{"id":1389,"date":"2010-02-04T15:30:15","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T23:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2010\/02\/the_cumulative_value_of_storie\/"},"modified":"2010-02-04T15:30:15","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T23:30:15","slug":"the_cumulative_value_of_storie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/the_cumulative_value_of_storie.php","title":{"rendered":"The cumulative value of stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social anthropologist and ”chief culture officer” Grant McCracken has some great thoughts bubbling in his recent blog posts<\/a>. He’s wondering out loud about finding ways to capture and share the narratives and histories of the objects we wear, use, and pass along. His most recent post wonders if attaching such stories would make recycling and reusing things more compelling and even more valued. Says he:<\/p>\n

What if objects straight from the factory seemed somehow orphaned,
\nsmaller and less interesting for the fact of their pristine condition.
\n If we care about recycling, we want objects to be better at absorbing
\nand recording and reporting their histories. Of course, some objects
\nwill be incapable of telling stories: bottles and newspapers for
\ninstance. But clothing, furniture, technology, these could be storyful.
\nAnd they could spared the landfill for one or more cycles of ownership
\nby the stories they bring us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea brings to mind social experiments that do just this, like Where’s George<\/a>, that lets you track the travels and experiences of the dollar bill in your wallet (assuming someone logged it in and its various owners continued the story); or like Bookcrossing<\/a>, which lets you release your favorite books into the wild and track where and with whom they make their impact (which I blogged about way back when<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But now I’m thinking about different bits of physical symbolism in arts and culture, and how we might bring narrative into their life: The physical ticket and the theater seat. When you think about it, a single theater seat is the stage for a growing narrative of the shows experienced, the people sharing that experience, and the thoughts and emotions that found their home there. And yet, when we issue tickets, we print a fresh one that ignores and denies any such history or extended narrative. Who sat in this seat before you? What did they see? How did the experience effect them? How does your experience conflict or resonate with that narrative? What did YOU think when you were sitting there a year, or a decade, or two decades ago?<\/p>\n

What if each seat in a theater space had its own story, written by each occupant over time? What if the tenant of that seat could learn about a previous tenant and their experiences, then add their own to the narrative, and pass it along to the next person who happens to sit there? This could be accomplished through a web site, like Where’s George or Bookcrossing. Or it could be attached to the object of a re-envisioned ticket that gets used over and over, and encourages little notes or scraps, or photos (a passport book, perhaps). I’m even guessing there could be “an app for that,” accessible through your mobile device while sitting in the seat.<\/p>\n

I’m fond of the bed and breakfast establishments that leave a journal in each room, where  occupants can share some portion of their experiences there. Sometimes, the same room is a family tradition, and those narratives can stretch years or decades. The room and the journal become the stewards of those intertwining stories, and the medium through which those stories are shared.<\/p>\n

The theater ticket, and the theater seat, seem ripe for similar opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social anthropologist and ”chief culture officer” Grant McCracken has some great thoughts bubbling in his recent blog posts. He’s wondering out loud about finding ways to capture and share the narratives and histories of the objects we wear, use, and pass along. His most recent post wonders if attaching such stories would make recycling and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}