Point Map

I created this map with the intention of visualizing when artwork for the 1913 Armory Show was made, where it was made, and in which medium simultaneously. Using a data visualization tool called Flourish, I created a map in which each point represents a work of art, the color of the point corresponds to its medium indicated in the key to the left, and the scrubber bar at the bottom allows you to see in real time when and where on the map each work was created. This mapping tool provides considerable potential for my Armory Show dataset, but my data in its current form can be easily misinterpreted, which I will address below.

The point map was the most difficult visual to create due to the amount of time that went into adjusting my spreadsheet, but it is by far the most rewarding to see in its completed form.

I used free software provided by Flourish to create this map. Although the process was time-consuming, Flourish was very easy to use in that it told me exactly which fields my spreadsheet required to have filled out in order to create a working map.

With Flourish’s required fields in mind, I set out to clean up my spreadsheet. I already had each artist’s location of origin input as city, state, and country fields in my dataset, but Flourish required the latitude and longitude of each location rather than the names. In order to quickly convert place names into coordinates, I use a geocoding website called GPSVisualizer. First, I made a spreadsheet including just my location fields and saved that as a .CSV file. Next I uploaded that file to GPSVisualizer and allowed the script to run, which you can see in the video to the left.

GPSVisualizer then provided me with a .GPX file, which I then used MyGeodata Cloud to convert the new coordinate data into an .XLSX file which I could then put back into my spreadsheet.

The first time I ran GPSVisualizer, only about half of my locations converted correctly to coordinates. I made yet another spreadsheet with the unconverted locations, ran the program again, leaving me with only about 10 locations that I then converted to coordinates by hand using Google Maps. Finally, I had all of the coordinates separated into “Latitude” and “Longitude” fields in my spreadsheet!

All I needed to do was include the dates the artworks were made. If the work was made in one year, I put that year in the “Start Date” field, and if the creation spanned several years I included the end year in the “End Date” field. I finally included the name of each painting in the next field for my own reference, and finally, input my own “medium” data into the column Flourish called “Category,” which determines the color of each point on the map. I simplified the names of mediums in order to simplify the visual by combining things like plaster, marble, or terracotta into one “sculpture” field.

You can view the final spreadsheet that I uploaded into Flourish to create my Point Map below.

Some potential flaws in the data are first that these locations correspond to the birthplace of each artist, rather than exactly where each work was made. I don’t know whether the artist lived in different places, or worked in more than one location. While there is information known about the multiple cities in which many artists have worked, there is often no way to be sure exactly where an individual work was created. Therefore, while this is a cool-looking visual, it is likely not accurate. It is only a stepping-off point, showing what data can become if one has the time and resources to track down obscure data.