Designing for Appreciation: How Digital Spaces Can Support Art and Culture

Throughout history, a complex network of human actors shaped how the general public perceived art. Today, social media platforms and their algorithms influence artful experiences for billions. How has this changed the appreciation and perception of art? The role of visual art as items we use to define ourselves and our societies motivates research to explore how recommendation algorithms impact our ability to appreciate and perceive art. There are three aspects to explore: the art metadata and algorithm functionality, conversations with artworld experts, and redesigning digital art experiences. These three methods will follow open science practices and methods by releasing open-access datasets and research prototypes. Ultimately, this proposed thesis aims to contribute to theories of content base algorithmic recommendation and its role in presenting art and culture to users.