Thematic Tarot

Motivation

The MIT Libraries/Archives is gathering a collection of Tarots, specifically those being purposefully designed to make a statement artistically, or social commentary. The question that must be addressed is how to best organize the collection to make it available to an audience who will access it online.

The Idea

The Thematic Tarot allows answers this question by categorizing tarot cards by the themes they represent. This allows for users to explore reinterpretations of the tarot based on thematic elements.

Cards are scanned, put into a searchable database, along with the text that represents the artists expression and interpretation of the cards when available. The cards can be displayed to both view the entire deck as a collection or to make individual cards viewable and comparable across collections.

Prototype Design

The front pages allows the researcher to search tarot card themes by keyword. And advanced search is possible to allow more specific searches using deck name, artist, date or geographical location.

By default, the user is displayed the full deck. Information such as the year of creation, artist, name of deck, country, and the artist’s interpretation of the deck is shown with the deck. A second view allows the user to pull up an individual card from the deck. Information such as the name, how that card should be interpreted, and themes it encompasses are displayed. Below in the scrolling window are similar cards, which are cards of the same name (2 of cups, the Hermit) from other decks. They are ordered based on level of similarity based on shared themes, which includes artistic aspects (eg. black and white, animal motifs), similarities in the intended themes of the artist (eg. gender exploration, spirituality).

Tools

In order to categorize the cards by theme, a tool must be used to reliably extract the themes from the information available in the database about the cards. A key component of the Thematic Tarot is the ability to suggest similar cards, which means a sorting algorithm must also be used that takes the themes present in each card as parameters.

Primary Audience

This tarot library is intended for scholars interested in exploring modern artists who are purposefully reinterpreting the tarot. However, the intuitive design of the library would allow anyone interested in browsing the cards to use it.

Questions Addressed

• How are people re-interpreting the same card?
• What are common themes in tarot?
• What patterns can be found across various decks?