Increasing numbers of web users are not just browsing anymore, but also curating their own content — gathering favorite feeds and videos, writing their own commentary, pimping and preening their Facebook profiles. In this emerging on-line reality, creative content is less and less separate (a web site you visit or link to), and more and more integral (a widget you hang in your own virtual space).
Anyone with a web site or blog can easily embed video directly in their space — just cut and paste the code from YouTube or Google Video or a dozen other media sites. And services such as ArtShare let you hang artworks from great museums in your virtual space, as well.
As if to prove the point that even the most static and discrete cultural forms are moving into this embedded world, Google recently launched a new set of tools to allow anyone to embed entire books on their web site (well, at least copyright clear books…just teasers for other books). I’ve included an embedded version of an economics classic below.
What does it mean for arts organizations and arts managers as art, itself, becomes less of a thing you go to, and more of a thing that’s part of your own public expression? It’s fantastic for our team when cultural expression is more directly connected to people’s lives and their sense of self. But it also challenges our traditional way of running our organizations, which are designed (and paid for) on the concept of a gate where we charge admission.
Hi Andrew,
The idealistic part of me likes to believe that people won’t stop viewing art in person because they have more access to it on the web. In fact I can see these widgets working in two very positive ways towards admissions: 1) “extending” the visitor’s recent (in person) visit to a museum by offering a way to spread the word about the works of art they fell in love with, in turn 2) inspiring their social network online to then visit the museum to see the works in person.
I think the bigger challenge for art managers is making sure that their institution (their curators) takes ownership over the content that is out there (and creates new content) and is the definitive voice on the content. If this is achieved then an institution can continue to teach beyond the visit and explain why one needs to see the art in person to really experience it.
Anyway, I love the blog, I am a subscriber on my Google reader, another great Google application!
Thanks Tom,
Great comment. I’d agree that the challenge falls to the curators and cultural managers to adapt and engage in this new world. Sadly, I’m mostly seeing defensive behavior in the organizations that might be innovating.
Andrew