigation, the doing and enacting of your ideas, it could include a discussion of how you make and the methods you choose.

Making always involves material considerations even when we go digital. Here we can speak to these ponderings and options we had to negotiate. We would also like to introduce the new materialisms discussion where we want to think about sustainable practice, optional materials, solutions we found in recycling materials, reuse of works or materials from previous projects; storage and documentation might come into this drawer.

Prototyping is usually language used by designers. An artist might speak of models and maquettes. In this drawer, we can upload some earlier iterations of the work or present material experiments that lead to the final work. Iteration is also a method used for work series or as a provocation. Artists often label their work work-in-progress; does this mean we are still working on it? Here, we create some openings to return to this work and continue producing iterations of the product.

Our short description: when theory and practice begin to speak to one another, a rich praxis emerges.

Do we test works in spaces? Is a studio visit a way of testing work with a trusted audience?

We often collaborate on projects. This is a space to discuss collaborations, group projects, participatory projects.

We have added 'Artists' Notes' section to every large drawer schema for artists to note things that may sit outside of the set of drawers.

Methods

In interdisciplinary practices artists use a variety of methods. These could include methods borrowed from other disciplines and areas of study.

Artists use a variety of methods: Assembling, Drawing, Experimenting, Scaling, Archiving, Diffracting, Retrieving, Visualizing, Digging, Haunting, Analyzing, Folding... Inspired by the chapters in the Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research Methods. Eds. C. Lury, R. Fensham, A. Heller-Nicholas, S. Lammes, A. Last, M. Michael and E. Uprichard.

Artists are often out in the world, working on a site, researching a place, interviewing subjects, etc. Field notes are valuable method of collecting these types of notes.

Here we can examine our tools and materials. We might need to learn specific techniques to handle certain materials. Or we might have to figure out where to get hold of materials. Here we can speak to the qualities of tool, material and how you progressed through the work. Not everything is locatable through the Internet – we learn from other people, or by experimenting and failing.

Discussion of tools can veer from practical to philosophical.

A favourite reference: Sennett, R. (2008). The Craftsman. Yale University Press.

Many contemporary artists work across disciplines, use a cross-inter-trans disciplinary approach to work.

You might speak to what your object / image / performance might be representing or what your intentions were. And, your work might no longer represent something specific but speak more abstractly about a concern or topic.

Work can escape a particular reading (that was intended). Does it evoke some other concepts, resonances that can be described here?

We have added 'Artists' Notes' section to every large drawer schema for artists to note things that may sit outside of the set of drawers.

Technical

Did you need to engage the services of other skilled workers to create this work?

Description of some of the more technical aspects of this work.

Did we need to bring in the specialized skills from another?

Did you need to use special machines, equipment, tools, expertise to make this work?

We have added 'Artists' Notes' section to every large drawer schema for artists to note things that may sit outside of the set of drawers.

Object-as-Subject

The artefacts we make as creative practitioners become important facets and vehicles of subject discussions. The stories surfaced through the making of the objects and their contexts resonate as political, philosophical, poetic.

How might others come to your work? The context that the artist provides for the reader is in the object. What we want to address here is how can the object/art work direct the reading; of the work-- what is it asking us to do as audiences and critical thinkers?

The Object-as-Subject was the conversation between Barbara and Michelle that started us thinking about how to discuss works, and ponder how objects resonate as discourse, how to build discussions across disciplines.

Here you might provide some information about the 'biography of the work'.

Make it up?! (Ficto-criticism - with a nod to the inventor of the term Dr. Jeanne Randolph!)

Another reference: Janet Hoskins (1999). The biography of the objects.

Intention of the maker for the life of the work: context of the making, context of the work.

Sometimes the documentation of the work replaces the work; the work no longer exists. We think of ephemeral works, performance works, installations, readings. How do we archive in these situations?

We have added 'Artists' Notes' section to every large drawer schema for artists to note things that may sit outside of the set of drawers.

Sharing

How has this work been shared with others? How might it be shared? What modalities? What type of space - digital, physical, print, performance?

How do you share your work? Are there new models and modalities? Is the digital realm changing how you share your work?

Describe the exhibition of this work / series. Group show, online exhibition, solo, temporary outdoor, etc.

How / where is the work published? Magazines, conference proceedings, lectures, online sites, etc.

How is the work positioned to be archived?

Do you imagine this work in an another archive? Do you have your own archive (digital or physical)?

How else are you storing the work, is the work part of a larger collection, a public collection, etc.

Do you have a strategy for digitizing and sharing?

(This is an ongoing issue for all practitioners, and part of the reason for creating archiveThing!)

We have added 'Artists' Notes' section to every large drawer schema for artists to note things that may sit outside of the set of drawers.

Bibliography & References

A place to gather readings, references, films and other visual or material references. You can add a specific reference section to each drawer, and also include a longer list of references in this drawer.

If there are texts, or other references that you want to share as a specific discussion, feel free to add a Reference section to that drawer.

We have added this drawer as a place to collate and share references with each other.

Reference Style for citation readability: We like the APA format.