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Phillip Endicott is no stranger to the Seattle-area arts and culture scene, having held strategic jobs with successful endeavors including the Columbia City Farmers Market, Consolidated Works (a multi-disciplinary arts center), the Seattle Men’s Chorus, and On the Boards, a theater group. He’s also worked in the high-tech arena while at Festivals.com and habit.com. But it took a graduate internship and one of the biggest arts events in Seattle’s recent history to finally combine his experience in the arts with his interest in technology.
The Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park, which opened Jan. 20, 2007, at the north end of the Seattle waterfront, has transformed a nine-acre industrial site into a beautifully landscaped space for outdoor sculpture with incredible views of the Space Needle, downtown, the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. Admission is free.
Endicott’s internship, which began in September 2006, originally focused on launching and expanding the park’s website (www.seattleartmuseum.org/visit/OSP), which serves as its primary communications link and information source for staff, media, and the public. But getting the site up and running was only the first part of Endicott’s objective. “I’ve been sifting through hundreds of digital images and documents to create an organizational structure and to feed the website, but I’m also hoping the site will support a ‘virtual gallery’ that will provide access to information about artists, artwork, and well, tons of related information, a chronicle of the park,” he explains.
For his Capstone Project, Endicott wants to take the Olympic Sculpture Park’s website to a higher level of service and intricacy, utilizing technology and database software to coordinate and manage the growing collection of images, video, audio and documents about the art, artists, and development of the park. Using a web-based interface, he plans to develop a multi-media experience to engage museum visitors interested in learning more about the art and culture, stories and history of the park. Museum staff will also be able to use the website’s organizational structure to deposit, store, and retrieve data, and to digitize and store documents and pictures to make them easily accessible.
“The virtual visit will be an incredibly valuable tool for families planning visits to the park, students conducting research, and teachers wanting to connect youth to art in new and exciting ways,” says Endicott, whose internship with SAM will continue into the Spring quarter.