Dylan Fareed
So in the middle of last week, we switched over to the new Artlog. It’s the product of two and a half years of experimentation/thinking and about four months of long days gathering data, designing, and writing code. We’re all pretty stoked about it internally, but it’s not by any measure finished yet. Here’s a quick look at what we are thinking and where we intend to go.
Artlog is your guide to contemporary art. We’re working to provide an accessible catalogue of significant contemporary (as in right now) artworks, events, auctions, people, and reviews. Artlog users can browse everything and add anything to their own artlogs (dylan.artlog.com/). From there we’ll keep you informed about the artists/galleries/museums/whatever you want to know about and give you direct lines to contact the galleries/organizations participating on the site.
We’re also looking at every page view, every “add,” and a bunch of other data points in order to build a map of how artists, artworks, galleries and museums relate to each other. The Trending section is the first manifestation of that relational mapping.
Basically we collect lots of good art data, you tell us what you want, and we’ll give it to you however you want it – email, RSS, on your mobile device, and on the site itself in a handsome interface.
That said, we are not totally there yet. People tend to look at and judge web applications as though they are fixed in time, but that’s not quite right. All good web applications are the product of continual refinement and elaboration. In the six days since we launched, we’ve redeployed the site 78 times with thousands of tweaks and improvements. Most folks won’t notice but we’re getting better everyday.
Presently we have the basics in place for artworks, venue directories, and an events calendar. Collectors and users can browse artworks, find openings, and add things to their artlogs. Galleries and museums that manage their listings can continue adding events, artists and artworks.
This week, we are migrating some data over from the old Artlog application and building out the ability for users to also create smaller custom collections of artworks and events on the fly. Newsfeeds should get released early/mid next week.
Last but probably most important, we are proud to announce the Artlog magazine – a content channel still very much being defined. Characterized initially by longer articles and video interviews with artists, curators and gallery and fair directors. Those videos are shot here in our Brooklyn office and the whole content endeavor is helmed by Jarrett Moran (follow him).
There’s more forthcoming but that’s it for now.
