Beyond the Mouse

April 17, 2006 7:46 AM

Folkvine: A creative presentation of Florida folk artists and their work. The interface can be a little baroque, but there's some nifty stuff inside.
posted by Miko (5 comments total)

Oy. What a nice idea. I liked the little intro movie, and once I drilled down to a few of the artist sites they were good, but god, "baroque" hardly does justice to the willfull obfuscation engaged in by the site designer. If I didn't know better, I'd say that that website is a plot perpetrated by a rival bunch of Florida Folk Artists designed to raise frustration so high with the featured artissts that their real contributions are not only overlooked, but dismissed outright.
posted by OmieWise at 8:28 AM on April 17, 2006

I agree, good idea ruined by poor web design.
posted by cedar key at 9:06 AM on April 17, 2006

The best part is, the web designer's time was very likely government-funded. Your tax dollars at work!
posted by Miko at 11:46 AM on April 17, 2006

Miko-I'm sorry I started off the discussion the way I did. I hope it didn't lead people to not click through, because the content is great. Still, after spending several minutes looking for a contact email address (I finally found one), I'm astounded to see that the website was designed at least partly under the auspices of The Department of Film and Digital Media at a Florida U. I cringe for the program if this is the product.
posted by OmieWise at 12:19 PM on April 17, 2006

Your comment's entirely justified, Omiewise. I do feel sorry for the artists, because it becomes so quickly exasperating to try to drill down to the actual content.

Partly the reason I posted it was that the web design was so....out there. Perhaps I should have framed the FPP differently to make that the focus, rather than the art it supposedly highlights. For more about the site development, here's the citation from the folklore newsletter I found it in:

Natalie Underberg, Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Folklore at the University of Central Florida, is creating folklife in education resources with the UCF Cultural Heritage Alliance. Her office is working on projects that merge folklore research and education with the exploration of new media and technology. Two such projects are the East Mims Oral History Project Web site, which details the past and present of East Mims. Premiered at the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Park, "The East Mims Oral History Project" combines archival recordings, oral history, and contemporary animation to enliven the agricultural past, religious community, and civil-rights efforts of East Mims's residents.

CHA's largest site is Folkvine. This Website (www.folkvine.org) features the art and community of some of Florida's greatest folk artists. Folkvine treats online experience as an opportunity to better understand the history, personality, and sensibility of each of these artists. Folkvine is being expanded into K-12 curriculum with online tour guides next year. Currently underway is an educational computer game mod based on "The Turkey Maiden" (a story from Kristin Congdon's Uncle Monday and Other Florida Tales). More information about these projects is available at www.sfdm.ucf.edu/heritagealliance
posted by Miko at 12:43 PM on April 17, 2006