CartoDB

This project focused around physically collecting geolocations of each point surveyed. This was done by myself and my partner. The focus of the project was to observe art in different areas of Seattle and how it acted as a public space. We also observed what function the art served such as being the main attraction to the space or just a complementary feature.

My points spanned from Wallingford/Fremont down to the International District and focused on spaces where the art was the main attraction to the space. On the other hand, My partner's points were all located on the University of Washington campus where the art was primarily complimentary to the space, with one exception. For the “what function of the space?” question, I categorized each location by listing the attributes that described the place rather than a verbose description of the function like my partner did – this distinction in our data entries was the only aspect of this project that surprised us both simply due to the different approaches we used to respond that question. For the “meaning and message” question, we provided a short description of why the space was created. While my points featured a variety of purposes, many of my partner's points were catered to celebrating school spirit through statues of huskies or famous football figures.

I felt that most obvious difference between mine and my partner's data was the way we interpreted the “function of space” question. My partner gave a more verbose description of what the function of the space and how people would use it whereas I gave a short and categorical answer. Another difference between the two data collections were the locations of the points. I mainly went to locations near my commute to and from school thus there is a heavy concentration near the Light Rail system. I also visited locations where I spent most of my time such as the skatepark at Seattle Center and International District where I would often have lunch and take the train home. My partner's points were all based around the University of Washington campus, which is a key reason for why his points didn’t feature a wide variety of purposes as did my points. One might also see that the “how does the art relate to the space” answers differed between both my partner's and mine. Most of my locations were where the art was the main attraction while my partner's locations were where the art was mainly complementary to the space. Interestingly, most of my partner's points featured statues to remember school icons, whereas my points around the city incorporated a multitude of art mediums, some of which are world-renowned. The fact that I used the scope of the entire city to find data points is a key reason for the difference in the types of points we located – Seattle has a greater number and variety of art pieces that attract people from around the globe than the University of Washington, which doesn’t have many pieces known by those even outside the state.