IV. Analysis

Social Capital, a platform and reward as key ingredients for crowd sourced work.

Casey Pugh's Star Wars uncut, Daniel Eatock's 'participate' works and Yayoi Kusama’s obliteration room have all successfully sourced creative production from many people who they do not know. When a group exhibits this kind of cooperation, it is down to a phenomenon called social capital.

Clay Shirkey explains that when a group trade on social capital, all members gain each other's favour (shaky, 2009 page 193). Social capital acts as the glue that enables cooperation, and bridges between individuals in heterogeneous groups (page 222). In all three case studies there is an element, which utilises an existing source of social capital. Star Wars, which was first released in 1977 (Vaux, n.d.), Has a large community of fans, which suggests a gradual buildup of social capital over the years. Star Wars uncut is an iteration of this social capital at work. Daniel Eatock's appeal, in a similar way, stems from his graphic designers/artist’s celebrity status - for individuals who are visual art students or amateur practitioners, the prospect of collaboration with an established artist is attractive. Kusama is using both the establishment where her work is presented and her reputation as a famous artist to attract participation from thousands of people (Ellwood, 2001).

Another thing all these works have in common is that they provide a setting for the work to be created. The Queensland's Gallery of modern Art enabled Kusama to create a physical platform where kids could play. The Internet, in both Eatock and Pugh's works provides a cheap and easy platform for people to get together.
But the question remains what could motivate individuals to participate in these works. It is not likely that they care about the success of the project before they invested any time in it. It is safe to assume however, that they care about their own reputation. An individual might feel cheated if they get nothing in return for their contribution. Yet if they can claim a part of a renowned artist's work they will gain positive reputation. Kusama's pre-claimed physical space ensures that contributions are immediately connected to her, and she provides all the necessary tools for participation (i.e. white room and special stickers)

Star Wars uncut and Eatock must step up and satisfy the contributors' expectation through an ongoing process. Imagine if you would, that you have just submitted a photo to Eatock's website or a 15 second film to Pugh's project. It is not until your work features on the Internet that you get your hard work's reward. In other words, the expectations that you take time and produce content is not reasonable unless you are promised that it will fit into a bigger picture. In both of these cases the lack of physical space would have been an insurmountable obstacle until the beginning of the century.

The instigators of a crowd-sourced project win the title ‘hardest workers’, but they author the platform, not the contributions.

When an individual engages with one of these works, they are required to give at most 30 days to their contribution. By contrast, the party that initiated the process had to conclude it, and in most cases have engaged in a certain amount of moderation when the work was in progress. Pugh had to programed a player to stream the full version of Starwars Uncut (Zebo, 2010). While on Eatock’s website there is not ‘submit’ button, the designer single handedly uploads images he receives via his email. It is therefore important to note that the instigators are the ones who work the hardest individually and put the most individual effort into the work.

Yayoi Kusama has gone to the length of setting up a physical space and commissioning the right kind of stickers. All the involvement she requires is for kids to run around and make a mess, hardly a lot to ask of a child. It is easy therefore, to identify her as the author.

Pugh and Eatock require the participants to produce more. In contrast with stickers, we recognise that films and photographs have authors and that it is not acceptable to assume authorship of another's work. So adhering to society's standards, Pugh recognises himself and his team as the authors of 'Star Wars Uncut', but make it clear that they did not author the individual scenes that make it up. Eatock claims authorship of the 'Participate' projects as platforms, but he credits each contribution to an individual.

Crediting contributions.

Judging by the level of effort required of participant in Star Wars uncut, it is my opinion that the directors cut should have identified which scene was created by whom. The credits appear in alphabetical order that, amongst other things, make contacting the individuals who contributed to the work quite difficult. The fact that those are Vimeo user names is not stated.
This point is important, because the three main authors of my case studies seem to have made the assumption that the contributors do not wish to be linked to their contributions, or be contacted directly through association to their contribution. Yet all three decided to provide and associate their own contact details with these works.
Why have they not offered the opportunity of exposure to the contributors? It seems an obvious act, but in none of my case studies were participants asked 'what credit would you like?' The answer to the question would ensure that whether they remained anonymous or fully identified, all the collaborators would have been satisfied.

The Internet enables and preserves the information about these works.

Every time a work is produced as a result of cooperation it serves as a proof to the potential we have as a society. The Internet not only provides the means to facilitate such works. It also allows for the preservation of the information they produce. Therefore, these works, which strongly rely on the Internet, are a constant reminder of what has been achieved collectively. The text that describes them can be found by key terms using search engines. Even Kusama's work, which had its own physical platform, and did not originally depend on the Internet, has since been disassembled. Now, its existence is mainly confirmed by the Internet, which hopefully preserves its lessons as well.

These works are created by wise crowds.

In order to determine if wise crowds make these works I will turn to the criteria James Surowiecki outlines in 'The Wisdom of Crowds' (Surowiecki, 2005) and see if they adhere to them.

Diversity of opinion

All three works allow participators to have their own opinions of the process and no relevant information is withheld from them. So they can form independent judgments of it.

Independence

Within the parameters of each project, individuals are allowed to decide on how to shape their own contributions.

Decentralisation

In Star Wars uncut and 'Participate' there is ample opportunity for individuals to draw on local knowledge and their own specialisms. Kusama's work is geared towards children and is arguably restricting in that respect. However, it is impossible to say that it does not allow knowledge participators already have to affect how they contribute.

Aggregation

In Star Wars uncut, the voting system determined which scenes were most popular and those were compiled into the aggregate, which in this case turned into the 'director’s cut' version (Pugh, 2012).
Daniel Eatock's website is itself the aggregate of the work. On his website the collective decision takes the shape of galleries where all the results can be seen side-by-side.
Kusama's room aggregates all the contributions.

Engaging with these kinds of works makes us wiser.

The difficulty in determining what qualifies as wisdom in these cases is the lack of predetermined criteria for success or failure. As I pointed out earlier the artists have given up control of the final outcome, so it is irrelevant whether the results are aligned with their initial expectations.
The crowd's contributions to Pugh's work were all moving image pieces and they all relate to Star Wars. The contributions to Eatock's galleries are all photos or visual files with similar characteristics and Kusama's room includes only one kind of contribution. None of them have the equivalent of a pineapple found in a crate marked 'Oranges'. This is the evidence that intelligence is in play and not the result of erratic interaction. Finally, the fact that we can and are producing more of this kind of work means we form wise crowds more often. The longer, more often, we form a wise crowd, and the easier it is for us to form it, the wiser we become.