There is currently no better time to talk about the presence, significance and influence of participatory culture and the derivative works within them. More than ever before, media commentators, business developers, law makers, politicians and most importantly academics are talking about the issues that surround cultures and forms of communication that gain greater relevance every day.
However, despite a cornucopia of information and analysis, there are surprisingly few voices from within these creative cultures. Many of the communities that are now being placed under the microscope have developed quietly and fruitfully for many years before their eventual media 'discovery' and yet there are few records of their early development, change and growth. Even now, surprisingly few communities contain commentators that analyse or record key events within their own communities. Oral traditions within these communities have often resulted in important cultural knowledge being excavated as fragments of broken pottery instead of hermetically sealed time capsules.
Thus, inevitably, analyses of communities can appear understandably shallow, even quant, when viewed from within these cultures. The lack of community commentary has resulted in, at best, patchy cultural histories or, at worst, total misreadings of entire cultural phenomena based purely on unrepresentative works.
My hope in starting derivativeart.org is to try and encourage, capture and record the voices from within participatory communities to offer their own perspective on the inner-workings of their culture, both past and present, so that their significance in the development and establishment of modern participatory culture can stand as more than an ill-cited footnote.
Article by Ian in About DerivativeArt.org
