Submissions/Art and the Internet: The Wikitheater Platform

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 2005

Title of the submission: Art and the Internet: The Wikitheater Platform

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): presentation

Author of the submission: Chris Giotitsas

E-mail address: chrisgiot87gmail.com

Username: chrisgiot

Country of origin: Greece

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): P2P Lab

Personal homepage or blog: p2plab.org

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Projects like Free/Open Source Software or Wikipedia have inaugurated a new collaborative form of production, named Commons-based peer production. But what about the arts, and in particular literature, music and theatrical plays? This project will introduce the concept of open source theater through the wikitheatre platform. Commons-based peer production case studies rarely deal with fiction and artistic creation, and regarding plays, artistic creativity is still mostly associated with one, maybe two authors. Apart from the 19th century legacies of the ‘heroic creator’ that may still make many in the literary world automatically ill-disposed towards the collective production of art, can social production value models really lead to serious results, rather than haphazard experimentations and fashionable embarrassments? Is there a Commons-oriented business model that can provide sustainable livings for the creative communities, empowering in this way the freedom of expression and social innovation? Will people contribute and support or at least watch, read, listen, download? These are the initial questions when we accost the still-new and still-disruptive world of Commons-based peer production in artistic creation, especially in traditional genres such as plays and books. Trying to answer these questions may result in the kind of potentially fruitful discourse that is much needed by both ‘sides’, literature and Commons-based peer production. After tracing and analyzing the Commons-based peer production phenomenon, this project attempts to show concretely the fate of the specific projects as well as how, nowadays, people can get involved in collaborative artistic projects inspired and catalyzed by Commons-oriented principles and technologies.

The wikitheater platform is inspired by the design, practices and values of the Wikipedia project. It builds on the experience gained by the “the man with the spotted tie”, a play written collaboratively (in Greek) by a dispersed, manifold team of creators in an asynchronous and distributed way using an experimental wiki. Since then, the play has been performed by various theatrical, amateur and professional, groups serving as a successful pilot project with the aim to build a platform where such Commons-oriented, novel projects can be developed. The wikitheatre platform will provide the necessary ecosystem in order for creators, musicians, performers and actors to develop collaborative productive efforts in a sustainable and creative way.

Track: Legal & Free Culture

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 15 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: No

Slides or further information (optional): A peer-reviewed research article on the project published at the scholarly journal "New Media & Society".

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