WEBVTT

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Elissa Frankle is the Social Media 
Strategist and Community Manager

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at United States Holocaust Memorial 
Museum here in Washington DC.

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The title of her talk today is 
"Making History with the Masses:

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Citizen History and Radical Trust in Museums.
So please join me in welcoming Elissa.

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(Elissa) Before I start I just wanted 
to thank you, the fine people

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here at the front for inviting me in.

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As a Social Media Manager
I don't usually spend a lot of time

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talking in front of the audiences anymore.
As I am thinking of the community

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behind the computer. This is a really
true commitment actually to be able

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to come out and talk with my voice about
maybe some of the [inaudible]

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it is a very large citizen history
in a world of users, some of the work

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we do, as we will see in this 
in class review presentation.

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One of the things that is really important
in all of this is just to recognize

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the words that we use when we're
talking about the way we interact

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with our users. So, in a sense
what we're going to talk about today

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is really what is citizen history?
Not just "what is citizen history"

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as a concept, but what is citizen,
what is history? And what's museum?

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Really big concepts, really interesting
things and I don't promise to have

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all the answers today, because 
most of these cases, there aren't

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real answers. That is the best part.

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But we're going to try and get a little bit
of the why to explore some of these questions.

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And see where we could get it
unlocking what would be the critical question,

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of what is citizen history,
and what can it be in the future.

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So Citizen History kind of came into being,
from it's early origins in Citizen Science

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and Crowdsourcing. Two other ways that
other fields have looked at using their

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public, to get down and dirty with their idea.
We'll be introducing terms,

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first of all, starting with crowdsourcing.
Now, when you begin to look at crowdsourcing

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on the internet, one of the first sites 
you'll run into is crowdsource.com

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Not surprisingly. And they promise 
500, 000 workers on demand.

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And what they promise for those workers
is that your data will be dealt with -- with results.

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In a speedy manner. So really using the crowd,
using the number of people you can just get

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cranking away on some of that data,
some of the math and rogue task

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to produce whatever the desired result is.
So the question here with crowdsourcing

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isn't so much about big answers
and big interaction, but it's more about

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a lot of people doing a lot of little things.
Museums and local organizations apply

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this crowdsourcing principle in a lot of
different ways. One of the projects we're

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talking about at lunch actually is
New York Public Library


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What's On the Menu Project, 
and it's companion project

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to restore early stories about-to-be roles,
the Ensemble Project.

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But in this case, transcribing menus,
and the other case, in transcribing playbills.

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Taking what's on the menu, the playbill,
written it down into it's component parts,

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just saying, what do you see here,
what is the food that you see on this menu,

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and have someone transcribe that,
by some user. As a result, again, small task,

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just transcription where you look at it,
what is it that you see, you write down

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whatever it is that you see.
No real depth of thought

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going into it, but again, a lot of
people are working at very small tasks

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for a long time, creating big results.
The other form of crowdsourcing

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that we see quite frequently
in cultural heritage organizations

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is the idea of, not necessarily putting
lots of small tasks into play,

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but working forward with a main 
knowledge base, that the person has --

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the user have some kind of knowledge
that is personal to that person,

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that they then share with the Cultural
Heritage Organization.

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So again, not a lot of deep thought,
deep interaction with content,

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but a lot of sharing up, personally.
So rather than citizen history,

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we're talking about what we're going
to talk about next, we have the history

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of citizens, growing on this kind of
crowdsourced environment.

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So if you are going to talk about crowdsourcing
we're going to talk about all these things,

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with framework in Bloom's Taxonomy,
this is an educational philosophy

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framework developed by Benjamin Bloom.
They talk about the different ways that

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students can engage with learning. 
Everything from just remembering,

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that rogue level of "I see what it is, 
I think about it, I write it back down"

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So the regurgitation model of looking
at that knowledge, they're understanding it,

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being able to classifying things, 
up to application, they are able

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to choose to interpret, to draw
some kind of conclusion.

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And all the way at the top, to creation.
Starting from scratch, creating a product

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all by one self. Crowdsourcing,
we tend to think it comes down,

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about this remembering, understanding,
basic level of proposition.

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This is not to say there's not value in it,
but it is just, it is very much on a rogue level.

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I see what I have in front of me, 
I take it, I transcribed it, I translated it,

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and I send it back out in a usable format.
I have the knowledge in my head,

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I have some stories that I want to share
that I've been asked to share.

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I think about it in my head, 
and I write it down, and then to you.

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So crowdsourcing, microtasks,
on a macroscale.

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So lots of small things, lots of people together,
sharing their personal knowledge, or basic skills,

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really relying on that wisdom of the crowd.
So by having a lot of people working on

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something together, eventually something
will be completed, and answers will be given.

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Citizen science goes a little bit higher up, 
from those stacks on there.

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We're going to look at two projects
From the Citizen Science Alliance,

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with a zoo number families of
citizen science projects.

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Here we see Galaxy Zoo, where
the Citizen Science Alliance

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and this part of organizations 
of the truth of galaxies.

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And they walk through a four step process,
where they ask questions about what

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the user see in these galaxies. Alright?
Are they round? Are they spiral?

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What kinds of bulges do you see?
Just being able to classify what they're

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looking at by sight. Similarly we have 
Planet Hunters, this is a, well,

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from their tutorial, where they walk through
premises on how you can identify a transit.

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Ways in which these levels that we see here,
are dip down, when planet in transit are identified.

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So the small idea of looking, classifying, 
making a note, but in most frequent case

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we also have this very exciting thing
that is a "free text box", where someone says

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"Do you see anything that is of interest,
is there anything that you want to discuss,

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from what you've seen?" So more than just
seeing, repeating, replicating, we have

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the ability to discuss, to take things 
to a higher level, to really reflect on

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what it is that we're seeing. 
So crowdsourcing, again, down

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at that lower level of Bloom's Taxonomy,
citizen science is the ability to go

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a little bit higher. Thinking about applying 
the knowledge that you have,

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what you gained from doing the project,
thinking about science on a larger scale.

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So our basic principles of 
Citizen Science says that gives our

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volunteers, the non-specialists,
people who are not trained in science

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Governed by and under the leadership 
of people who know what they're doing in science,

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and have that training, or that title
of scientist, to answer real-world questions.

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Because scientists don't want people 
to just look at galaxies for their help,

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though they are pretty just to look at anyway,
they want people to look at those galaxies

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so they can classify them and
know more about what's going on

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out there. In one article that I read 
about galaxies, they mentioned that

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they first know what's successful when
they classify the amount of time,

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the amount of results found by these
citizen scientists, and the number of

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person hours that would have taken
for the original research who was going through

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by hand, on his own, looking at all these
galaxies on it's own, to go through,

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and make these same distinctions.
They can do about fifty thousand a week,

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seventy thousand in the first two days,
so it's a lot of things that you can do.

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Again, small tasks, macro scale, 
lots of people, find the answers.

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So it seems to be a win-win proposition
for everybody. Professionals get data,

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volunteers build skills. They learn how to
look at a galaxy, what is it that they are

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looking at when they look at a galaxy.
How you identify it, the transit of a planet.

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So the real skills that a scientist use when
trying to answer some of their questions,

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these citizen scientist actually get to use
on their own. So everybody wins, alright.

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In 2006, the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum opened an exhibition called

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"Give me your children: Voices 
from the Lodz Ghetto" This was an exhibition

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built around a student diarist,
child diarist, who then lived in the Lodz Ghetto,

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after 1940. One of the artifacts that
was part of this exhibition was an album.

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Now, with 14,000 names, signed by the students
of the Lodz Ghetto, presented to

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(Mordechai) Chaim Rumkowski, who was the 
administrator, on Rosh Hashanah,

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the Jewish newyear, 1941.
So we have this incredible artifact,

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this album full of signatures, and
we knew nothing about it.

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We knew that they were students
who would sign their names.

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We knew that they were about 
thirty or so different schools

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who had students sign their names.
And we had another document that

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gave us some remark to how old
these students were in each school.

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But, the question that we ask
as we brought this album forth

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was who should we have,
today's students, look through

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our data for the things that
we would normally be used

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as researchers at the museum,
and try to figure out who these students were,

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as well as what happened to them.
This was really an experimental project,

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the question wasn't just "What happened
to those children?" but what if it

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actually worked? To put today's students
at work, trying to figure out who these

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students of [yesterday] were.
Seven years into the project

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we still have this new experimental
citizen history project.

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We're still very much in beta, 
we're still trying to figure out

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where all the lessons are.
We do at least have a platform.

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Here I'll show you the URL for this
on the next slide.

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This is the Children of the Lodz Ghetto
Memorial Research Project,

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we have, at this point, about
8500 names available for research.

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We have them up, transcribed 
in the database, and our student users

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and volunteer users go through, 
select a name they want to research,

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and then go into our databases and see
if they could figure out who the person was,

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who most likely sign their name in the album.
Then figuring that out, figuring out who

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their most likely candidate is, going through
outlets even further, to see if they can

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figure out what happened to that person,
after the Ghetto. Were they able to

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survive the war, do they perish, where,
if so. So we have, as we seen in other

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crowdsourcing and citizen science projects
up here, we have a framework

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where we ask you to put into our research.
What was the name that you found?

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What was the date of birth if there was one?
What street addresses did you find,

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associated with this person?
And we also have this all important

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free textbox, where we ask, not only,
how was it that you're able to come

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across who this person was, but talk
to us about the process.

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What was it that made you realize 
that this was the right person,

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as opposed to some other [inaudible name].
How did you know? What was it

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about the document, what can you
determine about the document?

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So having done again, the higher order
thinking of "What do we do, when

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we look at documents?" and 
"What can we know from the document?"

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and "What do we simply not know?" We think 
that a lot of students like to jump to conclusions

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that "Ops, couldn't find anything else 
beyond stage 1, this person really

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must have perished in [inaudible]
there's nothing else to be found."

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Quite frankly the answer to that is,
well, no, the only thing that we know

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we can't find the document is that,
we don't know yet.

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The document just isn't there.
Doesn't tell us anything, just tell us

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there are big gaps. I want to talk
about these big gaps momentarily.

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They themselves are actually a big part
of citizen history museums.

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So, going back to our friendly 
framework of Bloom's Taxonomy,

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keeping crowdsourcing down here 
at the lower level, citizen history tries

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to go even higher. Getting people not only
to analyze a text but also to analyze

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their thinking, to reflect on what it is that 
they are doing. And really recognize

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they are building skills. In addition,
they are still going through, helping us

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researchers try and answer these
big questions in history.

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So we put a lot of our trust in their hands,
put a lot of documents out there,

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and then ask them to reflect
on their process, and on the process

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of doing history in general.

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So, knowing that much, knowing 
our framework with this project that

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we have, let's return to our title
and talk about some words.

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Because we present today only one
possible framework, one possible

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working nature of citizen history. 
There are a lot of best practices

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that we could draw from this,
we all have to go back to the words

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that we use. For instance, what is
a citizen? Citizens, we usually talk

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about them as citizens of nation,
citizens of a group of people,

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who are members of a certain group.
And these citizen have two things.

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They have rights and they have responsibilities.
Well, we museums, we're really good at

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responsibilities. We're really good at saying
"Please, come in to our museum space,

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But here's all the things that you can't do:
don't eat, don't drink, don't smoke,

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don't take pictures, don't poke
the priceless raw files."

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But, what is it that we can give our 
visitors, our users, the people who

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come in our space, as far as
the rights go. We're not particular

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good at saying "here's what you can do,
with our stuff." So if you are actually

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set out to create a citizen project,
what we need to be able to do,

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is to give people both responsibilities 
as well as rights in that space

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that we create. Furthermore, 
going on to history.

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History, in this case, we have to 
take within the framework

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of history in a museum.
Since history is really messy.

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There are a lot of different theories
on what history is, as far as I can tell.

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History itself really has
no big answers, no big truth.

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History, as it stands right now,
is just based on the documents.

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The interpretations that we had 
at our disposal in this moment.

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So that they change tomorrow,
when a new archive is open,

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a new interpretation comes along,
something that makes us rethink

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everything that we've ever thought
to be true, and in that certain part of the field.

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History takes interpretation, and history
is a constant asymptotic approach.

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Choose the truth, without any expectations
that it will ever achieve the truth itself.

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That one big knowledge about
what history is, or maybe.

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Museums don't really like messy.
We like to be able to put things

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up on our walls, put the text up and
leave it there for a long time.

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Now whatever the interpretation is, 
that we have to take from this original data,

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from our understanding of history,
we could one frame, and that's

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what we put up. Hanging on the walls
and say, "Here you go visitors,

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this is truth, this is what happened in this
historical period." As we are really good at

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broadcaster model, we're not particularly
good at listening back.

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And hearing all the questions people
might have, say look at this one interpretation,

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that we have put forward, that history.
So when you're talking about the opposite

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of the broadcaster model, the idea that 
history is -- lets say, there are

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no answers, we want to be able to have 
citizens in our space. Really get down

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to questions of trust. 
We seems to say we are

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instruments of public trust. The public
places a lot of their trust in us,

00:14:32.342 --> 00:14:36.840
to be able to say, this is fact, this is truth.
You're coming to my museum,

00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:40.455
to learn something, and you'd expect
that the knowledge being just

00:14:40.542 --> 00:14:43.593
passed down to you, given to you
and you'll osmose it, from looking

00:14:43.593 --> 00:14:47.682
at our wall text, and seeing our artifacts.
And that what you'll know.

00:14:47.682 --> 00:14:51.702
But of course, we now know that
history is messier than that.

00:14:51.702 --> 00:14:54.574
And simply heading down one 
interpretation, one framework,

00:14:54.574 --> 00:14:58.569
is not sufficient. It's just one way
of looking at things.

00:14:58.569 --> 00:15:01.848
But if museums were actually 
going to open up all these interpretations

00:15:01.848 --> 00:15:04.604
of history, all these different frameworks
and ways of going about it,

00:15:04.604 --> 00:15:08.813
would that then, hurt their ability
to be instruments of public trust?

00:15:08.813 --> 00:15:12.929
By trusting the public, it then help
correct our image as organizations

00:15:12.929 --> 00:15:18.984
that can be trusted in society.
We kind of have this Circle of Trust,

00:15:18.984 --> 00:15:22.089
that we keep on the deal,
and inside our own frameworks,

00:15:22.089 --> 00:15:26.280
among our own staff in museums.
And in the Circle of Trust we have

00:15:26.280 --> 00:15:29.282
often the really scary things that
we don't really want to talk about.

00:15:29.282 --> 00:15:32.874
Like the fact that we don't know 
everything. We like to pretend that we do,

00:15:32.874 --> 00:15:36.390
but we really don't. And there's a lot
of information or questions in our

00:15:36.390 --> 00:15:39.311
collections where there's answers
might be, we just, maybe, haven't

00:15:39.311 --> 00:15:41.933
gone through our collections
as stably as we might like,

00:15:41.933 --> 00:15:45.242
because there's a lot of them. There's 
a lot of stuff out there, there's

00:15:45.242 --> 00:15:48.262
a lot of data. It takes a long time to
get through it. There might be answers

00:15:48.262 --> 00:15:51.248
out there that will completely change
the way we present this information.

00:15:51.393 --> 00:15:53.580
<i>Whispers</i> [inaudible]

00:15:53.580 --> 00:15:56.668
And the fact of the matter is,
that as we answer these questions

00:15:56.668 --> 00:16:00.935
we're not going to find any big truth,
any big answers, again, this constant

00:16:00.935 --> 00:16:04.378
asymptotic approach to what the truth
might be, we're just going to find

00:16:04.378 --> 00:16:08.319
more questions. We're just going to have
an even further path ahead of us.

00:16:08.319 --> 00:16:11.532
But we really don't like to talk about that,
so you should know it well enough.

00:16:11.532 --> 00:16:15.254
We place ours -- it's kind of hard to 
see here,-- but there's a big red brick wall

00:16:15.254 --> 00:16:18.647
around this circle of trust, because 
we don't like to talk about it, or to share

00:16:18.647 --> 00:16:23.497
it with the public. But what if we do?
What if we actually accept that there are

00:16:23.612 --> 00:16:26.885
people out there, who wanted to know
that we have questions. Who want

00:16:26.885 --> 00:16:31.714
to know what's still out there to be seen
and to be discovered, who realize that

00:16:31.714 --> 00:16:35.495
museums maybe don't really know everything.
And they're really curious about what's

00:16:35.495 --> 00:16:40.083
sitting inside that Circle of Trust.
What haven't we explored yet.

00:16:40.083 --> 00:16:43.776
So, what if the museum said,
"well yeah, there's a lot of really messy

00:16:43.776 --> 00:16:48.250
stuff in there, things that we haven't 
explore, a lot of questions, that we still

00:16:48.250 --> 00:16:52.720
have to go through? And then we 
actually take the curiosity of our visitors

00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:56.142
into play, they actually say "Well yeah,
we've got questions too.

00:16:56.142 --> 00:17:00.280
And we've been trying to ask them, 
you just haven't been listening to us."

00:17:00.280 --> 00:17:03.091
Well we have to warn them first,
it's kind of messy in there, it's really

00:17:03.091 --> 00:17:09.926
kind of scary. And as we help them to enter
the Circle of Trust where we keep

00:17:09.926 --> 00:17:12.835
all of our questions and our data,
and our unknown unknowns,

00:17:12.835 --> 00:17:16.469
those questions that lead to further questions.
There's places where we have no data,

00:17:16.469 --> 00:17:19.689
there's things that we're really curious
about, in which that this one more archive

00:17:19.689 --> 00:17:24.440
will open up, will be able to get to their stuff.
That might have some of those answers.

00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:27.795
There's places where there are gaps
in the record.

00:17:28.437 --> 00:17:31.324
We wouldn't just sign our visitors
into there, completely unequipped.

00:17:31.324 --> 00:17:35.370
We'd give them a tool kit,
we'd give them some binoculars,

00:17:35.370 --> 00:17:38.031
so they'd be able to look closer at things.
We'd give them a wrench,

00:17:38.031 --> 00:17:40.155
that they can actually go through
and tweak the data, see what

00:17:40.155 --> 00:17:42.773
they are playing with, messing around,
in the stuff that we have,

00:17:42.773 --> 00:17:46.820
as well as a hardhat, because, well,
who knows what will fall out

00:17:46.820 --> 00:17:50.091
when we actually shake the history
and what's in there.

00:17:50.091 --> 00:17:55.038
So this toolkit are the things that allow
citizens, our visitors, our volunteers, our users,

00:17:55.038 --> 00:17:59.020
to enter this space, this Circle of Trust,
the things that we're really curious about.

00:17:59.020 --> 00:18:02.997
To enter into our questions and into
our data. Working in partnership with us.

00:18:02.997 --> 00:18:04.727
To answer these questions.

00:18:04.988 --> 00:18:08.962
Some of these when we look at citizen
history, are the questions historians have

00:18:08.962 --> 00:18:13.327
for themselves. The ways that historians
do history, history as a process.

00:18:13.327 --> 00:18:16.533
So how does historians look at a source?
What's available to us in the source

00:18:16.533 --> 00:18:19.010
and what's the context for it.
What questions are we trying

00:18:19.010 --> 00:18:23.361
to answer by looking at the source.
What's new? What might we be unlocking

00:18:23.361 --> 00:18:26.320
with this source, what are we looking at
that might not have been considered before?

00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:29.283
What's in your interpretation, a new 
piece of data, it's pointing us

00:18:29.283 --> 00:18:34.411
in a new place. In the case of the
Children of the Lodz Ghetto project,

00:18:34.411 --> 00:18:37.515
we've been able to identify a couple of
these pointers. Then our citizens

00:18:37.515 --> 00:18:41.076
as they go through try to identify these
children, have an easier time in

00:18:41.076 --> 00:18:45.629
going through our stuff, because we know,
maybe conventions in 1920s and 1930s

00:18:45.629 --> 00:18:49.789
were a little different than you might expect
here in the States, because your

00:18:49.789 --> 00:18:52.886
average student would have a Polish name,
and an Yiddish name, and probably

00:18:52.886 --> 00:18:55.730
an nickname, maybe even a middle
name. All of which could be used in

00:18:55.730 --> 00:18:58.476
any number of documents. So then
you'll be able to accept there are

00:18:58.476 --> 00:19:02.030
a lot of names for the same person, 
helps people to be able to read sources

00:19:02.030 --> 00:19:04.739
and judge on your conclusions.
Be able to be more open,

00:19:04.739 --> 00:19:07.834
to different interpretations and
different names that maybe out there.

00:19:07.834 --> 00:19:11.373
In addition, we're working with a mostly
American audience. So being able to tell

00:19:11.373 --> 00:19:15.459
our users that in these documents
you'll going to see the day first,

00:19:15.459 --> 00:19:19.522
and then the month, helps them better
to unlock what it is they're seeing.

00:19:19.522 --> 00:19:23.845
And instead of putting their binocular lens
onto it, have a better understanding

00:19:23.845 --> 00:19:29.109
of what it is they are actually seeing.
So, thus hardhatted, and wrenched,

00:19:29.109 --> 00:19:33.024
and binoculared, we send our users
into the Circle of Trust, and while

00:19:33.024 --> 00:19:35.525
we're at it we might as well jump into
that Circle of Trust.

00:19:35.525 --> 00:19:39.469
We might as well bring the museum
into that Circle of Trust, accept that

00:19:39.469 --> 00:19:41.157
we have questions and more data
and unknown unknowns.

00:19:41.157 --> 00:19:45.251
And we're all in this together.
And a funny thing happens.

00:19:45.251 --> 00:19:48.159
Because rather than being our usual
broadcaster model museums

00:19:48.159 --> 00:19:52.855
just going out and say, "Here's truth,
take it in." We actually have conversation.

00:19:52.855 --> 00:19:55.964
We have users talking to the museum
and the museum talking back.

00:19:55.964 --> 00:19:58.615
We have users talking to one another,
helping each other to grow through

00:19:58.615 --> 00:20:02.657
their research, and as these questions
and conversations iterate back and forth,

00:20:02.657 --> 00:20:05.862
back and forth, we actually have 
more growth than we would've had

00:20:05.862 --> 00:20:09.401
when we're just a museum talking
to itself. Or just users speaking to one another.

00:20:09.401 --> 00:20:12.496
Because the museum still have
a really important role to play.

00:20:12.496 --> 00:20:15.566
We are the scaffolders. In addition
to giving people our questions,

00:20:15.647 --> 00:20:19.167
our honest research, our data, 
we're the ones who can help our users

00:20:19.167 --> 00:20:24.550
to go from just coming in out of curiosity
to actually going out with a skill set.

00:20:24.550 --> 00:20:29.738
Things they can use and apply in their
own lives beyond just the Circle of Trust.

00:20:29.738 --> 00:20:32.138
So what do we get out of this?
When we open up our users

00:20:32.138 --> 00:20:37.066
and the museum itself to accepting
we have questions, data, and unknown unknowns,

00:20:37.066 --> 00:20:40.397
the museum gets connections. Connections
among their [inaudible], again,

00:20:40.397 --> 00:20:44.471
kind of a crowdsourcing model of lots of people
looking at our stuff, at the same time,

00:20:44.471 --> 00:20:48.464
drawing, from the wisdom of the crowd,
some of these answers.

00:20:48.464 --> 00:20:51.096
We do get some of these answers to
some of these questions that we have

00:20:51.096 --> 00:20:54.760
and we get more questions, of course.
Everytime we try to answer a question

00:20:54.760 --> 00:20:57.397
we just end up with more questions 
and more directions that we could

00:20:57.397 --> 00:20:59.601
take our research in.
And perhaps these are questions

00:20:59.601 --> 00:21:03.469
we haven't considered before. Because
we've got people coming in with fresh eyes.

00:21:03.570 --> 00:21:06.948
Looking at our stuff in ways we might not 
have considered before. And thus

00:21:06.948 --> 00:21:10.450
where we would already have more questions,
we have more and more questions.

00:21:10.450 --> 00:21:15.847
It's great! So what our users get out of it?
Now that the museum's gotten all this

00:21:15.847 --> 00:21:20.017
good stuff from the people who work 
in their data. Well, the user discover.

00:21:20.017 --> 00:21:23.345
What we know, truth about history.
That there are no civil answers, that

00:21:23.345 --> 00:21:27.793
history is messy. In a lot of cases they
also get a very personal connection

00:21:27.793 --> 00:21:30.933
to the history. We've discovered that
from our users at least.

00:21:30.933 --> 00:21:34.361
We have students working on research
about students, they get very personally

00:21:34.361 --> 00:21:38.899
invested in looking at these individuals,
their lives, their families, and what happened

00:21:38.899 --> 00:21:43.109
to them. So having a personal connection
to this one aspect of history often helps them

00:21:43.109 --> 00:21:46.010
being a greater personal connection
to the rest of history as well.

00:21:46.010 --> 00:21:49.995
And frankly, we don't ask them
to give back their hardhats, their wrenches,

00:21:49.995 --> 00:21:53.591
their binoculars when they leave.
We let them keep it.

00:21:53.591 --> 00:21:56.267
So they take all of these great skills
they have developed, within

00:21:56.267 --> 00:22:01.317
the Circle of Trust, within the museum's
setting, and take them out into the world.

00:22:01.317 --> 00:22:06.147
Because really what's at stake here
isn't just citizens being citizens of our sphere

00:22:06.147 --> 00:22:08.841
having rights and responsibilities
where we are, but it's about their

00:22:08.841 --> 00:22:12.781
citizenship. One of the great things about
the study of history, the process

00:22:12.781 --> 00:22:15.680
that we go through as we look at 
history, is that a lot of the skills

00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:20.362
that we use looking at the document,
making an argument, talking to one another,

00:22:20.362 --> 00:22:24.640
are also skills for the public sphere.
And on the internet today, it's kind of

00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:30.134
a murky monkey place, where there's 
a lot of debate and dialogue going on,

00:22:30.134 --> 00:22:34.474
without a lot of people talking to 
or listening to one another.

00:22:34.474 --> 00:22:37.542
So what if we're actually be able to
go into this digital area where our

00:22:37.542 --> 00:22:41.925
citizen lives, dig people out, you know,
have this skill set of being able to

00:22:41.925 --> 00:22:46.207
look critically at a source, think critically
about what they're hearing, and being able

00:22:46.207 --> 00:22:50.095
to form and close your argument,
having send them back out to the murk

00:22:50.095 --> 00:22:53.858
of the internet, and see what happens.
See if we could actually improve

00:22:53.858 --> 00:22:58.277
civil discourse, by having this new 
generation not of trained historians

00:22:58.277 --> 00:23:03.647
but of people trying to think historically.
Take their skill set back out into the world.

00:23:03.647 --> 00:23:08.169
So let's go back to our words. 
Citizen history and radical trust in museums.

00:23:08.169 --> 00:23:11.867
What does this mean for best practices
for citizen history? Well, museums,

00:23:11.867 --> 00:23:16.533
we have to remember that we're more
than just our four walls. That we are also

00:23:16.533 --> 00:23:19.346
the additional space for the people
who come in to our walls.

00:23:19.346 --> 00:23:22.600
They need to be able to think beyond
just what we want to present.

00:23:22.600 --> 00:23:26.111
In this straight, closed box. They are
to think about the larger conversations

00:23:26.111 --> 00:23:31.903
going on around us, in the world at large.
History is living, breathing, growing --

00:23:31.935 --> 00:23:34.565
something that is constantly evolves.
In an early version of this talk

00:23:34.644 --> 00:23:38.423
I didn't have history made history,
history is shared. History is noise,

00:23:38.423 --> 00:23:42.083
and that was more active than just 
the static noun, of history.

00:23:42.083 --> 00:23:46.467
Because history should never be static.
So the knowledge that history is constantly

00:23:46.467 --> 00:23:50.696
growing and evolving and changing,
and the history of today would change

00:23:50.696 --> 00:23:53.932
versus the history of tomorrow.
Also means that when we have our projects

00:23:53.932 --> 00:23:56.841
going on we need to be able to take
whatever it is that we're learning,

00:23:56.841 --> 00:23:59.810
and reiterated back into the project.
To be able to have the assumptions

00:23:59.810 --> 00:24:03.204
that we make for our citizen users 
grow and change, something learn

00:24:03.204 --> 00:24:05.790
more and more from.

00:24:05.790 --> 00:24:09.394
Citizens have rights and responsibilities
in your online space, you've gotta be able to

00:24:09.394 --> 00:24:13.426
let them in. Because it's not just enough
to say "Come in and look at our stuff

00:24:13.426 --> 00:24:16.409
precisely the way that we want you to."
We have to be able to give them the right

00:24:16.605 --> 00:24:20.239
to go into our data, muff around and see
what they are curious about within that

00:24:20.239 --> 00:24:25.604
framework, and send us their questions 
for whatever it is that they've uncovered.

00:24:25.604 --> 00:24:28.092
Trust is hugely public, as we just talked
about, it's really the Circle of Trust,

00:24:28.092 --> 00:24:32.658
the idea of the public trust, and the fact
that opening our trust to the public

00:24:32.658 --> 00:24:35.740
doesn't break down our trust.
It's as if it's becoming a partnership,

00:24:35.740 --> 00:24:38.420
the way that we can all grow from working 
together. So we have to be able to

00:24:38.420 --> 00:24:44.000
welcome our community into our questions,
and be able to, willing, to take our authority

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:47.338
out just enough to be able to say,
"Alright, what answers do you have?

00:24:47.338 --> 00:24:51.951
What questions do you have for us,
what can you do to bring in to our sphere,

00:24:51.951 --> 00:24:58.144
to help us all grow together."
And frankly the all important word, and.

00:24:59.225 --> 00:25:05.097
It's really bridging here, not just citizen history,
and radical trust of museums, or just

00:25:05.177 --> 00:25:09.337
citizens, and museums. It's really about 
partnership and dialogue.

00:25:09.337 --> 00:25:13.306
Whenever we look at this, it's not just about
two things working and cross purposes,

00:25:13.306 --> 00:25:16.740
it's people who think they'll be working
together. In a partnership.

00:25:16.740 --> 00:25:20.332
So not only it's this about our citizens,
it's also about what the museum must do

00:25:20.332 --> 00:25:23.380
for these guys, so we have to be able to
scaffold the skills we want to build,

00:25:23.380 --> 00:25:26.904
we have to be able to engage our users.
This community takes a lot of caring

00:25:26.904 --> 00:25:30.257
and feeding, a lot of time. To be able to
make sure people are getting the skills,

00:25:30.257 --> 00:25:34.021
building the skills, learning the things
that we'll hope they'd take away from this.

00:25:34.021 --> 00:25:38.101
And be able to say "We may not have the
historical authority in this space,

00:25:38.101 --> 00:25:41.939
we have the understanding. How you go 
about, thinking historically, let's help you

00:25:41.939 --> 00:25:48.334
grow, let's all move along this continuum 
together. So, finally, instead of best practices

00:25:48.334 --> 00:25:53.388
I think about from these different ideas about
citizens, history, and museums, and you'll

00:25:53.388 --> 00:25:56.318
be able to start with a question that
begs an answer. Something that is actually

00:25:56.318 --> 00:25:59.811
a legit question in history. Something
not just to give people busy work

00:25:59.811 --> 00:26:03.948
and say "Go." This is gotta be something
that museums are actually curious about.

00:26:03.948 --> 00:26:06.689
Furthermore, we'll have to be able to
welcome these fresh eyes into our stuff.

00:26:06.907 --> 00:26:10.809
We don't need everyone to be trained 
historians right off the bat, but that

00:26:10.809 --> 00:26:14.978
there's actually value in having people
not necessarily worked with this data,

00:26:14.978 --> 00:26:18.701
with this period of history, or with these
historical skills before, coming in

00:26:18.701 --> 00:26:21.975
and looking at our stuff. We need 
to be able to iterate and dialogue.

00:26:21.975 --> 00:26:25.240
Again, keeping in mind that this is
never static, this should never stay

00:26:25.240 --> 00:26:28.838
in one place for very long, that our 
projects need to constantly be

00:26:28.838 --> 00:26:31.772
evaluated and reevaluated, taking
knowledge that we've learned,

00:26:31.772 --> 00:26:35.118
putting it back into the project,
and remembering it's always about

00:26:35.118 --> 00:26:39.183
the dialogue between the museum
and it's users. Between users and users.

00:26:39.183 --> 00:26:42.627
The conversation that goes on in that space
is just as important what we find out

00:26:42.627 --> 00:26:46.781
from it. We need to make sure that
there is that space, for debate and discussion.

00:26:46.781 --> 00:26:50.041
We've got some place for these people to go,
to be able to talk comfortably

00:26:50.041 --> 00:26:53.373
to one another. We have to be able to
create opportunities for growth,

00:26:53.679 --> 00:26:56.219
as people find that they are getting 
more and more into these skills,

00:26:56.219 --> 00:26:58.563
learning more and more about
what they are doing. We need to

00:26:58.563 --> 00:27:01.167
make sure that there's some place 
for them to go, beyond just the basic

00:27:01.167 --> 00:27:05.513
level of citizen history. In the Lodz Project,
for instance, we have a level called

00:27:05.513 --> 00:27:09.711
expert reviewer, when users have gotten
really good at doing the basic research

00:27:09.727 --> 00:27:13.837
that we ask them to do, we can then elevate
them to the expert reviewer, and then

00:27:13.837 --> 00:27:16.742
as a result, they are then asked
to go through and review the research

00:27:16.742 --> 00:27:21.217
that their colleagues, their peers have done.
We elevate peers to a higher level,

00:27:21.217 --> 00:27:24.732
they then go talk to their peers
as greater authority figures,

00:27:24.732 --> 00:27:27.416
thus giving them a little bit more
empowerment and also give them

00:27:27.416 --> 00:27:32.814
their -- here's an opportunity to realize
that there's opportunity for growth.

00:27:32.814 --> 00:27:35.378
(Student) And what's after that?
(Elissa) What's after that?

00:27:35.378 --> 00:27:39.716
That's a great question. Once you worked
at the expert reviewer a little bit more,

00:27:39.716 --> 00:27:43.544
I'm going to go find out.
That's part of our next considerations

00:27:43.544 --> 00:27:47.409
a little bit more. And frankly this 
community need a lot of caring

00:27:47.409 --> 00:27:49.630
and feeding. You gotta make sure 
you've got a community of manager

00:27:49.630 --> 00:27:51.995
that is really, willing to be boots
on the ground, constantly working

00:27:51.995 --> 00:27:57.456
with your people, with your users,
with your citizens. And being there

00:27:57.456 --> 00:28:01.128
to answer their questions, to help them
get through the murk of the unknown

00:28:01.128 --> 00:28:04.896
unknowns, you know, there's still
value in there. Citizen history has

00:28:04.896 --> 00:28:09.001
truly been one of the great lapse 
of my professional life, and the more

00:28:09.001 --> 00:28:13.330
that I talk to users, learn from users,
understanding this that we do,

00:28:13.330 --> 00:28:17.304
the more I like our users, the more that 
I love having them in our space,

00:28:17.304 --> 00:28:22.472
to be able to learn from them.
And because you today are my citizens here,

00:28:22.472 --> 00:28:25.283
love to hear if you have any questions?

00:28:25.283 --> 00:28:27.927
<i>Clapping</i>

00:28:30.410 --> 00:28:35.173
(Host) Sure I got lots. Thank you for giving us
an idea of what you do, and beta now

00:28:35.173 --> 00:28:40.107
you are at it for seven years. You talked about
museums as if there is this, sort of,

00:28:40.107 --> 00:28:44.346
global museum for certain different museums,
but even within the Holocaust museum,

00:28:44.346 --> 00:28:49.659
could you talk about how, what kind of
sponsors is supporting, and sponsorship

00:28:49.659 --> 00:28:59.853
you've gotten from curators, staff, directors,
boards of trustees, sponsors, members, doners?

00:28:59.853 --> 00:29:02.889
(Elissa) Well this is little bit of where that
radical part comes in, those words in the title

00:29:02.889 --> 00:29:07.518
that we didn't talk about. I kinda dispense
the word radical pretty early on

00:29:07.518 --> 00:29:11.355
in the revision process because this is
really what it seems to be all about.

00:29:11.355 --> 00:29:15.077
(Host) It's causing radical anywhere.
(Elissa) Right, but within the framework

00:29:15.077 --> 00:29:19.140
of the Holocaust museum it kind of is.
We're still very much nervous about

00:29:19.140 --> 00:29:22.824
having anybody who wasn't us working
on our data, one of the reason why it's been

00:29:22.824 --> 00:29:26.158
in beta for seven years, because we're
worried about saying "The museum

00:29:26.158 --> 00:29:29.747
is doing this project where we're putting
our data our there, come be part of us,

00:29:29.747 --> 00:29:34.384
and look at whatever you want."
Because some elements in the museum

00:29:34.384 --> 00:29:37.776
are worried that they are going to ask
for, where data was gathered.

00:29:37.776 --> 00:29:42.610
Basically we are not necessarily ready
to have, out there there aren't very -- yea.

00:29:42.610 --> 00:29:46.792
We often got a lot of support from
the educational community.

00:29:46.792 --> 00:29:52.306
Because they might have been kind of 
on [inaudible] again, for seven years.

00:29:52.306 --> 00:29:55.138
Then when do the people find out
about it, it's been a lot of fun

00:29:55.138 --> 00:29:58.405
in the last two and half years after
we've mentioned it, the more people seemed

00:29:58.405 --> 00:30:02.770
to like it. We really appreciate the fact that
we give people empowerment within our space.

00:30:02.770 --> 00:30:08.307
We see a lot of opportunities for it, within
educational, formal educational setting.

00:30:08.307 --> 00:30:15.209
As far as doners go we haven't really pushed
to it that much. And now that I set

00:30:15.209 --> 00:30:18.135
the marketing department, there's definitely
more opportunities for us to do that.

00:30:18.459 --> 00:30:22.067
About a year ago we went through
a completely revamp of the site,

00:30:22.067 --> 00:30:25.314
the screenshots that I showed earlier
are from the new version.

00:30:25.314 --> 00:30:27.793
And the plan was always going to be
that once we got it to that point,

00:30:27.793 --> 00:30:32.149
we're going to release it out of beta,
and good lines from marketing

00:30:32.149 --> 00:30:34.960
will do something to push around it
and we will get lots and lots of users,

00:30:34.960 --> 00:30:38.074
that would be wonderful, and we would
just go from there.

00:30:38.074 --> 00:30:41.333
Part of the reasons is an accident 
on timing. This is our 20th anniversary year

00:30:41.420 --> 00:30:46.395
and probably 90% of my time has been
spent on working on the 20th, working

00:30:46.395 --> 00:30:50.832
our outreach around that.
My other kind of customer have also been

00:30:50.832 --> 00:30:55.625
spawned for that. So maybe if we done this
the year before, we'd actually be able to

00:30:55.625 --> 00:30:57.891
run through the marketing cycle 
and see what happens.

00:30:57.891 --> 00:31:00.730
(Host) Here's some few more numbers --
(Elissa) Sure

00:31:00.730 --> 00:31:04.716
(Host) How many people have contributed
to that large project?

00:31:04.716 --> 00:31:08.287
(Elissa) So we have about 1500 people
working on the project, in some capacity

00:31:08.287 --> 00:31:10.538
or another.
(Host) Is that number increasing or decreasing?

00:31:10.538 --> 00:31:13.720
(Elissa) That number is increasing.
We've been doing a lot of work, again,

00:31:13.720 --> 00:31:17.374
with classes. We tell teachers about the project,
they work with their students.

00:31:17.374 --> 00:31:22.405
I do a webinar showing them how to use
the project, where we tutor and support.

00:31:22.405 --> 00:31:26.377
And the classroom then give support at the
back end of the stage and research it.

00:31:26.377 --> 00:31:30.466
So that number is going to increase. Again,
next week when I got another fourty students

00:31:30.466 --> 00:31:35.508
from GW on this site. We do have the occasional
user who comes across it and then

00:31:35.508 --> 00:31:40.294
goes hog while on it. That, as people find this
on their own, they would usually spend a lot more

00:31:40.294 --> 00:31:42.877
time on it.
(Host) And how many followers do you have

00:31:42.877 --> 00:31:46.195
on your @twitter name?
(Elissa) You mean personally or the museum?

00:31:46.195 --> 00:31:50.520
(Host) Well @museums365 is that it?
(Elissa) That's - I forgot - about 1400.

00:31:50.520 --> 00:31:54.661
The museum itself has 150,700 something.
(Host) So you do have an audience

00:31:54.752 --> 00:32:00.062
that you can reach by that twitter feed.
So you use that for advertising events,

00:32:00.062 --> 00:32:04.848
do you promote these citizen history projects?
(Elissa) We do, and particularly now, the way

00:32:04.848 --> 00:32:09.212
that our social media team is set up,
I came over last October, and then

00:32:09.281 --> 00:32:12.856
by a month behind me, we have analyst 
person come over from collections.

00:32:12.856 --> 00:32:17.151
I've been in education for -- until the two of us
I ran the Lodz Ghetto project,

00:32:17.151 --> 00:32:20.843
he ran Remember Me, which is
a crowdsourcing project in the band

00:32:20.843 --> 00:32:23.943
of the American History Project
where we have people sharing their

00:32:23.943 --> 00:32:29.912
personal knowledge, where the memories
of, judgement of who these persons.

00:32:29.912 --> 00:32:34.528
We have photographs that we show, these children,
and ask "Does anybody remember this person?

00:32:34.528 --> 00:32:38.611
Do you know who this person is?"
And people do and they share their story.

00:32:38.611 --> 00:32:42.453
It's really been remarkable to see how successful
that's been. So we have two people working

00:32:42.453 --> 00:32:46.889
within this crowdsourcing field, now sitting in 
the social media. And I'm very excited to see

00:32:46.889 --> 00:32:53.951
what we can actually do with that, 
once we get out of the 20th muck.

00:32:53.951 --> 00:32:58.436
(Host) I have many more questions but I should
let others, pursue.

00:32:58.436 --> 00:33:05.869
(Audience) So, um, looking at the Children
of the Lodz Ghetto site, and right at the top

00:33:05.869 --> 00:33:13.962
there's project status, so, twenty students
know to have survived, so is this what's been known

00:33:13.962 --> 00:33:21.277
or verified through people working on this site?
(Elissa) That's right, yeah.

00:33:21.370 --> 00:33:25.537
This is one of the additions that we put in
with the new revision of the site.

00:33:25.537 --> 00:33:32.494
We had a bigger evaluation with some 
of our users, and a little bit work from

00:33:32.642 --> 00:33:36.490
the administrators doing research, and they 
gave us some of their feedback.

00:33:36.490 --> 00:33:40.300
Among that was, people want to see the scope
of what they are doing. How far along

00:33:40.300 --> 00:33:44.109
we're actually getting with this project.
(Host) I think that's really important,

00:33:44.109 --> 00:33:50.511
you've been including the number of 
citizen historians who have contributed

00:33:50.511 --> 00:33:57.943
to the project. I think that's a good thing 
to show too. They do this at NYPL, show

00:33:57.943 --> 00:34:04.340
the number of people, number of records
that have been curated or transcribed.

00:34:04.340 --> 00:34:07.482
(Elissa) It's one of the things that they mentioned
in that same article about galaxy zoo,

00:34:07.482 --> 00:34:11.016
was that, here at the three in the morning
with my galaxies, you know, there are

00:34:11.016 --> 00:34:13.928
a couple thousand other people also
up at three in the morning with their galaxies.

00:34:13.928 --> 00:34:17.518
So when their best [ribow] in the end,
where we're so often on our own,

00:34:17.518 --> 00:34:21.499
we're actually very much with other people
at the same time.

00:34:27.309 --> 00:34:33.302
I am an educator, I love questions, 
and I love wasting time, so as long as it takes.

00:34:36.812 --> 00:34:40.718
(Audience) Yeah I didn't mention that I went
to the museum last week, and saw a tour

00:34:41.002 --> 00:34:47.689
saying about this, I don't remember that 
there was anything, lets say, in the area

00:34:47.689 --> 00:34:54.491
that talks about it. And I thought that, you know,
that might be a good thing,

00:34:54.491 --> 00:34:59.557
to have something, where they're from
or something, where they go to talk about

00:34:59.557 --> 00:35:05.349
this project, because, you know, 
looking around there are maybe,

00:35:05.349 --> 00:35:14.104
I think, you know, elderly people who have
person of interest as they go to that museum.

00:35:14.104 --> 00:35:21.408
That might open up more --
(Host) So it's like how does

00:35:21.408 --> 00:35:26.657
the brick and mortar interact more tightly
with the virtual here.

00:35:26.657 --> 00:35:29.739
(Elissa) And what we've been more willing
to do in the brick-and-mortar space is then to say

00:35:29.739 --> 00:35:34.801
connect with us online. We've also been
missing a lot of our community museums

00:35:34.872 --> 00:35:39.031
around the the symposium near some of our mall.
Where we'd get to the end of the exhibition

00:35:39.031 --> 00:35:44.355
and say "What did you think? Tell us on twitter at
Am-History Museum." So we are more willing

00:35:44.355 --> 00:35:50.069
to let people tell us, share their thoughts
in the social space. So putting things

00:35:50.069 --> 00:35:53.906
in our Facebook wall, talking to them
on Twitter, putting videos on Youtube,

00:35:53.906 --> 00:35:58.765
pinning stuff on Pinterest boards.
But as far as interaction with our

00:35:58.765 --> 00:36:04.204
digital space, the things that are connected to us
in visual and outside of social,

00:36:04.204 --> 00:36:08.537
we definitely have less of a push, 
to those into the museum itself.

00:36:08.537 --> 00:36:11.385
There is a space on the second floor
of the museum, where our third

00:36:11.385 --> 00:36:14.806
crowdsourcing project, we have three 
going on right now, to a very much end.

00:36:14.806 --> 00:36:18.068
The World Memory Project,
we're in partnership with Ancestry.com

00:36:18.068 --> 00:36:22.260
we have a bunch of names list, that we're
trying to get transcribed, and we open

00:36:22.260 --> 00:36:26.999
those up to the Ancestry community to help
us key in some of those names and dates

00:36:26.999 --> 00:36:32.474
and things from these giant databases.
And there are two stations that are set up

00:36:32.474 --> 00:36:36.258
there. Where you are getting to help 
key in -- but again we don't talk about

00:36:36.258 --> 00:36:41.235
it very much. And I often do wonder
if there is some kind of force separation

00:36:41.235 --> 00:36:44.406
between our brick-and-mortar self,
and our digital space self.

00:36:44.406 --> 00:36:47.721
Because the brick and mortar, we can 
control, pretty much. We can control

00:36:47.721 --> 00:36:52.962
what conversations going in that space,
we have information comes down from

00:36:52.962 --> 00:36:57.287
the museum at large. And the digital space
was a little bit scarier. Right? We're not

00:36:57.287 --> 00:37:00.551
be able to control the conversations there
as much. We are worried that people

00:37:00.551 --> 00:37:04.903
would just take our stuff and run away with it.
And if we are not ready for that many people

00:37:04.903 --> 00:37:10.988
to look at our data and actually poke our stuff,
poke our precious raw files, then having

00:37:10.988 --> 00:37:16.837
information leading to those things in
the brick and mortar space can be

00:37:16.921 --> 00:37:20.670
a little bit scary sometimes.
(Host) And it's like on some of your tickets

00:37:20.670 --> 00:37:23.597
it could say "Work with us online."
(Elissa) Totally.

00:37:23.597 --> 00:37:27.551
I would love that.
(Host) So the museum's greatest fear

00:37:27.551 --> 00:37:32.138
might be something like success where
people demanded more and more.

00:37:32.138 --> 00:37:39.232
What's your biggest fear about citizen
historian projects in the Holocaust museum?

00:37:39.232 --> 00:37:45.613
(Elissa) I think my fear is I'm going to fail.
And I believe in failing big and failing best.

00:37:46.485 --> 00:37:49.981
But I am worried that when we build it
nobody will come, where we build it,

00:37:49.981 --> 00:37:54.507
people come, and then we can't share
that with our internal community.

00:37:54.507 --> 00:37:57.480
We say "Look at all these great success 
we had." And they say "So what.

00:37:57.480 --> 00:37:59.881
What's the point?" That discrete
experiment we were running

00:37:59.881 --> 00:38:03.701
where we have the trust of our users,
we have a wonderful community

00:38:03.701 --> 00:38:07.688
that well iterates and talks to each other
and learn skills, and goes out into the world

00:38:07.688 --> 00:38:13.837
that nobody on our side, or wasn't enough.
And that if this experiment fails,

00:38:13.837 --> 00:38:16.920
then how are we every going to
convince them again?

00:38:16.920 --> 00:38:23.389
(Host) It makes me think of -- there's
all this talk about blended online education,

00:38:23.389 --> 00:38:31.432
and moves and the counter-discourse 
from people in pedagogy is about, well,

00:38:31.432 --> 00:38:38.818
we need learning outcomes that
would be assessed. How do you measure

00:38:38.818 --> 00:38:42.776
the education that you are giving?
But it seems to me that's the other

00:38:42.776 --> 00:38:50.886
part of the Circle that we don't have
closed ear yet. It's -- how do we document

00:38:50.886 --> 00:38:56.697
that we have taught citizens 
how to do history in a way that relives

00:38:56.697 --> 00:39:01.004
our own sense of what it means
to do history. When we show how

00:39:01.004 --> 00:39:04.203
many people -- we could show
how many people might have transcribed

00:39:04.203 --> 00:39:08.852
something, how do we document
what they learned, and, argue me

00:39:08.852 --> 00:39:13.165
the counter-argument to people
who say "So what? So you've got some people

00:39:13.165 --> 00:39:16.739
who type some stuff in, big deal."
(Elissa) It's really hard, it's where I think

00:39:16.739 --> 00:39:19.833
having the notes filled so prominent 
really comes in. That we've given

00:39:19.833 --> 00:39:23.747
people the space, we ask them
to share with us what their reflections are.

00:39:23.747 --> 00:39:26.607
And anecdotally I can tell you that
people, let's say, spend more and more time

00:39:26.607 --> 00:39:29.840
on the project get better and better
at filling their skill, and they'd able to

00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:33.268
reflect more critically what is it
that they are thinking. But in terms

00:39:33.268 --> 00:39:38.167
of being able to measure, to give it
an A, I don't know if we can.

00:39:38.167 --> 00:39:39.907
I don't have to figure that out yet.
We also have a lot of supporting

00:39:39.907 --> 00:39:43.754
teachers, who haven't quite grasp
the idea either, I have one teacher

00:39:43.754 --> 00:39:47.707
who wanted to use the project such
that the students would go on

00:39:47.707 --> 00:39:51.010
and research one student, and they
would present the powerpoint

00:39:51.010 --> 00:39:54.772
of that student's life, in class.
Then I had to tell him that

00:39:54.772 --> 00:39:58.767
you can't do that, because you are
going to have kids who would go and

00:39:58.767 --> 00:40:02.718
look for a student, and find nothing there.
That's the nature of the project,

00:40:02.718 --> 00:40:07.079
that's the nature of doing research.
We don't know what we don't have.

00:40:07.079 --> 00:40:09.446
And in finding that out, that's part of
the goal for us is to figure out

00:40:09.446 --> 00:40:12.146
we don't have what those gaps are.
And so trying to put up a hearing

00:40:12.146 --> 00:40:17.794
narrative on it, you can't always do that.
The expectations just aren't the same.

00:40:17.794 --> 00:40:23.274
(Host) Now thinking about you using
the Bloom's model, you were saying that

00:40:23.274 --> 00:40:27.592
as we think through what we want
to give people who interact with us,

00:40:27.592 --> 00:40:32.502
we want to climb up the scale.
So, a kind of outcomes assessment

00:40:32.502 --> 00:40:36.919
would be to somehow to map back
to that. And say, "We've brought people

00:40:36.919 --> 00:40:42.494
from here to here to here.
But how would you make that assessment

00:40:42.494 --> 00:40:47.737
as is, we need indicative and strictly 
from our own projects that are

00:40:47.737 --> 00:40:53.682
trying to do this, so, self-interested
in an answer to this problem it seems.

00:40:53.682 --> 00:40:56.636
Really hard stuff.
(Elissa) I imagine you have, like an

00:40:56.636 --> 00:41:01.677
another crowdsourced group of people
who would then go through those

00:41:01.677 --> 00:41:04.624
free text responses and code those.
So you would have something like a

00:41:04.624 --> 00:41:08.638
separate project going on at the same time
where they'll be able to have certain words

00:41:08.638 --> 00:41:12.687
that comes today we're looking for.
In those notes.

00:41:12.687 --> 00:41:15.994
(Audience) I know that there's been
some discussion about this in the archives

00:41:15.994 --> 00:41:21.947
field, particularly question of instruction
and how much when you bring in a group

00:41:21.947 --> 00:41:24.897
of students into the archives and you
teach them how to do research,

00:41:24.897 --> 00:41:28.327
teaching them actually handling the skills,
and what they've been doing

00:41:28.327 --> 00:41:32.735
is a pre- and post-test. And trying 
to compare the results to see

00:41:32.735 --> 00:41:36.956
what they've actually learned.
But there's a whole new set of research

00:41:36.956 --> 00:41:41.575
that is going into this because no one 
is really quite sure that actually works.

00:41:41.575 --> 00:41:47.572
But, I think this is a critical issue
for a lot of disciplines right now,

00:41:47.572 --> 00:41:51.117
is trying to figure out what it is
you are trying to evaluate

00:41:51.117 --> 00:41:55.474
and how you going to do that evaluation.

00:41:55.474 --> 00:41:58.885
(Host) I'm wondering off, also it gets
to the top of the Bloom's pyramid ,

00:41:58.885 --> 00:42:03.276
when you get to that true creative level,
but when you start seeing your users

00:42:03.276 --> 00:42:10.390
able to take the skills that they acquired
in the course of the interaction with

00:42:10.390 --> 00:42:16.611
the institution and create truly new
and different things, and the institution

00:42:16.611 --> 00:42:20.695
has to be willing to accept that,
as almost like, well here's one of our

00:42:20.695 --> 00:42:26.420
user's exhibit. You might even call it
an exhibit on this topic. It's their

00:42:26.420 --> 00:42:30.039
interpretation, we don't necessarily
endorse it, but maybe when we give them

00:42:30.039 --> 00:42:34.897
the space, the digital space in order
to demonstrate that creativity.

00:42:34.909 --> 00:42:38.759
So they kind of move up from being
worker bees to, you know,

00:42:38.928 --> 00:42:43.507
making something.
(Elissa) Should they take it even further

00:42:43.507 --> 00:42:49.361
trusting now apart, to be able to --
(Host) Right, you know, way out there

00:42:49.361 --> 00:42:55.262
interpretations, or people do stuff
with your data that you don't even like.

00:42:55.262 --> 00:43:00.262
(Audience) And with the Holocaust Museum
you could imagine how that could go.

00:43:00.262 --> 00:43:04.993
(Audience) One of the best ways to,
at least to being to get a sense of what

00:43:04.993 --> 00:43:08.210
people are getting out of this 
is simply to ask them "What did

00:43:08.210 --> 00:43:10.706
you get out of it?"
And if they are able to express that

00:43:10.706 --> 00:43:14.656
in a way that is convincing, then you know
that it worked.

00:43:14.656 --> 00:43:17.727
(Elissa) That's a good point. We have
one teacher, so that the teachers

00:43:17.727 --> 00:43:21.626
going to be working with us starting
next week, again, it's been our

00:43:21.626 --> 00:43:24.591
biggest fan for most of the time
the project's been up.

00:43:24.591 --> 00:43:27.568
Who assigns students at the end of class
due two reflection papers.

00:43:27.568 --> 00:43:31.628
One just the real basics of what did you find
on this day, how much time did you spend

00:43:31.628 --> 00:43:35.179
on that project, what did you write,
what did the museum write back.

00:43:35.179 --> 00:43:39.109
And reflect on that encounter.
And then a new page on just,

00:43:39.109 --> 00:43:43.946
their experience of the site.
What it is that they, were thinking

00:43:43.946 --> 00:43:46.637
about getting out of it,
what we could do better,

00:43:46.637 --> 00:43:50.608
what they could do better.
Next topic. And I think,

00:43:50.608 --> 00:43:55.026
in aggregate, that is the best we've been
able to do so far, being able to see what it is

00:43:55.026 --> 00:43:57.950
that people are taking away from the project.
I think that if there is some way

00:43:57.950 --> 00:44:03.663
to make that more of the part of the project,
to ask people as they leave this thing,

00:44:03.663 --> 00:44:08.974
share something. Answers, questions
someone open with it, with us.

00:44:08.974 --> 00:44:10.608
That we're kind of unsure.

00:44:10.608 --> 00:44:13.830
(Audience) I don't know that much about
the -- really, a merging discipline

00:44:13.830 --> 00:44:18.181
of learning outcome assessment,
knowing we have our own specialist

00:44:18.181 --> 00:44:23.565
gathered through campus, but it's a lot
more complex than just asking people

00:44:23.732 --> 00:44:29.767
what they think they've gotten out of it.
That's a part of it. And I really think

00:44:29.767 --> 00:44:35.754
that we need to know and we need to
figure out ways to know what we are doing.

00:44:35.754 --> 00:44:42.635
Because how can we know if, you know,
we're doing a good job of teaching

00:44:42.635 --> 00:44:46.697
the things we want to teach through
these slides and through these participation.

00:44:46.697 --> 00:44:52.347
How can we know how to change?
To better realize our goals.

00:44:52.347 --> 00:44:56.934
Those are really complex issues 
and I am actually thinking out of,

00:44:56.934 --> 00:45:00.893
trying to reach out to some learning
outcome assessment people just,

00:45:00.893 --> 00:45:06.812
to help think through that part of the equation.
(Host) So I want to return to encourage you

00:45:06.812 --> 00:45:10.874
to go much further with this, you know,
idea of printing it on the tickets

00:45:10.874 --> 00:45:14.866
or making visible in the museum, 
and lots of other ways if you have

00:45:14.866 --> 00:45:18.424
150,000 Twitter followers, you should 
be generating a lot more than 1500

00:45:18.424 --> 00:45:23.990
participants. I mean, we work here
at the Smithsonian's Encyclopedia of Life project,

00:45:23.990 --> 00:45:30.277
to make a webpage for every species,
and they have some of the same concerns

00:45:30.277 --> 00:45:33.844
that you have, but I think you have a grand
opportunity to go to your wards and

00:45:33.844 --> 00:45:37.590
your sponsors and rank this up 
as the central way. This is the future

00:45:37.590 --> 00:45:42.987
of this museum. It's a matter of creating
out. That's one thing about educating

00:45:42.987 --> 00:45:46.895
the users but, creating out, reaching and 
engagement in getting people to

00:45:46.895 --> 00:45:51.184
participate remotely, that may generate
more traffic with people who

00:45:51.184 --> 00:45:54.566
come and visit, there's just a lot of ways
this should grow bigger, and I'm,

00:45:54.566 --> 00:45:59.112
you know, you should be shy of
that growing-ness much larger.

00:45:59.112 --> 00:46:03.188
The fears are prevalent everywhere
and maybe the Holocaust museum

00:46:03.188 --> 00:46:08.429
deservedly, as I said, I worked for them
on their -- and their fears are prevalent

00:46:08.429 --> 00:46:14.243
about Holocaust deniers taking over these,
or polluting results. Even one small error

00:46:14.243 --> 00:46:20.207
in the data set will then trigger a national
history that undermines the validity of it all,

00:46:20.207 --> 00:46:25.202
so you do have more concerns than usual,
but all of the more reasons to go at it,

00:46:25.202 --> 00:46:29.752
in an unsubstituted way, and deal with
the credibility of, you know, ensuring

00:46:29.752 --> 00:46:34.212
the credibility so, it's good that you've got
the, sort of, senior reviewer status,

00:46:34.212 --> 00:46:38.422
but various forms of badges and recognition
having annual conference for those

00:46:38.422 --> 00:46:42.528
who participating, bringing them in,
bringing them together, raising your stature,

00:46:42.528 --> 00:46:45.877
making them leaders of the project,
giving them decision making power

00:46:45.877 --> 00:46:51.279
and supervision to control any problems.
There's lots of ways you can go much further

00:46:51.279 --> 00:46:56.557
and demanding more of your users 
while actually causing them to engage.

00:46:56.557 --> 00:46:59.500
So don't be afraid about that. 
I have one particular question about

00:46:59.500 --> 00:47:03.054
the 1500. You have some distribution
of the demographics, I mean there's

00:47:03.054 --> 00:47:06.320
two theories. One says that, well,
the museum patrons and interests

00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:10.217
are of an older demographic, and 
the other says, well, it's the kids who

00:47:10.217 --> 00:47:14.283
are doing online citizen science,
so help me with that one.

00:47:14.283 --> 00:47:16.388
(Elissa) Well it's not about askewed,
but there's again, a lot of our outreach's 


00:47:16.388 --> 00:47:19.970
been through teachers, so, most
users here are school-aged,

00:47:19.970 --> 00:47:23.468
so my best users have been in middleschool.
Which is for our middle-school educators

00:47:23.468 --> 00:47:27.828
has been incredibly ratifying. 
But as far as empowering users,

00:47:27.828 --> 00:47:34.695
people who find us not through a school,
just on their own, and then, crank out

00:47:34.695 --> 00:47:40.794
at the data, they for the most part
been in college or just out of college.

00:47:40.794 --> 00:47:46.239
(Host) I mean you could do a lot more,
I am a supporter, I am a contributor

00:47:46.472 --> 00:47:50.074
and a member at -- I have no idea 
about the Lodz Ghetto project.

00:47:50.074 --> 00:47:54.281
It's just not advertised, doesn't reach
me, in either the email traffic I get from

00:47:54.281 --> 00:47:59.287
USAHMM or the printed materials,
or the annual reports or anything

00:47:59.287 --> 00:48:03.784
that I get, so I mean I think there's a way
that you should be less shy, you should be

00:48:03.784 --> 00:48:09.682
more bold in making these projects 
are more visible. That will raise the issue

00:48:09.682 --> 00:48:13.614
of credibility but also the value 
to the museum and you need to

00:48:13.614 --> 00:48:18.689
buy in to the people upstairs.
Your directors and your boards.

00:48:18.689 --> 00:48:21.525
To be able to be in to this.
I mean, a memorable day was --

00:48:21.525 --> 00:48:26.082
I was working and writing plan
for computers in this museum

00:48:26.082 --> 00:48:31.097
where the 70 members of the Holocaust
memorial board, many spoke up against it

00:48:31.097 --> 00:48:37.137
saying things like, "If the Nazis had computers,
you know, etc." So it was [Shanky Wineburg]

00:48:37.137 --> 00:48:40.951
who was, sort of, the lead designer
of this, who said, I mean, settled it all

00:48:40.951 --> 00:48:45.335
with a very sharp quote, he said
"Computers are the best way for

00:48:45.335 --> 00:48:50.700
the next generation to learn about the Holocaust."
And it was over. You know, making that

00:48:50.700 --> 00:48:56.364
forcible statement, that this is,
I'm glad to help you, if that would be useful.

00:48:56.364 --> 00:49:00.467
I'm writing you an email, so
you'd be on with that, you know,

00:49:00.467 --> 00:49:06.282
I think there's a lot that you can
and should be doing and revving up

00:49:06.282 --> 00:49:12.116
internally as well as externally,
absolutely the way to go.

00:49:12.116 --> 00:49:16.677
(Audience) I think what's interesting
is that if you trust your users enough,

00:49:16.677 --> 00:49:23.285
say Holocaust deniers did get, well,
some material, I mean, how do you

00:49:23.285 --> 00:49:28.738
teach people to do this area well?
History is all about refuting, argument

00:49:28.738 --> 00:49:33.567
sets that don't hold up and learning
how to do that, and understanding

00:49:33.567 --> 00:49:39.430
that those arguments will inevitably
crop up all the time, and as you raise

00:49:39.430 --> 00:49:44.314
your profile you will get more of that.
So be prepared, but go there.

00:49:44.314 --> 00:49:48.430
(Audience) Maybe the analogy to look at
with the cranks and support is,

00:49:48.430 --> 00:49:54.878
is open source software community.
They're, by opening up the software,

00:49:54.878 --> 00:49:57.881
you have a better chance of creating
something that is robust, and

00:49:57.881 --> 00:50:04.797
it's going to be protected then if you
try to keep it to yourself, control it.

00:50:04.797 --> 00:50:07.910
(Audience) I was thinking, while we're 
planning follow-up projects where you

00:50:07.910 --> 00:50:10.364
<i>Laughter</i>

00:50:10.364 --> 00:50:16.714
You mentioned that the audience
for this is still predominantly American.

00:50:16.714 --> 00:50:20.499
Partly imagine that's because of working
with classes, but I wonder whether

00:50:20.499 --> 00:50:25.076
there is a kind of pen-pal-asque kind of
angle to this idea on the internet,

00:50:25.076 --> 00:50:28.798
that everywhere and you know,
the descendants of many of the people,

00:50:28.798 --> 00:50:32.098
or people who might know about this,
or have other sources of information

00:50:32.098 --> 00:50:37.848
are obviously probably still in, might still
be in Europe, or in Israel or wherever.

00:50:37.848 --> 00:50:41.528
And I wonder about, sort of, a global
outreach, sort of, piece, and how that

00:50:41.528 --> 00:50:47.741
fits in with the museum's position,
versus the other Holocaust and remembrance

00:50:47.741 --> 00:50:50.493
institutions.
(Elissa) My interns actually are working on

00:50:50.493 --> 00:50:56.062
German language arts program,
she's coming to us from Berlin this year.

00:50:56.062 --> 00:50:59.536
She was totally jazzed about the Lodz
Ghetto project, and probably are

00:50:59.536 --> 00:51:05.687
our heaviest moderator at the moment.
And I should send my boss a review,

00:51:05.687 --> 00:51:10.620
as a German language outreach program,
to German schools, based on the things

00:51:10.620 --> 00:51:15.007
in their curriculum, and be able to --
We had a good group of teachers

00:51:15.007 --> 00:51:18.476
from Poland who came in last year.
And I was asked to come and present

00:51:18.476 --> 00:51:22.381
the project to them. And there's actually
a lot of hesitancy about it, that

00:51:22.381 --> 00:51:27.994
they didn't like the concept or the framework.
Except one woman who actually was

00:51:27.994 --> 00:51:32.708
from Lodz, and she said it was a brilliant
idea and that her students would love

00:51:32.708 --> 00:51:37.529
to work on it. Part of the problem is
that our resources are in English,

00:51:37.529 --> 00:51:42.357
and all the data is in German. 
So we have to go through and say that

00:51:42.357 --> 00:51:49.098
yes, Nona is name and Folun is it's 
first name. And through the expectation

00:51:49.098 --> 00:51:53.653
for our English students, so there's 
a German name cheatsheet.

00:51:53.653 --> 00:51:57.513
And for our German speakers we already
got the data at their disposal

00:51:57.513 --> 00:52:02.142
and a lot of them are taught English
in schools. I'm less familiar with how other --

00:52:02.142 --> 00:52:07.560
I guess we could view it as just English
class project, for schools. But I think

00:52:07.560 --> 00:52:12.453
it's an excellent idea that we've paired
this with our global outreach since part

00:52:12.453 --> 00:52:15.745
of this project still send some admission
called the global classroom

00:52:15.745 --> 00:52:19.008
where we do talk about outreach
to the world.

00:52:19.008 --> 00:52:22.308
(Audience) I'm curious about the Polish 
teachers' hesitancy.

00:52:22.308 --> 00:52:31.945
(Elissa) Um, it was bad. Yeah, they didn't 
like the way we are posing our questions.

00:52:31.945 --> 00:52:37.018
The fact that we just open these students
up for anybody to come and look at them.

00:52:37.018 --> 00:52:43.765
And I think there's also some hesitancy about
the way that we are reading history.

00:52:43.765 --> 00:52:46.957
Again the idea that history is, being
spanned out, is open. They weren't

00:52:46.957 --> 00:52:51.442
[inaudible] the framework,
that there could be new questions

00:52:51.442 --> 00:52:55.153
coming out of them. And that's your
families -- I'm sure it's not just

00:52:55.153 --> 00:52:58.732
the polish teacher mindset
that it was a different group

00:52:58.732 --> 00:53:02.642
with different questions.
And I definitely imagine that

00:53:02.642 --> 00:53:09.110
when we are working with different
group of teachers and have different outcome.

00:53:09.852 --> 00:53:14.084
(Host) If there are no other questions
or comments, let's have a round of applause

00:53:14.084 --> 00:53:16.455
for a really great presentation.

00:53:16.455 --> 00:53:20.628
<i>Applause</i>

00:53:25.830 --> 00:53:31.512
Does not count as genuine.
The allographic work, by contrast,

00:53:31.512 --> 00:53:37.220
such as a musical score or poem
has no one acceptable instance.

00:53:37.220 --> 00:53:42.759
Or as Goodman puts it, all correct
performances or renditions of the work

00:53:42.759 --> 00:53:48.698
are equally genuine instances o f it.
Allographic art, therefore we may

00:53:48.698 --> 00:53:54.694
thereby define as a rule-bound.
Pondering the question, Goodman asks,

00:53:54.694 --> 00:54:00.503
"Could institution of a notational system
transform painting or acting from

00:54:00.503 --> 00:54:06.286
an autographic, into an allographic art."
Well Goodman answers the question

00:54:06.482 --> 00:54:09.940
in the negative. "The development of
time-based media suggest that

00:54:09.940 --> 00:54:15.555
we reconsider the issue. Past the work
of art in the digital era, become akin

00:54:15.555 --> 00:54:21.606
to a symphony or a publication."
Does the aim of curators, conservators,

00:54:21.606 --> 00:54:27.275
technical specialist and artists to sort out
the implications of such questions going forward.

00:54:27.275 --> 00:54:33.249
As we consider the ramifications of time-based
art, which can be reproduced and decimated

00:54:33.249 --> 00:54:38.607
outside the realm of traditional museum
environments, what is the significance.

00:54:38.607 --> 00:54:44.175
of showing such work in museums, 
in a laminar institutions to become repositories

00:54:44.175 --> 00:54:49.954
for such work. When might it be appropriate
to recognize that a work of art is essentially

00:54:49.954 --> 00:54:57.281
ephemeral. And when and why might we want
to take steps to preserve it and perhaps

00:54:57.281 --> 00:55:03.114
to transform it in order to preserve it.
To do so, ultimately, is to privilege

00:55:03.114 --> 00:55:08.770
the idea over matter, recognizing that
we must inevitably allow the medium

00:55:08.770 --> 00:55:15.211
in which the work was originally executed
to evolve, in the service of its presentation.

00:55:15.211 --> 00:55:19.876
The opportunity to collect exhibit and
preserve time-based art, thus provides

00:55:19.876 --> 00:55:25.286
an exceptional opportunity to consider
the philosophical locations of new media

00:55:25.286 --> 00:55:29.862
for understanding our world and our selves.
As well as to explore the technical

00:55:29.862 --> 00:55:34.650
and intellectual challenges of preserving 
these works for future audiences,

00:55:34.650 --> 00:55:41.723
and for providing access to them,
for audiences now and tomorrow.

00:55:41.723 --> 00:55:45.609
The new technological environment
produced by digital media further

00:55:45.609 --> 00:55:50.911
privileges the value of interdisciplinary
and interinstitutional collaboration,

00:55:50.911 --> 00:55:55.701
as we explore the tools and strategies
necessarily to share time-based and

00:55:55.701 --> 00:56:00.959
digital works with future generations.
And on that note, I thank you so much

00:56:00.959 --> 00:56:06.026
for your attention. And I very much looking
forward to hearing your thoughts, observations

00:56:06.026 --> 00:56:08.615
and questions. Thank you.

00:56:08.615 --> 00:56:11.769
<i>Applause</i>

00:56:17.678 --> 00:56:21.023
(Anne) Yes
(Audience) First of all, I have a critical

00:56:21.023 --> 00:56:24.832
question to ask, first of all let me give a --
thanking you for that extraordinary

00:56:24.832 --> 00:56:28.942
presentation. I don't get to introduce myself
as I was away. I'm sorry about that,

00:56:28.942 --> 00:56:33.117
but I'm coming to mid presentations
for years now as a fellow here.

00:56:33.117 --> 00:56:38.553
This is one of the most remarkable
that I've seen. There's a lot of deeper

00:56:38.553 --> 00:56:44.029
respect behind these questions.
My question is this: on the note of

00:56:44.029 --> 00:56:47.875
[Benjamin] and he's sort of,
who was a figure that I distrust,

00:56:47.875 --> 00:56:51.140
as someone was, as far as this type
goes as well, and he's mentoring

00:56:51.140 --> 00:56:55.641
notions of the subject rendering
management of flux. I wanted to

00:56:55.641 --> 00:57:00.489
get you to reflect on the fact --
there's a brave fascination in your idea

00:57:00.489 --> 00:57:04.658
of the time series, and the various
flooring that go on with it.

00:57:04.658 --> 00:57:08.223
You can get the point about how 
conventional ways of formulating

00:57:08.223 --> 00:57:12.992
subjectivity are under attack.
But it strikes me as paradoxical

00:57:12.992 --> 00:57:17.944
that the portrait library would be
this place where this radical project

00:57:17.944 --> 00:57:21.375
would be going on, and before I want
to do that, would rather -- first of all

00:57:21.375 --> 00:57:25.243
it seems to me that a lot of these
radical experiment that you put forward

00:57:25.243 --> 00:57:29.735
are actually predicated just as much
as [Benjamin]'s essays of [inaudible]

00:57:29.735 --> 00:57:34.223
I have a really nostalgic impulse to recover
the subject in the first place.

00:57:34.223 --> 00:57:39.257
When I see those three late night 
talk show hosts, I was shocked by the news.

00:57:39.257 --> 00:57:42.618
This is I think what the lips are supposed
to feel, that the identity of it all,

00:57:42.618 --> 00:57:48.024
the fact that there were, makes me
long for a world that is better than that.

00:57:48.024 --> 00:57:52.420
It's a reflection of my alienating world
that I want to see the individual,

00:57:52.420 --> 00:57:57.125
so there's the nostalgia there.
But I think the problem is even greater

00:57:57.125 --> 00:58:01.836
than that in my mind, that I constant
to engage in this radical project while

00:58:01.836 --> 00:58:09.212
presuming that the subject is going 
to be a portrait, is to presume the very

00:58:09.212 --> 00:58:13.341
thing that was the problem in the 
first place, you know what I mean?

00:58:13.341 --> 00:58:19.208
Like, if I can put it, it's like the idea
of presuming the individual subjects

00:58:19.208 --> 00:58:26.016
so that to attack that idea, is stacking --
is not a radical project in the first place.

00:58:26.016 --> 00:58:31.612
When I put Lebron James all by himself
in a cube and evacuate the entire cube

00:58:31.612 --> 00:58:36.269
of everything in the world except
images of himself and then conduct

00:58:36.269 --> 00:58:40.990
a radical decentering from that,
I pre-supposed in the first place

00:58:40.990 --> 00:58:46.423
in totally artificial terms, one, I'm presuming
that radically to attack.

00:58:46.423 --> 00:58:50.418
There's something about this project 
going on in the space of the portrait gallery

00:58:50.418 --> 00:58:55.018
that seems to presume the erratic enemy
in the first place, I just wanted put --

00:58:55.018 --> 00:58:59.596
(Anne) I think it's a fabulous -- I think
It's a really really fabulous set of observations

00:58:59.596 --> 00:59:03.606
that you put forward and I thank you
so much for that, and I have to say

00:59:03.606 --> 00:59:08.567
one of the things that I love so much about
[Benjamin] and it's like any great author,

00:59:08.567 --> 00:59:13.627
something that keeps me coming back
over and over is there are so many facets

00:59:13.627 --> 00:59:19.534
obviously to all of his essays. I have to
admit the work of art in the age of mechanical

00:59:19.534 --> 00:59:24.691
reproduction is this magnet for me.
And I'm just -- I put it obvious, I think you're

00:59:24.691 --> 00:59:33.752
right, that he seems to be in many instances
sort of battling with his own sense of nostalgia.

00:59:33.752 --> 00:59:40.885
And I will also say that I think I really do
consider his work extraordinarily artful.

00:59:40.885 --> 00:59:46.156
It's obviously very self conscious in it's 
construction, as is the case with the artworks

00:59:46.156 --> 00:59:50.497
I shared with you today. And so I guess
first and foremost I would say

00:59:50.497 --> 00:59:54.614
I don't think there's any one way to read
any of these, and that ultimately

00:59:54.614 --> 00:59:57.920
is the fascination. There are lots of 
different context in which these can

00:59:57.920 --> 01:00:04.194
function. I do think that the work of art
in the age of mechanical reproduction

01:00:04.194 --> 01:00:09.608
itself in terms of observations about
subjectivity is really really interesting,

01:00:09.608 --> 01:00:14.153
particularly [Lee] in this essay, when he's
grappling with this question of Victorial

01:00:14.153 --> 01:00:17.837
cliffs for example, and really dealing with
the fragmentation of the body,

01:00:17.837 --> 01:00:22.214
and new ways in which we could get to
literally see and understand the body of result,

01:00:22.214 --> 01:00:28.513
and freeze-frames it and photographic interventions
on, but that's a little bit of an aside.

01:00:28.513 --> 01:00:32.717
And you bring up the really important question
of, alright, if I'm working at the portrait

01:00:32.717 --> 01:00:37.728
gallery, how can I -- I notices it's not directed
personally, but how can one who is attached

01:00:37.728 --> 01:00:42.516
to this notion of a portrait gallery in the
first place presume to undermine this notion

01:00:42.516 --> 01:00:49.450
of an individual hand-on one of the things
that is important to understand about

01:00:49.450 --> 01:00:53.967
the notion of the portrait gallery itself.
I don't mean just ours, but this larger

01:00:53.985 --> 01:00:59.365
intellectual framework, as of course,
it too has, a history that relates to

01:00:59.626 --> 01:01:05.451
a specific set of political developments,
and specific set of intellectual developments.

01:01:05.451 --> 01:01:10.961
It is a product of mid nineteen century,
it seems to be a very British concept,

01:01:10.961 --> 01:01:14.467
which is interesting, [Norship Pointing]
for example, has made the point that

01:01:14.467 --> 01:01:18.767
portrait galleries tend to exist in the
English speaking world, which I actually

01:01:18.767 --> 01:01:26.106
have come to think is attached to ways
of thinking about the political significance

01:01:26.106 --> 01:01:30.350
of the individual unit in society
that is kind of interesting, especially

01:01:30.350 --> 01:01:34.274
with respect to democratic ideals
so I have to say actually, I think there's

01:01:34.274 --> 01:01:39.595
something really interesting about the 
perhaps hidden political assumptions

01:01:39.595 --> 01:01:46.088
that go along with the portrait itself.
But specifically with respect to trying

01:01:46.088 --> 01:01:51.431
to undermine and retask this initial
portrait gallery, that has a lot to do

01:01:51.431 --> 01:01:56.520
with the fact that that's where I happen
to find myself as a young curator.

01:01:56.520 --> 01:02:01.844
I ended up at the portrait gallery 
somewhat unexpectedly shortly after

01:02:01.844 --> 01:02:06.281
finishing graduate school. And I --
one other things that really intrigued

01:02:06.281 --> 01:02:11.331
me about it, and this is going back
twelve years, is that the museum

01:02:11.331 --> 01:02:18.146
underwent a very self-conscious 
reinvention between 2001 and 2006

01:02:18.146 --> 01:02:22.788
when it was actually under physical renovation.
And there was a desire to re-examine

01:02:22.788 --> 01:02:29.781
the very principles of portraiture, which
I think has tended to be a form of art making

01:02:29.781 --> 01:02:34.140
that has not gotten a significant amount
of credit, I think in the recent past,

01:02:34.140 --> 01:02:40.460
it's been seen as a somewhat tired genre,
in fact, in the sixties lots of artists refuse

01:02:40.460 --> 01:02:45.578
to use that term, we think of Chuck Close 
for example, who does these giant faces.

01:02:45.578 --> 01:02:50.990
But during the sixties he called them heads.
He would not acknowledge until relatively

01:02:51.192 --> 01:02:58.718
recently that they are a form of portraiture.
And so one of my pleasures, pleasures

01:02:58.718 --> 01:03:04.813
perhaps as a curator has been to ask
audience to reconsider what they think

01:03:04.813 --> 01:03:11.601
they know about portraiture by thinking
of it -- and this is a thorny term, I'm using

01:03:11.601 --> 01:03:18.114
that word, but I wanted to do is to undo
the notion of portraiture and to recast it

01:03:18.114 --> 01:03:22.933
a little bit as a way of thinking about
identity and breaking down personal identity.

01:03:22.933 --> 01:03:26.776
But I think you are right to bring up
the question about whether or not

01:03:26.776 --> 01:03:37.095
there are in fact some, you know, some 
types of paradoxes or some assumptions

01:03:37.095 --> 01:03:41.413
that are invented in there that are,
you know, in some sense, going against

01:03:41.413 --> 01:03:47.257
the grain of the deeper thinking here.
It is really interesting to me to talk with

01:03:47.257 --> 01:03:50.992
contemporary artists and, actually,
a project I'm working on right now

01:03:50.992 --> 01:03:56.836
is about portrait extraction, who really
do very actively seem to be rediscovering

01:03:56.836 --> 01:04:01.325
or re-examining a notion which certainly
goes back to the Renaissance and this is

01:04:01.325 --> 01:04:05.769
the notion that somehow in depicting 
anybody else, or anything else,

01:04:05.769 --> 01:04:11.296
an artist is obviously reflecting something
of who he or she is, but I think the idea

01:04:11.296 --> 01:04:16.461
that that entity can somehow be seen
as an envelope, that is impervious to

01:04:16.461 --> 01:04:22.819
outside influence is really completely 
disintegrated. And yet side by side with that

01:04:22.819 --> 01:04:26.746
we know that we live in this incredible 
culture of celebrity, and of course

01:04:26.746 --> 01:04:31.968
[Worhose] was critiquing , so there 
definitely I think it's a very very very intersting

01:04:31.968 --> 01:04:39.698
push-pull and I think you are right
to raise these questions on --

01:04:39.698 --> 01:04:41.913
So I'm not sure that's a very satisfying 
response.

01:04:41.913 --> 01:04:47.590
(Audience) I just wanted to underscore that
all these paradoxes that that you unintendedly

01:04:47.590 --> 01:04:52.895
fly by underscore the interest of these lines.
Because it seems to me to speak to the

01:04:52.895 --> 01:04:57.241
contradiction of the world that we live in.
So thank you very much.

01:04:57.241 --> 01:05:01.045
(Anne) Oh, thank you. Thank for your
wonderful question.

01:05:01.045 --> 01:05:04.451
(Audience) Hi, um, thank you for having us,
your talk was interesting.

01:05:04.451 --> 01:05:10.691
I was wondering if the distinction of [inaudible]
autographic and allographic artwork

01:05:10.691 --> 01:05:16.003
can really be helpful for preservation,
to artworks, because I think

01:05:16.130 --> 01:05:25.153
the distinction is not that evident or --
there's more of a learning space between

01:05:25.153 --> 01:05:29.406
the two, and I think they really applies to
all the media that is - all the work so far,

01:05:29.406 --> 01:05:36.677
they are not necessarily time-based.
For example, sculpture by Turner,

01:05:36.677 --> 01:05:43.039
and the way that it has to be reorganized
in the gallery according to certain

01:05:43.039 --> 01:05:48.102
instructions because it travels in pieces,
but it has to be organized. You see,

01:05:48.102 --> 01:05:52.413
that, in a way of performance, all the work,
because if something goes wrong,

01:05:52.413 --> 01:05:57.143
you don't know where the things are,
you could argue that you are creating

01:05:57.143 --> 01:06:01.355
a new work if you do that. So that means
if the first time that that was done

01:06:01.355 --> 01:06:06.935
by the artist himself, that was the autograph
and is lost or maybe preserved through

01:06:06.935 --> 01:06:14.773
photography. So that work is un-autographic
but it also has autographic instances.

01:06:14.773 --> 01:06:18.985
And then it becomes untruthful work
so that if I show you a music as well,

01:06:18.985 --> 01:06:24.739
in a sense you can have performances
in terms of someone performing the work

01:06:24.739 --> 01:06:27.853
for, someone creating a new addition, 
but there will always be someone

01:06:27.853 --> 01:06:33.524
that goes in before, the autographic
instances are very in, manuscript, for example.

01:06:33.731 --> 01:06:39.896
And if we think [inaudible]
they exist in time-based media,

01:06:39.896 --> 01:06:46.910
because you will look for it in each of the page,
you will look for proof of the first instance

01:06:46.910 --> 01:06:55.228
of these sequence of art manifestations 
that will be steadily generated by the artists.

01:06:55.228 --> 01:07:01.880
So, where's about that option
[inaudible] for preservation.

01:07:01.880 --> 01:07:05.647
(Anne) That's a really interesting point.
I guess the assumption that you make

01:07:05.647 --> 01:07:08.529
that there will always a desire to go
back to the original form of the

01:07:08.529 --> 01:07:13.194
time-based piece, I think it's not
necessarily something that you should in fact

01:07:13.194 --> 01:07:16.936
be taking for granted. It's actually
something, of course I have really

01:07:17.063 --> 01:07:21.765
great colleagues, but it is a discussion
that I had with members of our staff.

01:07:21.765 --> 01:07:25.968
Why do we need to hold on to this
original form, and again, this is where

01:07:25.968 --> 01:07:29.591
I think the paradigm of being about 
being a historian is so important.

01:07:29.591 --> 01:07:33.947
That my colleagues in exhibitions
department were more focused on

01:07:33.947 --> 01:07:37.083
the here and the now, and getting it up
on the wall, for them, it's sort of,

01:07:37.083 --> 01:07:41.299
excess baggage to worry about
the sixteen iterations that perceive it

01:07:41.299 --> 01:07:45.315
it's not meaningful in the same way
in that context as it is to me.

01:07:45.315 --> 01:07:49.297
I think they understand the value of 
preserving it, and ultimately I think that

01:07:49.297 --> 01:07:53.099
that's where the framework of the museum
maybe have something special to

01:07:53.099 --> 01:07:57.750
contribute to this dialogue, but this
distinction between allographic

01:07:57.750 --> 01:08:02.412
and autographic I agree, is not a perfect one.
And in fact I think there are ways in which

01:08:02.412 --> 01:08:06.461
intentions that we observe in the world of
time-based and digital media

01:08:06.461 --> 01:08:12.493
are in fact really simply shedding light
on old problems that have always

01:08:12.493 --> 01:08:16.843
been there. Our conservation, has always
been about intervention into, you know,

01:08:16.843 --> 01:08:22.704
so-called erratic original, and 
the conservator has to make choices

01:08:22.704 --> 01:08:28.818
about how to best represent the intent
of the original artist or at least what

01:08:28.818 --> 01:08:33.324
is understood as being the original intent.
And what I really wanted to do with that

01:08:33.324 --> 01:08:39.487
distinction was to, I guess, disengage from
the idea that there is some inherent,

01:08:39.487 --> 01:08:43.214
well, of, but I as a historian I do think
there are things to be learned from

01:08:43.214 --> 01:08:46.026
the original that may not even be
interesting to the artist, however,

01:08:46.026 --> 01:08:51.298
that aside, I wanted to make a point that
if we begin to re-conceptualize visual art,

01:08:51.298 --> 01:08:56.324
which is traditionally been seen as something
which is the product of an erratic genius.

01:08:56.324 --> 01:09:00.495
You know, [Benjamin] is obviously trying
to disengage that, but it's sort of,

01:09:00.495 --> 01:09:07.179
[fidelization] that continues, that we can
begin to see these works of art as things

01:09:07.179 --> 01:09:13.329
that can migrate and retain some resemblance
of authenticity, no matter what medium

01:09:13.329 --> 01:09:18.043
they are executed in, as long as they visually
represent or conceptually represent

01:09:18.043 --> 01:09:24.160
what the artist wanted that piece to be,
but I do think it's an imperfect metaphor.

01:09:24.160 --> 01:09:27.414
Things are going to change, things are
going to deteriorate and something ultimately

01:09:27.414 --> 01:09:31.481
maybe a representation of itself.
And that becomes, I think it's almost

01:09:31.481 --> 01:09:37.077
sort of interesting philosophical conundrum,
and I'll just say one more thing.

01:09:37.077 --> 01:09:41.944
Which is simply to observe that this notion
of authenticity also functions

01:09:41.944 --> 01:09:45.700
slightly differently for people who are
interested in preserving data,

01:09:45.845 --> 01:09:48.552
and making sure that the data itself
doesn't get corrupted. So in fact,

01:09:48.552 --> 01:09:53.670
I think that lots of interesting layers
get added in here, that are worth

01:09:53.670 --> 01:09:59.521
thinking about, but it's a great question.
Thank you.

01:09:59.521 --> 01:10:06.799
(Audience) I wanted to point out that
the idea of the essential self which

01:10:06.799 --> 01:10:13.248
would be captured in the portrait is rather
a naive notion or is at fault with the public

01:10:13.248 --> 01:10:17.394
presentation of a person. Everybody knows
these people have private lives.

01:10:17.394 --> 01:10:22.038
Everybody knows they did all sorts of things,
they were complex beings. And if you take

01:10:22.038 --> 01:10:30.770
something like -- well, it doesn't take
new media to bring out the complications

01:10:30.770 --> 01:10:34.333
in the first place. You know, the diaries 
them-self are worth one avenue,

01:10:34.333 --> 01:10:38.970
but the other thing is, photographic,
presentation as in for instance,

01:10:38.970 --> 01:10:43.282
David Duncan spoke on Picasso
the private Picasso, he has this big

01:10:43.282 --> 01:10:48.460
photographic record of Picasso 
in the fifties, the forties and fifties,

01:10:48.460 --> 01:10:53.013
and you get this much complication.
In fact, you get a whole lot more complications

01:10:53.013 --> 01:10:58.118
there than you can get in your average
presentation, well, you know, the one

01:10:58.118 --> 01:11:03.674
of [Gitzburg], for instance. You get 
as much from David Duncan as you do

01:11:03.674 --> 01:11:09.834
from the new media presentation.
And digitization doesn't actually change

01:11:09.834 --> 01:11:17.329
anything so it's not quite that our notion
of a person's identity is modified by

01:11:17.329 --> 01:11:22.653
the exposure of new media. The exposure
of new media is interesting if it's own right.

01:11:22.653 --> 01:11:27.552
But it doesn't change the basic concepts
that we have of who we are,

01:11:27.552 --> 01:11:32.198
what persons are, what vulnerabilities 
and complications we have.

01:11:32.198 --> 01:11:35.690
(Anne) I think that's such a great
observation and would be so much fun

01:11:35.690 --> 01:11:42.761
to dig into that question with you,
I would submit, I would like for the sake

01:11:42.761 --> 01:11:47.766
of argument maybe put forward the idea
that I really do think there are ways

01:11:47.766 --> 01:11:54.030
in which we are developing new insights
in the present day about self on which

01:11:54.030 --> 01:11:57.979
perhaps are giving us new tools 
to go back and look at the past.

01:11:57.979 --> 01:12:03.992
For example, the querying of the history
of art, for example. Not necessarily,

01:12:03.992 --> 01:12:08.927
which is not to say that things were not
present previously that complicates

01:12:08.927 --> 01:12:12.715
the picture, I think you are absolutely
right that there's always been

01:12:12.715 --> 01:12:15.730
complexity with the human self.
But it is interesting to go back

01:12:15.730 --> 01:12:19.218
and look at the language that
the artists use at least, in describing

01:12:19.218 --> 01:12:23.334
their projects. Even somebody like
Alfred Stieglitz who was such

01:12:23.463 --> 01:12:29.375
a perceptive and sophisticated photographer,
really looked for the essential moment

01:12:29.375 --> 01:12:34.748
to capture somebody. And it's a language
but there's somehow I think, embedded

01:12:34.748 --> 01:12:40.617
in that presumption of a privileged way
of understanding somebody. And yet of course

01:12:40.617 --> 01:12:46.002
he did lots of different portraits of O'keeffe,
you can look at that series of portrait

01:12:46.002 --> 01:12:48.713
presentations.
(Audience) I would not trust what an artist

01:12:48.713 --> 01:12:56.124
says about his own project. It just isn't reliable.
It is self-promotional and --

01:12:56.124 --> 01:13:00.327
(Anne) There's a narrative-reflective
paradigm but I loved -- I think your point

01:13:00.327 --> 01:13:02.984
is an excellent one. I think you are 
pervasing it.

01:13:02.984 --> 01:13:05.929
(Host) We have time for two more,
and there's a few people who have been waiting.

01:13:05.929 --> 01:13:09.082
So one there and then at the back.

01:13:09.082 --> 01:13:14.728
(Audience) Dealing with authenticity,
how, whenever you are deciding

01:13:14.728 --> 01:13:21.690
to migrate or provide forms for
current exhibition, how do you deal

01:13:21.690 --> 01:13:27.457
with deterioration versus intent.
For example, in [Globagrew]

01:13:27.457 --> 01:13:33.290
the artist manipulated the signal 
to get different colors and distortion.

01:13:33.290 --> 01:13:36.671
How do you know what's genuine
and how do you know what's real?

01:13:36.671 --> 01:13:41.421
Especially with film, if it's a color film
and there's red shift, was that intended?

01:13:41.421 --> 01:13:45.535
(Anne) Yeah, you know, the weird thing
is that you don't always know, actually.

01:13:45.535 --> 01:13:51.513
There's a great piece at the [Hershorn]
by John -- no not John Jordan, um,

01:13:51.513 --> 01:13:56.285
oh goodness, actually the artist's name
has just slipped my mind. But I'll get it

01:13:56.285 --> 01:14:01.030
for you. There's this great film piece
by a very interesting artist who was

01:14:01.030 --> 01:14:07.673
working in the seventies which is a film piece,
and there is sound that goes with it.

01:14:07.673 --> 01:14:12.883
But there's a little bit of a hypothesis,
about how we think the artist wanted

01:14:12.883 --> 01:14:16.903
that particular piece to be installed.
And the problem is there's an absence

01:14:16.903 --> 01:14:21.588
of documentation. So actually, 
one of the things that's really interesting

01:14:21.588 --> 01:14:27.313
and this goes to, really actually, any
period of artwork that we really have to

01:14:27.313 --> 01:14:31.895
rely very heavily upon an interpretive
framework. And so one other thing

01:14:31.895 --> 01:14:35.722
we've been doing in terms of looking
at this question about some practices

01:14:35.722 --> 01:14:39.369
is to think about what it means to
document the intention of the artist,

01:14:39.369 --> 01:14:43.584
at the outside. And so for example 
what we try to document now,

01:14:43.584 --> 01:14:48.419
recognizing that this information can
very very quickly disappear, is, you know,

01:14:48.578 --> 01:14:52.305
how does the artist want the piece to look
what it -- look when it's installed.

01:14:52.305 --> 01:14:56.420
What is it supposed to sound like,
and of course inevitably even when

01:14:56.420 --> 01:15:01.755
one tried to document these things
meticulously, we have to recognize that

01:15:01.755 --> 01:15:07.217
there's inevitably going to be some slippage.
Even when you think you are being very

01:15:07.217 --> 01:15:11.540
meticulous, things like processing
times, for computers can change.

01:15:11.540 --> 01:15:20.047
And so I have to say that we do our best
to develop data that gives us as many

01:15:20.047 --> 01:15:25.254
points of reference as possible, 
but I think ultimately we have to recognize

01:15:25.254 --> 01:15:30.650
that it is to a certain degree,
an imperfect science. We also something

01:15:30.650 --> 01:15:35.387
called a Checksum value to try to 
determine that the data moving forward

01:15:35.387 --> 01:15:41.962
is kept in tack, but I think it's very
interesting that historically the --

01:15:41.962 --> 01:15:46.916
in order to be sure that there are it,
problems for example, with the migration

01:15:46.916 --> 01:15:51.253
of video into digital format, except
there's been curators, I mean,

01:15:51.253 --> 01:15:55.616
[conservators], or probably curators too,
and certainly conservators who sit and look

01:15:55.616 --> 01:16:00.157
intently at something to be sure that
there are no disruptions. We can't do that

01:16:00.157 --> 01:16:04.632
with a generative work, so we've moved
beyond the point at which human perception

01:16:04.632 --> 01:16:09.858
can really answer these questions for us.
And so I think on a certain level we have to

01:16:09.858 --> 01:16:15.572
accept a certain degree of slippage,
and a certain degree of imperfection,

01:16:15.572 --> 01:16:21.549
inability to completely nail something down,
and again, that is kind of a mind shift.

01:16:21.549 --> 01:16:25.049
We've become comfortable with the fact
that we know everything will always be

01:16:25.049 --> 01:16:29.426
something of an observation.
So I don't know if that --

01:16:29.426 --> 01:16:33.943
(Audience) Those helped. Thank you.
(Host) So I'm afraid that we are out of time,

01:16:33.943 --> 01:16:38.522
I'm sure Anne will be happy to stick around
if there are a couple of more questions,

01:16:38.522 --> 01:16:41.171
but let's thank her for a really interesting clip.

01:16:41.171 --> 01:16:44.987
<i>Applause</i>

01:16:50.272 --> 01:16:53.212
(Anne) I can definitely stick around.
(Audience) What is a generative?

01:16:53.212 --> 01:16:58.886
(Anne) Oh right, we started with this term of --
yeah, it's a relatively new term and it refers

01:16:58.886 --> 01:17:05.382
to artwork that has no -- that doesn't loop.
That is continuously changing, so there is

01:17:05.382 --> 01:17:10.097
code behind the image that leads to
ever-changing permutations of the way

01:17:10.097 --> 01:17:16.690
in which the digital data is combined
and output. So there is no one instance

01:17:16.690 --> 01:17:21.017
of the work. It's constantly changing.
One can describe the generative is --

01:17:21.017 --> 01:17:25.059
(Audience) So a network piece,
is generative enough? It can

01:17:25.059 --> 01:17:27.815
run on for a hundred years?
(Anne) Forever. And you'll see

01:17:27.815 --> 01:17:30.502
ever-changing combinations.
(Audience) Yeah, maybe not very

01:17:30.502 --> 01:17:33.496
interestingly different, but none the less.
(Anne) Yeah that's right, exactly.

01:17:33.496 --> 01:17:37.399
You could just -- you did a pretty good job
describing it. Especially after fifty

01:17:37.399 --> 01:17:40.715
or so minutes. Yeah.