Model-Database-Interface: A study of the redesign of the ArtBase, and the role of user agency in born-digital archives

本论文批判性地审视了研究者与数字艺术组织Rhizome合作重新设计网络艺术ArtBase档案的嵌入式实践。网络艺术挑战了艺术品作为单一、独立对象的概念。要执行和体验，网络艺术取决于硬件和软件环境，网络协议以及用户交互之间的对齐。因此，网络艺术档案馆作为用户（包括工作人员、艺术家、程序员、学者）和数字基础设施之间的关系网络而运作。这种网络化的条件使档案馆界面的重新设计变得复杂，但也为重新思考不透明的数字机构环境中的用户代理提供了机会。为了探索和扩大潜在的知情用户互动和干预，本研究开发了一个原始的框架设计的数字档案馆：模型数据库接口（MDI）。MDI跟踪并显示数据模型、数据库软件和用户界面之间的联系，反映机构和社区分类、使用和维护的过程。本论文展示了MDI如何应用设计原型、数据可视化和用户研讨会来打开底层数据结构和过程，以进行检查和干预。此外，它还讨论了ArtBase重新设计如何采用链接开放数据（LOD）模型来支持持续的用户参与和协作。因此，MDI被定位为一个概念和方法框架，集中用户参与和关键意义的重新设计的完成之外。MDI的发展及其在LOD环境中的应用，为界面设计理论和实践做出了独特的贡献。这项研究也有助于数字存档领域的重新设想的ArtBase接口作为一个网站的基础设施反转和用户协作。超越了网络艺术的特殊情况，本文讨论的策略适用于各种数字界面环境，这些环境重视用户代理的作用

This thesis critically examines the researcher's embedded practice of redesigning the ArtBase archive of net art in collaboration with digital arts organization Rhizome. Net art challenges the notion of artworks as single, self-contained objects. To be performed and experienced, net art depends upon alignments between hardware and software environments, network protocols, as well as user interactions. Therefore, the archive of net art operates as a network of relations between users-including staff, artists, programmers, academics-and digital infrastructure. This networked condition complicates a redesign of the archive's interface, but also opens opportunities to rethink the agency of users within opaque, digital institutional environments. To explore and expand the potential for informed user interaction and intervention, this research develops an original framework for the design of born-digital archives: Model-Database-Interface (MDI). MDI traces and makes visible the links between data model, database software, and user interface, reflecting processes of institutional and community-based classification, use, and maintenance. This thesis demonstrates how MDI applies design prototypes, data visualizations, and user workshops to open up underlying data structures and processes to inspection and intervention. Further, it discusses how the ArtBase redesign adopts a linked open data (LOD) model to support ongoing user engagement and collaboration. Thereby MDI is positioned as a conceptual and methodological framework that centers user participation and critical meaning-making beyond the redesign's completion. The development of MDI as well as its application in LOD environments, make distinctive contributions to interface design theory and practice. This study also contributes to the field of digital archiving by reimagining the ArtBase interface as a site for infrastructural inversion and user collaboration. Reaching beyond the particular case of net art, the strategies discussed in this thesis are applicable to a variety of digital interface contexts that place value on the role of user agency