Thursday, 22.02.2007 ::: 15:40 - 16:00

From Web 2.0 to 2nd Life: the Ultimate Consensus or an Aggregation of the Mediocre? - Susan Hazan

[... abstract: ]

Since blogs, Wikis, Flickrs and YouTubes and all their numerous wannabes have gone mainstream we have come to recognise how the social tools that characterize Web 2.0 are more a paradigm shift in the way we use the Internet, rather than simply a new set of standards or services. At the same time, the folk are not simply tagging their way through bookmarks, video collections and online diaries, they are also moving into new kinds of online real estate where life is immersive, persuasive and, at times, highly lucrative.
This presentation will look at the social tools that enable novel kinds of distribution, participation and aggregation and will examine the ways in which memory institutions - museums, libraries and archives - are located within these evolving spaces. Through a series of case studies we will look at some of the issues that surface when an avatar's jewellery needs copyright protection; when critical aggregations of micro-content are tagged together in unruly clouds, and when certain museums, once mobilised in 3D worlds have enough credibility to be able to take on a [second] life of their own.
While museums, archives and libraries built initially upon their professional legacies from their physical counterparts as they migrated to the World Wide Web, Web 2.0 spaces are fervently building their new legacies upon the folk. This paper queries whether these new iterations achieve similar measures of trust and professionalism as they evolve out of the ultimate consensus or whether they merely end up as an excess of superfluous micro-content and an aggregation of the mediocre.

 
[... cv: ]

Dr. Susan Hazan is currently Curator of New Media and Head of the Internet Office at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (since 1992), identifying, and implementing electronic architectures for the gallery, and outreach programs (http://www.imj.org.il). Her Masters and PhD at Goldsmiths College, University of London in Media and Communications focused on electronic architectures in the contemporary museum. Hazan has published numerous publications on new media in education, art, and museums and regularly presents at international conferences. In 2002-2003 was visiting lecturer at the Computing Department at Goldsmiths, University of London teaching Web Design and Critical E-Museology, with an emphasis on the correlation between cultural theory and contemporary practice and guest lecture in the Museology Department at Haifa University, Israel.
Professional affiliations include; EVA representative in Israel (http://www.evaconferences.com), World Summit Award (WSA) coordinator in Israel (http://www.wsis-award.org), founding partner in Digital Heritage, Israel (http://www.digital-heritage.org.il) and Co-Chair of the Annual Jerusalem Conference on the Digitisation of Cultural Heritage (http://www.minervaisrael.org.il//evaminerva.html). Hazan sits on the Museums and the Web - Program Committee 2001-2007, and for the Virtual Systems and MultiMedia Conferences to Europe (VSMM2005/2006), served on the ISEA Interactive City Jury, InterSociety for Electronic Arts Symposium to be held in San Jose, California, USA in August 2006 and on the Curatoral Panel for Netartsorg - Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, Japan (http://www.netarts.org).
(http://musesphere.com/cv).

 
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