The prototype is an exploratory visualization of the data and images from the Raoul Hausmann estate at the Berlinische Galerie, aiming to provide insight into the diversity of the collection.
With the Hausmann collection, we examine the potential of traversing cultural collections along the richness of individual facets and relations through the process of developing an exploration-centered visualization. Cultural collections can contain thousands of artifacts, each typically possessing a diverse set of properties and individual facets that constitute a unique relationship to the rest of the collection. Therefore, to create an appropriate representation of the complex data of each underlying artifact, it is often not only valuable to gain an overview of the entire collection from one perspective but also to explore the specific context of an artifact and the various relations it may have to other items.
To investigate the potential of relational perspectives, we collaborated with the Berlinische Galerie, using their Raoul Hausmann estate, following a collaborative and iterative design process. We developed a web interface that contrasts a collection overview with three situated visualizations, each exposing a different kind of relational perspective on the art collection from the viewpoint of an artifact.
The visualization project was created as part of the master’s thesis “Perspective-Dependent Data Visualizations” by Mark-Jan Bludau at FH Potsdam in collaboration with the Berlinische Galerie.