The World's First Collaborative Sentence, Douglas Davis, 1994
One of the best things about the internet is the possibilty of interactivity. In any form of internet presentation the user must interact with the interface. This can be as simple as just browsing through a given set of web pages, or as some creative artists have achieved, let the users/viewers themselves create the work of art.
An example of this method is seen in a piece by Douglas Davis. Titled ‘The World’s First Collaborative Sentence, it is an internet piece in which viewers are free to add to and contribute to the forming of the sentence with the given rule that they must never use a full stop. In the development of this sentence, there has been an incredible amount of content added to sentence. At the beginning it was mainly black and white text but with time users figured out they could customize it, adding color, adding video, java…and everything. It now contains ‘fractious rans, self-advertisements and myriad minor obsessions, and links to homepages and porn sites’
Museums can offer interactivity on their own websites in the form of offering a site that is in the most basic form interactive by clicking through different pages but may also encourage discourse through forums or comments on a blog. The Louvre museum finds a playful way to engage young art enthusiats (or trying to enthusize the young for art) by creating a virtual room which they can explore and interact with a character. Thus making the art experince richer.
There is a widespread discussion on the proper use of museum blogs. There are many museums that currently have a blog yet there are doubts as to wether museums are using them correctly. I believe museums should embrace this new technology and use it as a marketing tool with which they can promote their own presence as well as stimulate discussion about art and their exhibitions with their target audience.
See: Museum Blogs
