A question from a reader

If Wikipedia were an art school, what would it look like?

This question was posed by Ian Wojtowicz who has been very active in contributing to this Blog. It is a brilliant thought. For those of you who haven't explored Wikipedia it is one of the largest open source collaborations in the world, an encyclopedia that has been put together by contributors from all over the world.

I will respond to Ian in greater detail over the next few days.

Comments

[Mary Bryson]

If Wikipedia were an art school, it would look like WalMart. Nah. It would look like an academic department that has been around for too long - a congerie of pseudo-experts. Nothing worse than that. Consolidated mediocrity. When I first saw Wikipedia I thought - WOW - post-structuralism meets pedagogy in the form of an ever-evolving set of artifacts. Nope. Take a deeper look at the rules governing the construction of knowledge in Wikipedia -- no controversy blah blah -- but the most interesting thing to me -- no original knowledge -- wow -- and just go look at how this absolutely implausible limit condition is defined and policed. Fascinating. Then go look at the Rosa Parks entry, and carefully go through the history of the page. Look at the contest over "getting it right" and "getting the controversy out of the story". Art school. Wow. I hope not. Wikipedia is modernism run amok. A moebius strip of epistemic spam.

[Chris Jones]

Chelsea College of Art in London has a wiki incarnation. Of course, it isn't wiki-as-art-school as much as it is art-school-as-wiki, but it's an interesting encyclopedic account of art school experience - one that might not be told otherwise.

http://www.chelseawiki.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page