Robert P. Taylor's Webbery:A web gallery for two-dimensional art

More about the Random Order Galleries
A comprehensive but arbitrary archiving arrangement

   

Collectively, the "Random Galleries" are a complete archive of the Webbery, reflecting issues of acquisition and of technology, not thematic relationships. While theme or curatorial design dominate Webbery'sother two major exhibiting arrangements, thematic and art characteristics, the arrangement of the random galleries is arbitrary, even beyond the randomness of order mentioned in its label. Each of Webbery's300 or so works appears in one and only one random gallery, as in a museum each work appears in one and only one room. On the index page for Random Order Galleries, all random galleries are represented, each by a composite image reflecting several works in that gallery. (The composites for gallery K and gallery M appear above as examples.) Each such composite image is linked to the exhibition of the images in that gallery. Since every Webbery work appears in some random gallery, one can tour the entire collection by systematically touring all the random galleries, one after another. Note, however, that while the random order galleries cover the entire collection, the content of any particular random gallery is arbitrary, in terms of both the actual number of works included and which works they happen to be.

Beyond the fact that 20 to 30 thumbnails easily fit on the mid-1990's screen, the number of works installed in a specific random gallery was arbitrary and reflects little more than the mood of the archivist at installation: the number of digitized works ready to be installed the day a particular gallery was filled, the time of day, and so on. Gallery K above, for example, includes 22; L includes only 19. Which works were installed in a particular random gallery were just as arbitrary and implied no thematic connection. The two composites above mirror this clearly. K's composite shows details from: (1) a drawing of an instructor, (2) a paper cutout of an organist playing Bach, and (3) a reworking of a Lautrec bassoon player. L's shows: (1) a watercolor of a flower in a vase, (2) a digitally colored cartoon of a surgeon performing prostate surgery, and (3) a drawing on yellow paper of an apartment doorway.

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