Analysis of Digital Art Content Created through
Background This research is part of my doctoral study that analyses digital art content created through collaboration on the web and mobiles. My research aims to understand how the concept of 'sharing' or 'collaboration' has successfully created a new paradigm of production and culture, Wikipedia being one such example. This study identified different meanings of 'sharing' and 'collaboration': an effective type of communication-making art collaboration in digital media, and social interactions through the study of digital art content, created from sharing and collaboration.
Methods A case study of collaborative artistic content was conducted to explore the motives of participation and the differences between synchronous and asynchronous art collaboration. The data sources such as news clippings and other articles appearing in mass media or social media were collected. The criteria for data selection were as follows: art content created using digital devices, art content expressed visually instead of textually, and art content created through user collaboration. The selected data were grouped by synchronous communication and asynchronous communication for analysis. Descriptive analysis was used to present the nature of the art content. An exploratory analysis was conducted based on three factors: time, communication, and engagement to investigate the findings regarding the research questions.
Results The participants became potential spectators and contributors in collaborative digital art that motivated people to participate. Assuming both the spectator and contributor roles enabled users to be more active participants in collaborative art creation. Asynchronous art collaboration was a useful type of communication for high engagement that provided a time gap between sending and receiving artworks. Lastly, the process of making recreations after collecting artworks from the participants of the asynchronous art collaboration was an effective action for creating an impactful art piece.
Conclusions ‘Sharing' and ‘collaboration' were interpreted differently in the context of usergenerated content and social media based on three points. Sharing was performed alone, and then the acts of sending and receiving followed. Collaboration implied that do something together based on sharing the same goal. Collaboration was a useful way to support users to create art more actively. Because participants assumed both the potential spectator and creator roles in the collaboration. Gaining someone's attention became a motive of performing art collaboration and other. Motives were sharing sympathy, intention, and goals. Lastly, asynchronous collaboration was a type of communication that led to an active art collaboration.
Keywords:
Digital Art Content, Digital Art Collaboration, Asynchronous Collaboration, Synchronous Collaboration1. Introduction
This research aims to understand what user-generated content is and how it works as the new collective movement in web 2.0. A socio-culture of sharing and collaboration has arisen through the increasing use of smart mobile devices and social networking sites. The rationale for this data analysis is to identify a different meaning of the works ‘sharing' and ‘collaboration', and to focus the understanding of contemporary digital art content, which is generated by sharing and collaboration. I have identified research questions as follows:
• How are ‘sharing' and ‘collaboration' different on web 2.0?
• What is the motivation for participating in digital art creation through collaboration?
• A comparison between synchronous and asynchronous art collaboration
2. Method
First and foremost, the theoretical framework was done to review three keypoints. These are: how ‘sharing’ and ‘collaboration’ have different meanings in web 2.0, what digital art collaborations are, and what the motivations are for participating in collaborative art projects. I then, documented the existing digital art content on the web, mobile, and social media, in order to understand social interactions in digital art content created through collaboration.
The case study of collaborative artistic content was conducted to explore the motives of participation and the useful points of synchronous and asynchronous art collaboration. The criteria for data selection are as follows: art content created through digital devices, art content expressed visually instead of through text, and art content made through user collaboration. The selected data is framed with two types of the communication system: synchronous communication and asynchronous communication.
Descriptive analysis (Yin, 2013) was used to present what art content is about. An exploratory analysis(Yin, 2013) was conducted on based three factors as follows: time, communication, and engagement. The findings of the investigation were discussed to understand some points of a comparison between synchronous and asynchronous art collaboration.
3. Theoretical Framework: ‘Sharing’ and ‘Collaboration’
Since the early 2000s, an increase in individual access online via many types of digital devices has generated a collective online movement. Many terms like "sharing," "openness," "user-generated content," and "participation" have become so ubiquitous that too often they tend to be conflated and misused (Mandiberg, 2012). The term ‘sharing' and ‘collaboration' are often misinterpreted in the context of user-generated content and social media. Sharing content alone does not constitute collaboration. For example, texting on a message board, writing audience-driven review sites, blogging and commenting, photo and video sharing (Taprial& Kanwar, 2012), bookmark sharing, micro blogging, and social networking – these tell us what a user is doing at a particular moment, or who a user is. For collaboration, an intention is essential; people aggregate to create a new entity (Mandiberg, 2012). Collaboration also requires goals; the intentional practice is different from the intentional goal (Mandiberg, 2012).
Individual digital devices support cooperative working among users who are geographically separated. There are two systemic views in cooperation, which are synchronous collaboration and asynchronous collaboration. Synchronous collaboration assists the remote sharing of workspace between participating individuals involved in common tasks; this sharing tool provides a joint viewing of the workspace in the sense of "what you see is what I see (Li & Hopper, 1998)". Asynchronous collaboration successfully works by sharing with an awareness of a greater context with intentions. For example, "the strongly collaborative Wikipedia deemphasizes the tight content-author link; while the attribution of each contribution made by each author is logged on the history tab of each page, attribution is primarily used as moderation and accountability tool (Mandiberg, 2012)".
The data analysis presented here aims to explore the meaning of collaboration in art mobile applications, to discover social interactions in collaborative art applications, and to understand the motivation behind participation. The data has been extracted from the web, mobile applications, and social media.
3. 1. Synchronous Collaboration and Asynchronous Collaboration
There are two systemic views in cooperation, synchronous collaboration and asynchronous collaboration (see figure 1), identify different forms of communication. In synchronous communication, multiple parties are participating at the same time and wait for replies from each other (Shore, 2016), which is a direct communication in real time (Akhil, 2014). The significant aspect of asynchronous communication in contrary to synchronous communication is time intervals (Shore, 2016). Users cannot predict the time for a reply.
When two communication systems employ collaborative artistic creation, a joint viewing of the workspace ("what you see is what I see" Li & Hopper, 1998), becomes important for pointing a notion of working in real time. Synchronous collaboration assists the remote sharing of workspace between participants; they share the same view of the workspace. Asynchronous collaboration successfully works by sharing, with users aware that their contribution will become part of a larger context.
Figure 1 shows that there is a time lapse between sending and receiving information in asynchronous systems, whereas data is delivered immediately to synchronous systems. Thus, a shared view of the workspace in which participants can cooperate is categorised as synchronous in the digital environment. The following table groups these projects by synchronous and asynchronous collaboration.
3. 2. Case Study of Art Collaborations based on Two Systemic Views
I’ve researched different types of collaborative artistic content including social drawing, social movie making, social architecture, social singing, social opera, and social music videos. The reason for focusing social media as a tool for art collaborations is that new social media, such as micro-blogs and social networking sites, has changed the role of users from receiver to the creator. Users of social media become an active audience. A user nowadays is both a media producer and media consumer. The invention of new social platforms such as photo-and video-sharing sites and micro-blogs enables self-creation through ‘amateur media (Mandiberg, 2012)’. This section explores what are similarities and differences between synchronous and asynchronous art collaborations.
Examples of collaborative artistic content were selected with the following criteria: an action of art collaborations happened through digital devices or digital medias, the projects covered the participants in worldwide, and a product or content that is commercially released by an individual or enterprise. Art collaborations, a collaborative art project, art cooperation, etc. were used for searching the examples of my case study.
Information about each artwork was written in the tables to recognise a name of artwork, a project leader, production year, and a type of media. Three factors, time, communication, engagement were used for analysis. The content of artworks was written in a summary of the analysis. At last, findings of similarities and differences were discussed to investigate some points of a comparison between synchronous and asynchronous art collaboration.
Descriptive analysis is written in Table 1. The exploratory analysis is summarised in the discussion.
A user has an active role in collaborative artistic creation. Being able to contribute motivates users to participate. In the context of an art application, collaboration constitutes "selfpresentation, observer or observed, and taking roles (Argyle, 2007)". Collaborative creation enables users to do something more actively. Participants become potential watchers and contributors in collaborative art via digital media. Shared intentions and goals become strong motivations to join in a collaborative project. These motivations are related to social structures because people have certain expectations of how a person should behave; the perceptions of these role-expectations is one of the determinants of a person's behavior (Argyle, 2007). This expectation shapes the act of creation.
One motive for participating in an art application is to gain someone's attention. People present "who I am" and display "what I'm doing" on social networking sites because they desire others' attention. Other motives behind content led by a computer-programme will depend on how the content is designed. The Johnny Cash project is designed as a memorial of his final record. Differential Life Integral City exhibits content. A smartphone, LG Optimus Vu2, was launched as a form of hand drawing communication. The mobile application Draw Something functions as a drawing quiz.
The content of collaborative art is important for making a successful project; however, time is found as a factor that impacts on engagement. For example, Johnny Cash project is an ongoing project which began since 2010. Therefore, the participants increased as long as the project is continued. A virtual choir has become more popular through making its series. Macdonald announced the period to global people for collecting the participants' films. This implies that asynchronous collaboration provides sufficient time to the participant.
My inference was that sharing a synced screen between the participants might support high engagement behind guarantees of someone's attention. However, ironically synchronous collaboration impacts only marginally on people worldwide. A smartphone, LG Optimus Vu2, was launched with the fascinating aim of daring its users to live spontaneously. One of its features, Vu: Talk, provides a joint viewing service between two LG Optimus Vu2 owners that enables them to draw each other pictures while on the phone. However, this smartphone failed to secure many customers; not many people know of this fascinating feature. This is because drawing talks only worked between two LG Optimus Vu2 users, and the technical conditions like a full signal of telecommunication services had to support working drawing talks lively.
Lastly, asynchronous art projects were recreated by a project leader after collecting contributors' works. Or, a computer programme recreated the outcome after collecting resources from participants; this results in an impressive output.
4. Conclusion
‘Sharing' and ‘collaboration' were interpreted differently in the context of user-generated content and social media with three points. First, sharing was performed alone, and then an act of sending and receiving was followed. Sharing did not constitute an act of collaboration. Second, having an intention was a key of collaboration. Lastly, the participants shared the same goal to collaborate.
Users participated more actively when they collaborated. This is because they took both roles of potential watchers and contributors. ‘Gaining someone's attention' was a motive for participation in a collaborative art project. The motives for participating in a collaborative art project are gaining someone's attention and designing content.
Electronic media enabled cooperative working across geographical distances by online access on an individual device. This computer communication system had two different communicative systems, synchronous and asynchronous. In collaborative artistic creation, the joint workspace was a facet of both asynchronous and synchronous communication. Asynchronous art projects explored as an effective type of collaboration. Time is a facet of high involvement in collaboration. Asynchronous communication enabled recreation of collaborative art which investigated as a useful point of resulting an impressive outcome.
Notes
This work is part of the doctoral dissertation which was done by 2017 at University of London, Goldsmiths.
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