Thanks to Lex Leifheit’s reference to one of my posts, I found a really cool programmatic innovation through one of her posts (such is the way the weblog world works). The DAISY system provided by New Haven’s International Festival of Arts & Ideas encourages visitors to explore the entire content of the festival through many different angles: genres, events, themes, and artists.
DAISY (aka, ”Dynamic Arts & Ideas Search Yielder”) offers a branching graphic view of the festival programs. With a specific event at its center (like a Liz Lerman lecture, for example), the graphic offers related artists, events, themes, and genres…each of which can be selected to become the new center of the exploration.
It’s an intriguing response to an age-old problem in cultural programming — how to slice, dice, and segment a season or series of events in a way that simplifies choice, but doesn’t presume a particular bias (clustered by genre, or artist, or discipline, or even price). DAISY seems to allow for multiple entry paths, and to encourage a more organic approach to the material for the prospective audience.
I’ll be really interested to see how festival-goers use the system, and whether it leads them to find or select events they might not have otherwise connected.
Thanks Lex!
Glad you liked the post, Andrew! I am attending the Americans for the Arts convention in Philadelphia in June–if you are there, perhaps we will meet outside the blogosphere.
Best wishes,
Lex
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture has a similar “idea map” that lets you explore their online content at:
http://nmaahc.si.edu/
While DAISY is letting participants explore the festival a few weeks in advance of the events, this one is letting people explore the NMAAHC several YEARS before a physical space will be up and running.