An important aspect of the new digital realm is the radically changed relationship between audience and producer. So-called 'user-generated content' is increasingly assigned similar value as traditional top-down 'objective' sources. The connective power of the Internet has brought new ways of collaboration, such as crowd-sourcing, where various collectives present possibilities that aren't available in the analogue world.

The concept of the academy, a hierarchical world with relatively few places of generally agreed authority to find our knowledge, seems to be overturned by the commons, an explosion of individual and personal information providers and commentators where anyone can be both producer and consumer, actor and audience.1

Summary of the discussion

The second online debate focused on the changing relationship between audience and cultural organisations. Vincent de Keijzer, information architect at the Municipal Museum in The Hague, and Roel Klaassen, manager at the Dutch platform design Premsela, shared their experiences of ‘the amateur’ and ‘the expert’.

Following up on the outcomes of the first online debate, the discussion showed that changes are taking place on both sides. First of all, the modern audience – especially younger people – no longer takes the institutions’ authority for granted. They are eager to get involved in an interactive process. Secondly, cultural organisations also have a lot to gain by asking their audiences to contribute to their knowledge base: better visibility (hence more visitors) and improved knowledge sharing between the insiders (cultural experts) and the outsiders (the visitors).

New technologies helped making a great leap forward in this sense, but the chat room was unanimous: the biggest obstacle remains within cultural organisations, where cultural workers and established experts are often sceptical about changing processes. Vincent de Keijzer explained that the best way to convince them is to set up simple pilot projects that are close to their everyday practice – directly showing them the added value of involving the public, without creating much trouble in the core activity of the museum. The Wiki Loves Art project is considered as a good example to follow (amateur photographers were invited to take high quality shots of artworks in museums).

One participant raised the point that giving too much power to the ‘amateurs’ can threaten the knowledge carefully built and maintained by experts. Another participant, Goran, noted that in his experience ‘amateurs’ appreciate the guidance of expert professionals. However, for the interaction to be successful, the experts need to be humble in their coaching role and open tocontributions from amateurs.

Obviously new participatory models are occurring in the cultural sector, but they need to be supported as a whole to realise their full potential.

Outline of the debate

Catering to a different audience

• What is the online audience expecting from cultural organisations (like museums), compared to the traditional offline audience?
• In the digital paradigm, is interactivity a "threat" to the authority of the museum as a knowledge institution?

Reinventing the trade

• As computer technology enables the public to create their own designs, what is the added value of the professional designer?
• Can digital technology unlock the creativity, as well as the wisdom of the crowd?

From product to process

• Should cultural organisations focus on the artistic process rather than the final outcome?
• What is the future of venues like museums in such a process-oriented digital context?

Invited speakers

Vincent de Keijzer
Information architect at Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (Municipal Museum, The Hague)

The Hague's Municipal Museum is experimenting with new ways of relating to its audience through the project "Gemeentemuseum 2.0”, coordinated by Vincent De Keijzer. As a pilot to redefine the museum as a centre of expertise, the website http://www.delftsaardewerk.nl/ will be launched in November 2009. Enthusiasts of Delftware pottery can interact with museum experts and each other, upload information, or share pictures of privately owned pottery.

Roel Klaassen
Programme manager at Premsela (Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion) and running 'People's Republic of Design', a four-year programme on amateurism and open design culture.

Klaassen juxtaposes Andrew Keen’s ‘cult of the amateur’ with Charles Leadbeater’s We-Think to try and redefine the role of the designer in the digital age.

Transcript of the discussion (click to read)

Background information

The Sheep Market is a collective project based on MTurk. MTurk stands for Amazon's Mechanical Turk, a system to get people to do small tasks via an API for small amounts of money. Whereas most of the tasks are about data verification, this task involved drawing a sheep. 10,000 sheep in total were accepted, arranged on his site and then offered for sale. Aaron Koblin, the creator of the Sheep Market, has written his thesis about the experience.

SwarmSketch is an ongoing online canvas that explores the possibilities of distributed design by the masses. Each week it randomly chooses a popular search term which becomes the sketch subject for the week.

Gemeen is a platform for experiments and discussion, initially for internal use within the museum to share ideas and projects and work on them collectively. It should evolve into an open source platform where the museum can share “problems” and ideas with external parties to come up with smart solutions. A paper on how this platform can also create organisational change was presented at the Museums and the Web conference 2009.

The Cult of the Amateur is a book written by Andrew Keen. He explains how free but substandard culture produced by Internet 'amateurs' is destroying our culture (read the critique on The New York Times). It follows his essay, Web2.0, published in the Weekly Standard, comparing the Web2.0 with marxism.

" We-think explores how the web is changing our world, creating a culture in which more people than ever can participate, share and collaborate, ideas and information." We-think is a participatory book project initiated by Charles Leadbeater.