Crow Sourcing

Submitted by Joël Gauthier on Mon, 01/21/2013 - 09:40

Author(s):

Crow Sourcing est un projet d'Andy Deck qui utilise le principe du crowdsourcing (aussi appelé collaborat ou externalisation ouverte) pour explorer les origines et les significations de diverses expressions se rapportant à des animaux. L'interface de navigation du site est composée de plusieurs sections: sous le titre, une série de liens renvoient vers de l'information sur le projet et vers les principales fonctionnalités interactives («feeds», «download», «submission», «share»). Juste en bas, une barre présente en rotation continue les tweets envoyés sur CROW_SOURCING, le compte Twitter du projet. Au centre de l'écran, plusieurs icônes présentant des silhouettes d'animaux permettent d'ouvrir les fenêtres où les expressions qui les concernent sont répertoriées et discutées. Finalement, sur la gauche, une liste d'expressions renferment des liens vers ces mêmes fenêtres, offrant une deuxième porte d'entrée vers le contenu principal du projet.

Ce sont les internautes qui sont invités à nourrir le site en soumettant des expressions qui les intriguent, en fournissant leurs propres explications et théories à propos d'expressions se retrouvant déjà sur le site ou en partageant l'oeuvre sur leurs réseaux sociaux afin d'attirer d'autres participants. Il est à noter que l'artiste offre des calendriers téléchargeables reprenant certaines des expressions les plus intéressantes mises au jour sur Crow Sourcing.

Le projet existe aussi en application mobile Android.

Anciennement disponible sous l'adresse http://turbulence.org/works/crow_sourcing, l'oeuvre est désormais hébergée par Artcontext sous l'adresse http://artcontext.net/crow_src/docs/index.php. Une vidéo offre une navigation filmée de l'oeuvre sous son URL d'origine, issue en 2012 d'une commande de Turbulence.org.

Notes

A beastiary of idioms: using diverse media to probe relations of nature, language, and knowing. / Crow Sourcing examines how we know animals as much through idioms as through direct experience. There are thousands of idioms and expressions that color how we think of animals and other creatures, like "high horse," "lame duck," and "monkey business." Like "bee-line" and "get your goat." Crow Sourcing focuses on the ones that are not very intuitive. For example "as the crow flies." It isn't easy to reason out what it means and its origins. How does the crow fly? We may assume that it flies directly because of usage. It's possible that in centuries past sailors at sea released crows to figure out the best path towards land, but the origin of the idiom is disputed. Now that computer graphics technology has advanced to the point where photo-realistic animals can talk, dance, and play a drum kit, our reliance on entertainment media to learn about animal behavior is more problematic than ever. While virtuality and urbanization have gained influence over human perception, spoken languages retain vestiges of our ancestors' closeness to the natural world. Crow Sourcing engages collective memory and understanding to demystify and reanimate a dizzying array of animal sayings and expressions. It aims to provoke discussion and reflection about our creature cousins at a time of unprecedented habitat destruction and extinction. To be relevant in today's media landscape, Crow Sourcing draws on Twitter, mobile media, the Web, and crowd-sourcing. It directs messages out into the electronic media, anticipating that the people who are reading them are distracted and, in many cases, reading them via their phones. Even in distraction there is the potential for reflection. These random collisions may lead to unpredictable interactions. Over the remainder of 2012 daily idioms will be introduced. Gradually the messages and discussions will be collected and arranged in printed matter. Production has begun on a calendar that gathers and represents the public contributions, adding illustrations in the iconic tradition of printed work offered via Artcontext.net over the past decade. Crow Sourcing will also be presented in gallery exhibitions, beginning with World Wild Web in London, and ART-astrophe in Columbus, Ohio. You are invited to contribute to Crow Sourcing. Through the website you can browse idioms, discuss them, and perhaps explain them. Already hundreds of idioms and expressions have been compiled and incorporated into multiple media platforms. Submission of ideas is welcome via this website, via @crow_sourcing on Twitter, and via E-mail. The crowd sourcing initiative, which will raise additional funds for print publications based on the collaboratively produced media content, has begun. See the video and read about what you can get for small contributions!

Recherche*

Directory

Crow Sourcing

Deck, Andy