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Context is king

In the ‘Tuymans Experiment’, Luc Tuymans (widely hailed as one of the most important artists in the world – e.g. the Tate Modern’s description here, and the curators describing him in the first minute of the video above) decided to radically shift the context of his art.

He reproduced one of his most famous paintings on a wall in Antwerp, to see how people responded to it. Curators predicted 90% of passerbys would stop and contemplate. In fact, just 4% stopped. A painting that in a gallery makes close to 100% of people stop and think for a few minutes, and appreciate the art for the thoughts it made them explore and the new ways of seeing something that it gives them, was remarkably valueless when transposed from the art gallery walls to a street wall. Context turned a ‘million dollar’ picture with the power to influence people and the way they think, into a vulgar paint daub on an alleyway wall ignored by 96% of people passing by.

There are vast ramifications to this point; I would love to hear your suggestions in the comments below. When I watched this video this morning, here are some other stories just from today which my mind immediately made connections to. Some will be obvious, others obscure (because we share some context in common, but not all of it, so the value of some objects, in this case our ability to draw connections between them, will differ greatly):

- Seth Godin: Avoiding the Passion/Pop Gulf

- Uncivil Society: Filesharing Theology

- EuropeanStartups: The New Digital Divide – Building Web Services for the Mainstream

- Uncivil Society: From red light district to red charity

- Broadstuff: The involuntary redundancy of A list blog sites

For any investor or entrepreneur in the Web2.0 space, understanding and accurately recognising the different contexts is going to be key to positioning yourself inside, or outside, the growing dotcom bubble. I fear too many services get drunk on their popularity with geeks and fail to gain traction where it matters: with people who have never heard the term ‘Web 2.0′ – these are the people that make Google all its money, for all its popularity with nerds.

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When I post short blocks of text to Twitter, short posts on my blog, a quick video to YouTube, etc, I'm broadcasting myself in micro-format compared to the 30 minute format standard TV broadcast. This is being done from my very own desktop (including browser, mobile, playstation, etc), not in a professional studio/newsroom. This studio-> desktop transition is the same seismic shift as that seen in digital graphics and typesetting during the 80s and 90s). What I suspect motivates Seesmic's M+A is this: just like Adobe, Corel et al got big on the back of a desktop revolution in publishing, Seesmic feels it can capitalise on the desktop (micro-)broadcasting revolution by building a unified program that people can use as a gateway to broadcasting themselves to various places on the web. Prediction: 2008/2009 is going to witness many surprise moves in the micro-broadcasting space. Here are some wild guesses to...

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 11:10 am and is filed under Culture bucket, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

http://aprendendoempreendendo.com dsheise

Great Post. After reading this what immediately came to mind was Clay Shirky´s keynote on the web 2.0 expo in April.
It might be a bit of a stretch but borrowing his ideas I would say that the adopters of web 2.0 services are the ones who managed to break out of the sitcom heat sink. Those who understand that media is a triathlon where you do not just consume, you produce and share as well.
http://www.overthecounterculture.com Philippe Bradley

but who is 'you', given that in my post I slide in the point that maybe anything but the most basic UGC is an inherently geeky thing and that Web2.0 is a geek fad but isn't going mainstream…

as an aside, Patrick at Broadstuff just made an interesting point along those lines: http://broadstuff.com/archives/911-Navigating-t…
http://aprendendoempreendendo.com dsheise

I think it´s more a matter of when than if it will ever get mainstream. The timing is always tough, but I believe all these services are aiming at the general user needs, not just the geeks.
The geeks are the ones paving the path, so they´re the ones chatting and making the noise, but almost most of the services I see are actually simple and don´t require a geek to handle.
I think investors and entrepreneurs are anxious for mainstream status but these thinks take time. What sounds geeky today comes built-in in the next generation and so on.
http://www.overthecounterculture.com Philippe Bradley

beware of thinking that geeks want complex services but average Janes want simplicity – geeks often seek simplicity because they're putting together their own online toolkit – they want their different websites to connect, not an 'all sizes fit one' package like you get with a yahoo account etc. Someone may not see the appeal of, say, Friendfeed if they do all their online stuff through Facebook. But I agree with you that often “What sounds geeky today comes built-in in the next generation” – very well put!
glory

sounds familiar http://www.metafilter.com/60092/Did-it-matter-l… – “[what] if one of the world's great violinists had performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour audience of 1,000-odd people?” cheers!
http://www.overthecounterculture.com Philippe Bradley

here's another from today:
http://flowingdata.com/2008/05/08/why-did-andy-…

“If I were to skip straight to the part in The Shawshank Redemption when Andy Durfesne climbs out of the pipe of poo (and put it on mute), someone who never saw the movie might see an escaped convict who steals money from a warden and fleas to some random place in Mexico called Zihuatanejo. Out of grief, the warden kills himself and Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding eventually teams up with Andy to commit more crimes.

Those of us who have seen the movie though know this isn't the case. Why? Because we saw the whole movie and have context.”
http://www.overthecounterculture.com Philippe Bradley

here's another from today:
http://flowingdata.com/2008/05/08/why-did-andy-…

“If I were to skip straight to the part in The Shawshank Redemption when Andy Durfesne climbs out of the pipe of poo (and put it on mute), someone who never saw the movie might see an escaped convict who steals money from a warden and fleas to some random place in Mexico called Zihuatanejo. Out of grief, the warden kills himself and Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding eventually teams up with Andy to commit more crimes.

Those of us who have seen the movie though know this isn't the case. Why? Because we saw the whole movie and have context.”