Dennis Hollingsworth

Morning Reading

What is the next great cultural transformation? And how does it compare with that earlier transformation? The 21st century represents what Henry Jenkins, a media scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, calls "a revitalization of folk culture" in an upcoming book we are editing. The new art and art making are participatory: Much of the art can be produced and consumed in the home; many people contribute and learn from each other (without necessarily considering themselves professional artists); and much of what is made is considered community property. Jenkins argues that the 20th century's effort to industrialize and professionalize artistic production, which today we view as normal, may, in fact, represent a strange chapter in the history of creativity ? an aberration. What sets the new participatory culture aside from the older local participatory culture of the 19th century is that amateur art making is taking place in the shadow of giant media. Moreover, there is now an explosion of cultural choice made possible by new technologies and a renewed mingling of high and popular art.

(Be sure to read on to the idea of the "curatorial me".)