First of all: It's great to be able to save our brainstorm notes on my computer! It's so much better than copies of those big flip-over sheets or a description of somebody who tried to make sense of the notes afterwards.
I took a look at the Steve tagging site and suddenly remembered I had read an article about tagging and why it works/doesn't work. (click here) The article makes a couple of very good points that I feel relate directly to what Steve is trying to do.
To be honest, I was completely lost when I visited the Steve site. There are different sets of objects you can choose from, but I'm not quite sure how or why the objects are put together in a certain set. The tagger site doesn't explain it, but maybe the main Steve site does? I know it's just a test site so the options for me as a visitor are still limited. Still, it would be nice if I could look for objects using a certain tag, in stead of just being able to tag objects. And above all: how many people would spend their afternoon tagging random pieces of art without any other goal than the tagging itself? The article I read about tagging says: Tagging is such a functional activity, and if you don't see direct benefit from doing it, the interest in it as a fun afternoon activity is pretty low. and I must admit I agree with this.
I think that tagging in sites as last.fm works, because people listening to the music (in the case of last.fm) or looking at the art (in the case of a museum site) are passionate about it and really really like it. They want to share their taste in music/art with other people and benefit from the tagging themselves, because it helps them to find artists they didn't know yet themselves. By the way, I think it's important to realise that knowing obscure bands is almost a fashion statement nowadays where knowing obscure painters and sculptors isn't (yet).
What I especially like about last.fm is the fact that the size of a word changes when more people use the same word for a certain artist/album/song. It helps you to quality check the tags in a way. After all, people can say all sorts of things about an object/song and the majority of the people wont always agree with them...
That's enough for now. I do like the idea of tagging, but I think it's one of those tools that are hard to control. Wether it works or not is literary out of your hands as soon as you put it 'out there'. Or is it?
This blog will help to tell the story of this year's Special Option in Digital Media and Curatorship. It's here that we can air our ideas, raise questions, and share key references - before during and after our working day together.
Our next session ...
Monday 9 February Assignment briefing Ross Parry's office - PRE
2 comments:
First of all: It's great to be able to save our brainstorm notes on my computer! It's so much better than copies of those big flip-over sheets or a description of somebody who tried to make sense of the notes afterwards.
I took a look at the Steve tagging site and suddenly remembered I had read an article about tagging and why it works/doesn't work. (click here) The article makes a couple of very good points that I feel relate directly to what Steve is trying to do.
To be honest, I was completely lost when I visited the Steve site. There are different sets of objects you can choose from, but I'm not quite sure how or why the objects are put together in a certain set. The tagger site doesn't explain it, but maybe the main Steve site does? I know it's just a test site so the options for me as a visitor are still limited. Still, it would be nice if I could look for objects using a certain tag, in stead of just being able to tag objects. And above all: how many people would spend their afternoon tagging random pieces of art without any other goal than the tagging itself?
The article I read about tagging says:
Tagging is such a functional activity, and if you don't see direct benefit from doing it, the interest in it as a fun afternoon activity is pretty low. and I must admit I agree with this.
I think that tagging in sites as last.fm works, because people listening to the music (in the case of last.fm) or looking at the art (in the case of a museum site) are passionate about it and really really like it. They want to share their taste in music/art with other people and benefit from the tagging themselves, because it helps them to find artists they didn't know yet themselves. By the way, I think it's important to realise that knowing obscure bands is almost a fashion statement nowadays where knowing obscure painters and sculptors isn't (yet).
What I especially like about last.fm is the fact that the size of a word changes when more people use the same word for a certain artist/album/song. It helps you to quality check the tags in a way. After all, people can say all sorts of things about an object/song and the majority of the people wont always agree with them...
That's enough for now. I do like the idea of tagging, but I think it's one of those tools that are hard to control. Wether it works or not is literary out of your hands as soon as you put it 'out there'. Or is it?
Well, obviously the links don't work and I can't edit my post...
For the article, go to:
http://www.museumsassociation.org/17657&_IXNEWS_=41
And for an example of tagging on last.fm:
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Ting+Tings/+tags
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