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“It was play rather than work which enabled man to evolve his higher faculties - everything we mean by the word ‘culture’.” (Herbert Read) [1]
An alternative vision for collaboration is beginning to develop. This system relies not on the inevitable 'professional class' created by institutions but on the mass-amateurization created by social media, systems that allow users to co-ordinate their own co-operation. Although unable to direct and control the collaboration there is a greater degree of flexibility and access to a wider group of collaborators, because such online collaborations invariable make use of the ‘power law’ distribution; also known as ‘The Long Tail’. This law makes use of all possible contributions, no matter how small, a model that would be economically untenable for any institution. As these new systems fight for space with existing institutionalized approaches we are entering a period of chaos, that may be as far reaching as that instigated by the printing press. The lack of scribes in contemporary society suggests that we can predict the outcome of this period of change and if “we can see it coming, we might as well get good at it” [2]. How our institutions reconfigure themselves to the changing media landscape will determine their ability to survive and remain useful for our profession and for society as a whole. For contemporary conservators, influenced by an ongoing “revolution of common sense” [3], it is incumbent upon us as a profession to consider models of collaboration that allows everyone - public and professional - to play a part, in their own way, for such methods might assist us in understanding the values and significance material culture plays for different people. Furthermore, if “conservators provide a paradigm not just for fixing things when they are broken, but for a wider social ethos of care, where we individually and collectively take responsibility and action” [4], the development of a public conservation discourse could be considered a social duty. As a profession then social media might allow us to hold a far reaching discussion that many recognize as necessary but have not yet been able to develop into a reality. So, while the world is spinning us around and confusing us in terms of which direction to take, let’s remember that culture should be fun, there should be an element of play and experimentation within our approaches, culture should be joyous and lived not stuffy and dull, let’s think in terms of a children’s party games and together find a way to pin the long tail of collaboration on the conservation donkey [5]. Notes [1] H. Read, Anarchy & Order; Poetry & Anarchism, 1938 [2] C. Shirky, Institutions Vs. Collaboration, TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, 2005; available at URL [3] S. Muñoz-Viñas, Contemporary Theory of Conservation, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, London, 2005 [4] J. Holden and S. Jones, It’s A Material World: Caring for the public realm, Demos, London, 2008; available at URL [pdf] [5] ‘Pin the tail on the Donkey’ is a children’s game, see URL
About the author
Daniel Cull
Conservator
The Musical Instrument Museum
Website: http://dancull.wordpress.com
Contact: daniel.cull@themim.org
Daniel Cull is a Conservator, Wikipedian, Social Networker, and Blogger from the West Country of the British Isles. Trained at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, where he received a BSc in Archaeology, MA in Principles of conservation, and an MSc in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums. He was later awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the National Museum of the American Indian/Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. He currently works as an ethnographic musical instrument conservator at the Musical Instrument Museum,in Arizona.
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