Digital
We review the latest websites and apps
Website
MINIM-UK
This site will be music to the ears of experts, but could be a little daunting to amateurs, says Jonathan Knott
The result of a collaborative project led by London’s Royal College of Music, with funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, this site brings together digital records on musical instruments from about 140 collections.
The design is clear, using a simple black and white colour scheme with plenty of space. Navigation is also straightforward: visitors can browse records (about 20,000 in total) by collection and instrument family, as well as use a basic search box and interactive map.
The entries include a photograph alongside information such as the date and place the object was made, and measurements. Classical European instruments are well represented, including unusual specimens such as an 18th-century flute made from narwhal horn. There are also plenty of instruments from other cultures and traditions.
The objects come from a diverse array of collections in the UK that includes military museums, musical colleges and universities, alongside national and regional institutions. Bringing these together into one resource undoubtedly has great value for researchers. But for the non-specialist, the range threatens to be overwhelming: there are entries for more than 1,600 clarinets and almost 600 bows.
The “stories” section of the website is useful as an accessible introduction to the resource, with articles focusing on particular collections or topics. Some of these highlight unusual instruments, such as the theremin, an electronic instrument played by moving the hands near a set of antennas, and recognisable from its use in eerie film music.
Some of these articles benefit from embedded audio and video material. This includes the recordings that accompany instrument entries (there are about 300 records with audio on the site) as well as YouTube videos, such as performances on the theremin and a musical saw. This multimedia material makes the site more appealing and interactive, and I hope the project builds further on this approach in future.
Website
Ways of curating
This project, produced by the Los Angeles-based organisation ForYourArt and Google Arts and Culture, presents an engaging online summary of the prolific career of the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
The site includes records of a selection of more than 200 exhibitions that Obrist has curated. They include his first one (held in the kitchen of his student flat in Switzerland), as well as shows at London’s Serpentine Gallery – where he is the artistic director – and in other locations around the world.
Obrist often works with live art or on short-lived projects, such as the one-day “marathon” events held annually at the Serpentine since 2006. Some artworks he shows, such as a series of emails documenting an unsuccessful attempt by artist John Baldessari to display a corpse, critique the nature of exhibiting itself. And in an ongoing “limitless exhibition”, Obrist shares handwritten notes from notable cultural figures on Instagram.
The site’s mix of images, video and text combine well to convey his experimental approach. There are also audio interviews with him and a short biography.
You can explore the material presented in several ways. A chronological timeline provides a straightforward overview. The complex thematic connections, meanwhile, are harder to work out but are probably a better guide to how Obrist thinks. JK
Website
Digital Panopticon
Using information from more than 4 million records within 50 datasets, this site provides details on 90,000 people convicted of crimes at the Old Bailey between 1780 and 1913, including those transported to Australia.
The resource is aimed primarily at researchers and offers a wealth of data. The search categories range from names and year of birth to hair and eye colour. Visitors can also explore the data using visualisations. One sample chart shows that the majority of people sentenced to death between 1800 and 1815 ended up being transported to Australia.
Guidance on using the resource for research and teaching is provided, and the site presents contextual historical information on British criminal justice and the colonisation of Australia, as well as biographies of the convicts.
Selected biographies are highlighted in the “life of the week” section. The example at the time of writing was Mina Jury, an Irish woman sent to Australia in 1847 for stealing jewellery. Such content could be of interest to a wider audience, but the text-heavy and dense design feels dry. More accessible presentation would help the site engage a wider audience.
MINIM-UK
This site will be music to the ears of experts, but could be a little daunting to amateurs, says Jonathan Knott
The result of a collaborative project led by London’s Royal College of Music, with funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, this site brings together digital records on musical instruments from about 140 collections.
The design is clear, using a simple black and white colour scheme with plenty of space. Navigation is also straightforward: visitors can browse records (about 20,000 in total) by collection and instrument family, as well as use a basic search box and interactive map.
The entries include a photograph alongside information such as the date and place the object was made, and measurements. Classical European instruments are well represented, including unusual specimens such as an 18th-century flute made from narwhal horn. There are also plenty of instruments from other cultures and traditions.
The objects come from a diverse array of collections in the UK that includes military museums, musical colleges and universities, alongside national and regional institutions. Bringing these together into one resource undoubtedly has great value for researchers. But for the non-specialist, the range threatens to be overwhelming: there are entries for more than 1,600 clarinets and almost 600 bows.
The “stories” section of the website is useful as an accessible introduction to the resource, with articles focusing on particular collections or topics. Some of these highlight unusual instruments, such as the theremin, an electronic instrument played by moving the hands near a set of antennas, and recognisable from its use in eerie film music.
Some of these articles benefit from embedded audio and video material. This includes the recordings that accompany instrument entries (there are about 300 records with audio on the site) as well as YouTube videos, such as performances on the theremin and a musical saw. This multimedia material makes the site more appealing and interactive, and I hope the project builds further on this approach in future.
Website
Ways of curating
This project, produced by the Los Angeles-based organisation ForYourArt and Google Arts and Culture, presents an engaging online summary of the prolific career of the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
The site includes records of a selection of more than 200 exhibitions that Obrist has curated. They include his first one (held in the kitchen of his student flat in Switzerland), as well as shows at London’s Serpentine Gallery – where he is the artistic director – and in other locations around the world.
Obrist often works with live art or on short-lived projects, such as the one-day “marathon” events held annually at the Serpentine since 2006. Some artworks he shows, such as a series of emails documenting an unsuccessful attempt by artist John Baldessari to display a corpse, critique the nature of exhibiting itself. And in an ongoing “limitless exhibition”, Obrist shares handwritten notes from notable cultural figures on Instagram.
The site’s mix of images, video and text combine well to convey his experimental approach. There are also audio interviews with him and a short biography.
You can explore the material presented in several ways. A chronological timeline provides a straightforward overview. The complex thematic connections, meanwhile, are harder to work out but are probably a better guide to how Obrist thinks. JK
Website
Digital Panopticon
Using information from more than 4 million records within 50 datasets, this site provides details on 90,000 people convicted of crimes at the Old Bailey between 1780 and 1913, including those transported to Australia.
The resource is aimed primarily at researchers and offers a wealth of data. The search categories range from names and year of birth to hair and eye colour. Visitors can also explore the data using visualisations. One sample chart shows that the majority of people sentenced to death between 1800 and 1815 ended up being transported to Australia.
Guidance on using the resource for research and teaching is provided, and the site presents contextual historical information on British criminal justice and the colonisation of Australia, as well as biographies of the convicts.
Selected biographies are highlighted in the “life of the week” section. The example at the time of writing was Mina Jury, an Irish woman sent to Australia in 1847 for stealing jewellery. Such content could be of interest to a wider audience, but the text-heavy and dense design feels dry. More accessible presentation would help the site engage a wider audience.