FAQ
From WikiSprint GVA
Contents |
What are the motivations behind this project?
There are several motivations:
- It's an experiment in collaborative knowledge production, which i'm very interested in (having worked on numerous collaborative visual art projects during the past years, see for example aether9.org).
- As a visual artist, working in media arts, i'm highly interested in techniques of visualization of otherwise invisible processes (electromagnetic emmissions, botnet traffic, etc). In the case of this workshop, an important element will be the "visual representation" of the mental (and physical) process of textual content production, displayed in an exhibition context.
- It's an attempt at promoting the contribution to Wikipedia in the fields of contemporary art education. Having worked as assistant in an art school department (artslashmedia.net), I believe that there is a huge missed opportunity in the field of higher education (universities, art schools), to step in and consider Wikipedia not only as a "bad" source for student papers, but as a powerful tool that has a number of assets:
- it can teach students to research, organize information and write in good scientific prose.
- it can motivate students in their research practice / exercises, since the product of their efforts will be seen and appreciated (or deleted...) not only by their teacher, but by millions of readers.
- it can improve their critical perception of online information sources. Understanding the editorial mechanisms of wikipedia (most importantly, the interaction between editors, including heated debates about notability, neutrality and conflicts of interest) will help them in approaching online sources with a critical mindset, and enable them to evaluate the reliability of an article (based on the edit history, the editing patterns, etc).
- it can improve the visibility of cultural and artistic fields / practices outside of the mainstream: if covered in extensive wikipedia articles, they will benefit from the excellent ranking of Wikipedia in search results. Information from such an article is likely to be quoted in the press, "recycled" into blogs, essais, educational textbooks...
- it can offer exposure and peer-recognition to faculties, research departments etc, as they can become respected contributors to featured articles, play an active role in WikiProjects and Task Forces... This exposure will be even more significant in the contemporary art field, as the number of contributors in this field is extremely scarce (compared, for instance, to the science field).
What are the main issues of the VJ article?
The Wikipedia article on the artistic discipline of "VJing" is a typical example for the shortcomings of most "contemporary art"-related articles:
- low number of regular editors.
- frequent "link-spam" edits and self-promotion.
- lack of properly sourced information.
- lack of high-quality free images/media.
It's important to point out that many articles on the field of contemporary art suffer from the same shortcomings. To quote a Wikipedian from the (now inactive) contemporary art project:
"Fine or visual arts is one of Wikipedia’s comparatively weakest subject areas and content about contemporary art, in particular, is scarce. Many potential ‘expert’ contributors – artists, theorists, critics, etc. seem to want to use Wikipedia, but in a manner that tends to conflict with its encyclopaedic function and neutral point of view."
What will be the outcome of this workshop?
Evidently, a 5-day workshop will not solve all those problems. However, it can have some effects:
- improving the base of the article (references, improved article structure) will be useful in the long-term and help the expansion of the article.
- the visibility of this workshop, at the Mapping exhibition and in the media, will perhaps fuel future contributions.
- the workshop organizer and participants will have that warm feeling that "at least they tried";)
Who is participating in the workshop?
The list of participants isn't complete at this moment, and we are still accepting people willing to join the project. To see the current list of participants, refer to the page Team of contributors.
Who is directing the workshop?
The workshop will be directed/facilitated by Manuel Schmalstieg (b. 1976 in Berne, CH), an artist, programmer, designer and educator working across several disciplines including digital media, live performance, print design and software art.
You can read more about his work here: http://ms-studio.net
His profile on Wikipedia: User:1904.CC (Talk|Contribs)
What is Greyscale Press?
Greyscale Press is an artistic project co-founded by Manuel Schmalstieg, who defines it as "an experiment in print-on-demand publishing, producing books using openly available, anonymous, open-source or public domain material". The resulting items are produced in extremely limited editions through various print-on-demand services. The official website is http://greyscalepress.com
