Wikipedia Illustrated [our new project]
Mushon Zer-Aviv
Hi friends,
I'm glad to announce Wikipedia Illustrated, the new project that Galia and I will officially launch at Transmediale festival in Berlin this coming February.
If you ever visited
Wikipedia and thought it could use some better visuals, you might
find this one interesting :)
Please check the articles, the illustrations, join the discussion and spread the love…
http://WikipediaIllustrated.org
What?
- We launch this blog to share the process of creating 26 illustrations to 26 Wikipedia articles (alphabetically ordered).
- We discuss the drafts through the comments and iterate on each of the illustrations.
- When each illustration is ready we contribute it to Wikipedia and follow the wiki edits on the blog.
- We run workshops to further explore the questions of visual free culture through practice.
- We publish a Creative Commons licensed book featuring the 26 illustrated articles.
Why?
While we’re celebrating the explosion of open source software and collaborative projects like Wikipedia, visual art has not been enjoying similar levels of passionate and generous online contribution. Open culture have developed inspiring text-based collaborative models, but have yet to develop successful models for open collaboration on visual culture. Wikipedia Illustrated seeks to develop such models. Through a book featuring 26 illustrated articles, a blog that follows the production and a set of workshops we hope to develop a methodology for contributing creative-commons licensed illustrations to Wikipedia.
Is the visual aspect of Wikipedia so lacking and dated because it could only use freely licensed images? Or is it that images have to become “historical” to become removed, objective, factual, and therefore applicable to the Wikipedia guidelines? Is the Wikipedia project really inviting visual artists to contribute their work to the commons? Or is visual work inherently less collaborative? As the project evolves it exposes the myths and biases behind these questions and reveals the surprising and complicated dynamics of open culture.
Who?
Wikipedia Illustrated was initiated by artist/illustrator Galia Offri and by designer/educator Mushon Zer-Aviv.
When & Where?
It is scheduled to launch in February 2011 at the Transmediale Festival in Berlin. The creative workshop and a panel discussion organized by the festival will both address the questions at the heart of this project.
