neva.

The book Interaction: Artistic Practice in the Network (2001) edited by Amy Scholder and Jordan Crandall is a forum-based debate among different artists, scholars, students, critics etc. about art on the Internet. In the Introduction, Jordan Crandall writes about how online communication tools have changed the art process: “With the Internet, we have a vehicle of artistic production and distribution on a scale we have never seen before.” He claims, that “its relationship to the museum/gallery system is not as urgent as the need for the continual development of inclusive platforms that take full advantage of networks”, and that “the relevance of art must (also) be debated in a US-dominated, globalized culture that, on the one hand has no use for art, and on the other hand regards everyone as an artist who can advantage of digital tools”. Thanks to the fact that artistic expressions can be possible on a global scale, Crandall says that the context of art is rapidly expanding towards more inclusive and more democratic realm. Moreover, in his work The Electronic World: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts (1993), Richard Lanham agrees that “the electronic word democratized the world of arts and letters” (Lanham in Grusin 1996: 40). What could follow is what Crandall calls “a vast expressionistic soup”, meaning that there is a danger that ‘everything’ can be art – from design and advertising, to business, streamed videos, and lifestyles (as ‘the art of living’) (Crandall 2001: 3).

References:

Scholder, Amy and Jordan Crandall (2001): Interaction: Artistic Practice in the Network. New York: Distributed Art Publishers Inc.

Grusin, Richard (1996): What is an Electronic Author? Theory and the Technological Fallacy. In Markley, Robert (red.). Virtual Realities and Their Discontents, s. 39-53. London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

***

Michael Miller, the author of the book YouTube 4 You (2007) claims it is not the videos that make YouTube so appealing but "the sharing aspect of the site that defines its success". Although I have already discussed that in one of my previous blog posts (about being an active media 'prosumer'), YouTube visitors need both consume and contribute the videos. That's the basic concept of collaboration, which can - somehow - turn the YouTube users into being a part of 'mass collaboration on builing an enormous video database', too! But I should rather stick to my research paper in the first place, and leave this interpretation open to discuss some other time...

Reference:
Miller, Michael (2007): YouTube 4 You. Indianapolis: Que Publishing.

Introduction! (missing)

1. What is collaboration? Why are people collaborating?

The term collaborate, Compact Oxford English Dictionary would say, means to »work jointly on an activity or project«. Wikipedia describes collaboration as »a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals”. It seems that today a contemporary collaborative could include just two artists - much like the model of two musicians co-composing and performing a score. »Perhaps the factor that would most define a group as a contemporary collaborative is the membership's reasoning behind choosing to work in that manner« (Raaf and Youngs 2000: 1). But for no matter what reason people decide to collaborate, it can be argued that working together is not the only thing that matters when talking about collaborative acts, but also the context and the society system, in which these processes are going on. Scott Rettberg (2005) claims that the »society functions as a system in its own right«. He mentions Luhmann’s distinction as an important consideration in a network context:

(…) whenever people are collaborating on a project of knowledge sharing or creative production, they are collaborating not only with other people, but with a system which they, the other participants, and the communicative environment help to create. In networked computer environments in particular, collaboration is always both collaboration with other people and with systems. Processes are co-creators of collective knowledge. Any collaboration is the product both of its authors and the social system their collaboration creates (Rettberg 2005: 1).

Since society system, I would argue, may not simply work just by itself, it is important to mention the role of the leader who sets the rules for collaboration and puts all the collective work together into a complex. But I will return to this topic in my research paper later on. Firstly, let us try to figure out why people are collaborating...

»On a deeper level, the fact that artists are increasingly turning towards collaborative practice and identity is a manifestation of a shift in their own perceived cultural role. The role of the artist in society is finally accelerating away from the musty, modernist, anti-social art star phenomenon (á la Francis Bacon) and towards one of artist as soaked in the streaming undercurrents of information networks and systems consciousness« (Raaf and Youngs 2000: 1). Looking from this point of view, artists do no not collaborate in order to become famous or well-known, but to establish and improve their cultural consciousness, and to be a part of something that is above themselves. The main idea about artistic collaboration, what an artist Charles Green claims, is that it is “a test in which individual identity is subordinated to a so-called higher good - the work of art”. He compares this with working on a magazine, and claims that not everyone is suited to cooperation. His point is that “the self-presentation is constructed, usually self-consciously, and that the resulting figure is sometimes central within the work of art” (Green in Lovik 2006).

On the other hand, some people can also argue that collaborative art is about becoming noticed... (missing part: What about those who collaborate to become famous?)

In another point of view, the act of gathering people to work together on the same project can cause more creativity, more ideas, and more success. The purpose is to make greater works of art than what could be done by only one person. Keith Sawyer (2007) who writes about Group Genius, claims that a “collaboration is the secret to breakthrough creativity”. According to this statement, the question that might appear is whether collaboration art could be more creative than individualistic art? Keith Sawyer argues, that “the psychology of the individual mind couldn’t explain group genius.” That is why he uses a research tool called interaction analysis which allows scientists to chart the minute-to-minute interactions that make collaboration so powerful. As Aleks Jakulin and Gregor Leban (2003) explain, the term interaction combines both co-operation and co-dependency, and can only be explained as a whole. That means, although collaborative artists can been independent in one sense, on the other hand their final common work cannot be explain individually but through interactions between all of the artists (or their works). Sawyer applies this method to improvisational theatre dialogues, and shows the unexpected insights that emerge from the group. He argues that collaboration drives innovation. Most radical breakthroughs like television, airplane, e-mail, and even board game Monopoly emerged from a collaborative web (Sawyer 2007). But there is one condition for collaboration to work in the real world, that Sawyer mentions is important – improvisations need to be guided and planned, “but in a way that doesn’t kill the power of improvisation to generate unexpected insights” (Sawyer 2007). This again leads us to a suggestion that the person who leads and guides people through a collaboration project might play an important role (or even the most important) in what the final result is going to be. Still, I would agree that the success lies upon artists who collaborate. »With the right mix of several minds and talents working on the same project, a true collaboration can beget the possibility of making a greater statement than perhaps one individual could make alone« (Raaf and Youngs 2000: 1).

2. Who is collaborating?

Sabrina Raaf and Amy Youngs (2000: 1) explain that collaboration between one or more artists is certainly not a new process:

From the atelier of Rembrant to that of Andy Warhol, artists throughout history have worked with teams of apprentices who were intrinsic to their creative output. In the end however, the completed works were known under one name - that of the head artist of the atelier. The 20th century saw the proliferation of artist's groups with self-assigned identities - as opposed to identities or labels assigned to them by critics and/or historians. These included groups such as the Futurists, Dadaists, Surrealists, Bauhaus, Gutai, Fluxists, and more recently, the Harry Who. These were groups of artists with similar visual and conceptual sensibilities, which functioned as both social communities for the artists and as think-tanks. Yet, the works created within the groups were still, for the most part, attributed to individual artists (Raaf and Youngs 2000: 1).

Also, when coming to literary studies collectively written books are not unknown (Rettberg 2005). »Both the Judeo-Christian Bible and the works of Homer, for instance, could be considered as collective texts. The writing of the Old and New Testaments took place over about two thousand years and involved at least forty different writers, some of whom were adapting elements of an oral tradition« (Rettberg 2005: 1).

(missing part)

For no matter what reasons different people today are collaborating in art projects, »there has been a rapid increase of late in interest around consumer participation in media culture« (Burgess 2006: 201). Moreover, Jean Burgess also claims that the increased availability and power of digital technologies, combined with the Internet, allow ‘everyone’ to be a media participant (or what Lessig calls “creative consumer”). In her article Conceptualizing personal media (2008) Marika Lüders explains, that (personal media) users now have the technical resources to create texts, photos, private radio shows (podcasting) and videos that are generally accessible to an unknown audience. The combination of the internet, PC and evolvement of less expensive and more manageable media production tools give leeway for the amateur media producer (Lüders 2008: 693–694). This means that, especially internet phenomenon might have changed the whole process of making art towards more collaborative actions among random people with less or no real artistic skills, by using new techniques and new technologies. Due to the help of the right (and now affordable and manageable) equipment, amateurs produce and distribute music, videos, texts and photographs, so that »'(a)nyone' becomes qualified to be a media producer and is likely to have an audience to their productions« (Lüders 2008: 694). If a media producer can be called an artist as well, is a tricky question. But since I agreed to take a very broad definition of art in terms of products that were done by someone by the cause of particular feelings or emotions (and that main point of my research paper is about collaboration itself), we can generalize that everyone could take part in collaborative art project as long he has the right tools to make his part of the work, and does not really need to worry about his skills as much as if, for example, he would have an exhibition in an art gallery. However, the Internet audience might also be more tolerate and less sensible when approaching art on the web. For this reason, there might be more people willing to collaborate on-line than in a 'real' life. It is undoubtedly true that the Internet, as a huge part of the mass media has millions of users who can appear either as producers or consumers - or even both, what Lister and others (2003) call 'prosumers'. Lüders claims, that recognizing the audience as co-producers of meanings in mass communication processes became particularly important in media studies, yet audiences are no longer recognized as merely co-producing media messages by interpreting their meaning. They take on an increasingly active role as producers of media messages in the first place. »The effort to include the audience can be seen as a response to the success of the participatory web and the increased significance of individually and collaboratively produced content« (Lüders 2008: 695).
Wikipedia, Flickr or Deviantart are just a few among many examples where amateurs can have an impact of the content that is being spread all around the world. “We experience the web not as a unified hierarchy of organized information, but as a collective pool of knowledge, which we can access, view, and reorganize in a variety of ways » (Rettberg 2005: 2).

(missing part)

Lorrie Faith Cranor, author of the article Internet Collaboration: Good, Bad, and Downright Ugly (1996) says Internet is often hyped as an excellent tool for facilitating collaboration between geographically distant people. She writes about internet being a impersonal medium, and that this also is one of the biggest difficulties Internet collaborators face. She claims, that in order for a group of people to work together effectively, it is important for them to understand each other. This cannot be easily achieved electronically, but once it is, reaching a consensus, compromising, communicating with each other, and understanding each other's concerns become much easier for members of a group. However, Cranor claims that members of electronic groups who have never met in person often are unaware of other members' personalities. This is why they tend to have trouble gauging group members' enthusiasm for an idea and easily misinterpret others' ideas. »Without subtle visual queue, a miscommunication can easily go unnoticed until someone takes issue with something which nobody meant to imply and a flame war erupts« (Cranor 1996). Among eight tips for effective Internet collaboration she is pointing out, the first one is concerning the leader of a group: »Appoint a single leader or a small group of leaders who are responsible for making sure everything runs smoothly«. She also suggests that these leaders do not need to have any decision-making authority, but they should have some administrative responsibilities, for example setting and enforcing deadlines.

In his article All Together Now: Collective Knowledge, Collective Narratives, and Architectures of Participation Scott Rettberg (2005) writes about the importance of the constrains, needed for collaboration to work. As a way of collaboration, Rettberg takes a deeper look at hypertext. In his example of the hypertext novel The Unknown, the personalities involved were able to make up the rules of collaboration as they went along because they were known to each other. As he argues, collective narrative projects in which the majority of contributors do not know each other pose different challenges (Rettberg 2005: 4). This could also go for other collaborative projects, like BlueSfear Worm. The digital art worm created by the artists at Blue Sfear with the goal of creating the largest graphics worm on the internet invites you to “become a part of history by adding your image to (our) ever growing worm”. Although everyone may participate, there are certain rules (like using the right format or the same matching colours) you have to follow as well. »Successful collaboration is always built upon constraints, whether the creators of the collective work explicitly agree upon the constraints or they are simply built into the system used to create the work. Unlike individually authored works, collaboratively authored works are both the work itself and the series of negotiations between subjects that govern the work’s creation« (Rettberg 2005: 4). What I would like to point out here is that society system is, as Rettberg says, an important part of collaboration process, but can this system exist without being led? If not, who is that “someone” who sets the rules for how a particular collaborative society system should work?

(missing part: the constraints are more important than the leader!)

3. How to participate in a collaboration?

»Collective literary and artistic production in new media ranges from works in which principal authors are equally conscious participants in all aspects of the work’s production, to those in which the contributors are not at all conscious that their activity is resulting in artistic production« (Rettberg 2005: 7). He distinguishes three types of participation a contributor might have in a collective narrative project:

Conscious participation: Contributors are fully conscious of explicit constraints, of the nature of the project, and of how their contribution to it might be utilized.
Contributory participation: Contributors may not be aware of how their contribution fits into the overall architecture of the project, or even of the nature of the project itself, but they do take conscious steps to make their contribution available to the project.
Unwitting participation: Texts utilized in the collective narrative are gathered by the text-machine itself, and contributors have no conscious involvement in the process of gathering the material.

This might be relevant to all collaborative art projects also. Going back to The BlueaSfear Worm, their artists (or contributors) are fully conscious about their participation. They know the rules of the project, and therefore also know how the final piece of art will look like if they want to take part in it. Make Art, a youtube video made by guy using a nickname called "cheeckychen" is a contributively way of participation. His attempt was to open an art category on YouTube, so he encouraged people to send him art-like videos containing the words »make art«. In the end, he combined those videos into one that was uploaded on YouTube. The participants had not been told about how their clips should look like or about its length, not even if they will be included in the final complex for sure. The Longest Poem in the World, composed by aggregating real-time public Twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme, which is constantly growing at approximately 4000 verses per day, Twitter users probably did not intend to participate. Another example is Darren Solomon's site, inbflat.net, that “features 20 YouTube videos of musicians, many of whom don't know each other, playing various melodies in the key of B flat” (Sutter 2009). Still, some people might argue, that this is not a collaborative act at all since the authors were not agreed to participate (or moreover, do not even know there are a part of it!).

4. Remix art? (missing)

Conslusion! (missing)

References! (missing)

petek, 20. november 2009

My final video on Online Collaboration and Remix Art on YouTube!!!

sreda, 18. november 2009

Artistic production and distribution on a global scale

torek, 17. november 2009

An interactive Internet-based work

My almost-final video is on YouTube!

nedelja, 15. november 2009

Some more useful stuff...

"Everybody is something. And what are you?"

All Blog Posts Together Now: A Draft of My Research Paper

neva.

Arhiv spletnega dnevnika

O meni