« from Mary in response to the request for readings | Main | in the open »
'for that a feigned example hath as much force to teach as a true example'...? 
01.05.2007, 12:06 PM
In terms of the role of author and editor. Sol G (I think) posted some wonderful thoughts a few weeks back about the role of editors in mass creativity. I'd really like to hear more from Mitch about his experience curating the networked-book experiment that he's just started working up offline. How do you deal with arguments? How do you edit arguments? How do you judge where to namecheck a comment and where to just incorporate it?
I want to know what's going on in MItch's head as he tries to turn a cacophony of input into a muscular text. And I'm not sure there's really any discussion about that experience out there. There's plenty of mythology about 'the writer': the solitude of creativity and all that. Think of Thoreau, Virginia Woolf and so on. But I can't think of anyone who writes about the experience or role of a new-media editor or curator as such. And it is different to the role of a print editor.
I suppose you could argue that the ancient orators were curators or editors of the 'commonplaces' or topoi that Ong describes as typical of an oral culture. Hence, as an online editor watches consensus emerge out of discussions, absorbs the results back into the discourse, and enables its redeployment elsewhere, they could be said to play a similar role to an ancient orator. But that would be to elide the differences between aural and written culture; I know Bob remarked on the effect of the Web in appearing to do just this, but as I'm not sure if we should accept 'a new orality' uncritically. Also, there's a whole didactic/political ideology that goes with the 'philosopher-poet' model. Last time they had a go at reviving this ideology (for an example of which I strongly recommend having a look at Sidney's Defense of Poetry if you haven't already) we in the UK ended up with a civil war, while the precepts Sidney advocated are now most clearly seen in the world of advertising and marketing.
And yet, on if:book, the questions of mass creativity, rhetoric, politicisation, orality/textuality and so on keep coming up. It all smells of Aristotle. And I think the question of what wordsmiths do, what they do it for, and how it feels to do it is central to what if:book is doing. I want to take a look at the really old, pre-print theories around that. I think they have a lot to offer this discussion.
In particular, I wonder about all this in relation to fiction. Whether it's single-authored, slash-fic or whatever, there's something about storytelling, fiction, 'feigned examples' (Sidney) that bewitches people in a way academic collaboration just doesn't. And, partly due to the ideologies that underpin print authorship, storytelling is currently deeply lost. I mean, what's it for? What's the point of making up stories at all? Is there any difference between slash fic and print publication, and if so what? Are airport novels any better than 'literary' fiction? Or is it the other way round? What about royalties for authors? Etc, etc.
I think storytelling needs a practice to match its potential choice of media. I dont' know that it has one at the moment. So perhaps if there's soemthing missing from if:book's current portfolio it's a solid experiment in collaborative or curated storytelling? Fiction? Academic research is one thing, but how do you tell stories in a Holy of Holies form? Would fiction work at all? Would you have to rethink the form completely? Is anyone doing this at the moment? If they are, I want to know. And if not, I want to have a go. Even if it doesn't work.
I suppose what it comes down to for me is this: Second Life, World of Warcraft, various MUDs and their ilk are basically collaborative fantasies. Do these things (the textual ones particularly) even need an editor, an author, an organising rhetorician/poet? Would they benefit from it? Is there an art form that could emerge there? And if not, should I just abandon storytelling to the advertisers and find something else to think about?
Posted by sebastian mary at January 5, 2007 12:06 PM