There’s a delicate tension in most creative work, between the personal and the universal. An author or artist or performer can explore the most personal of their perspectives, and the result resonates because it speaks for many. In the traditional arts, the audience is often witness to the personal expression…sitting in the dark and watching those in the light. In the emerging world, however, we can all write our personal perspectives in a public place, to mix and mingle with other stories, similarly conceived.
Case in point is 43 Places, a site that allows anyone to describe the places they’ve been (with photos and text and links) and to explore the places they’d like to go (through the photos and text and links of others who have been there).
If I’m longing to visit Iceland, for example, I can find photos and stories and tips and rants from a world of authors. Certainly, I won’t find the authority, ratings, and research of Fodors, but I’m not always looking for that. Sometimes, it takes a personal perspective to know a place.
It will be extraordinary to watch a generation of audiences weened on this technology, on this personal story-telling, sit in the boxes we’ve built for witnessing other people’s personal expression (the theaters, concert halls, and such). The experience for them will either be completely anachronistic, or intimately familiar, or something in between. I’m eager to find out which.
