Mapping Paris — Claire L. Kovacs

Sample social network map, made using Gephi, of letters written by Edgar Degas during the period of Mapping Paris (1855-1889)

Sample social network, made using Palladio. The Goncourt Journals. March 1855-December 1859.

A shared lesson in the medium and process of etching. All created in the same evening.

Clockwise from top-left:
Edgar Degas, Portrait of Alphonse Hirsch, 1875, Etching.
Giuseppe De Nittis, Portrait of Alphonse Hirsch, 1875, Etching.
Marcellin Desboutin, Portrait of Degas, 1875, Etching.
Giuseppe De Nittis, Portrait of Degas, 1875, Etching.

Michel Manzi. Albert Bartholomé, Edgar Degas and Michel Manzi in front of a bust of Paul Lafond, nd, Charcoal and pastel on paper.

OVERVIEW
Mapping Paris: Social and Artistic Networks 1855-1889 analyzes nineteenth-century social networks in order to chart the artistic collaborations taking place in Paris between the Universal Expositions of 1855 and 1889. The networks are plotted through primary source documents, including letters, memoirs, journals and exhibition records, allowing an examination of individuals and the social links between them. It provides a mechanism by which historical social networks can be mapped and interrogated, and will be able to be easily be adapted by others in the humanities to investigate other social systems. It considers ways in which digital projects can engage with analog (non-digital) data. Much of the project’s data is not digitized and exists in analog, in the form of non-digital published and non-published text. Mechanisms by which to source, organize and record this data has been a focal point in much of the groundwork on the project, as well as considerations of the parameters, layout and theoretical underpinnings of the database.
These primary source records of social experiences provide links between individuals, which when aggregated, slowly create a network map of the social interactions of artists in Paris between the years 1855-1889.

A recent collaboration with Dr. Forrest Stonedahl's computer science course (Augustana College, CSC 285) focused on student groups creating a program that could standardize, capture and organize manual data input. The resultant projects are currently being evaluated to choose a program to utilize in the project.

PROJECT PUBLICATIONS
Leonardo, v. 49, no. 5 (October 2016), p. 446. Available online.

PROJECT PARTICIPATION
2014. Participant, Rebuilding the Portfolio: DH for Art Historians, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History in New Media, George Mason University, supported by the Getty Foundation

PROJECT PRESENTATIONS
2016. “Updates on Mapping Paris: Social & Artistic Networks, 1855-1889” in the session Digital Art History: New Projects, New Questions at the annual conference of the College Art Association, Washington DC
2015. “Mapping Paris: Considerations of a Digital Collaboration at the Trailhead” in the session Traversing Borders: The Flâneur in Eastern Europe and Beyond at the Southeastern College Arts Conference, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
2015. “Mapping Paris: Social and Artistic Networks, 1855-1889” at Digitorium: University of Alabama Digital Humanities Conference. Tuscaloosa, Alabama
2014. “Mapping Paris: Social and Artistic Networks, 1855-1889” in the session Digital Humanities and the Visual Arts at the Mid-American College Art Association Conference, San Antonio, Texas
2014. “Mapping Paris: Social and Artistic Networks, 1855-1889” at the Arts, Humanities and Complex Networks, 5th Leonardo Satellite Symposium to NetSci2014 Conference, Berkeley, California
2013. Poster presentation, Herrenhausen Conference, (Digital) Humanities Revisited - Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Age. Nuremberg, Germany