Continued from last post:
…The timescale may have been too optimistic (the two month period has become 3 and a half), but all of the posts and comments have given me so much food for thought, enriching and expanding my knowledge and understanding of gift, generosity and reciprocity. (Topics so far have included gift circles, DIY cultural practices, digital activism and copyleft, gift and debt, questions around autobiography and ‘oversharing’ and mother –infant bonds)
I wanted to know if this is the same for the other Wur authors, so last night emailed contributors to find out about their experience, asking
Have you found reading and/or contributing to the blog a valuable experience?
Are you interested in continuing to contribute?
In what ways do you think we could improve/change/develop it?
My hope is that other Wur authors feel collective ownership of the blog, and have found it as valuable as I have. I’m really interested in the continuing potential for the blog as a collective means of sharing ideas and knowledge. How can it do this best?
I’m now looking at a deadline for 15th July for the first round of posts, and then will collate the posts into a printed zine. Next task is to look at where and how to distribute this.
In terms of addressing Wur blog with my Re:view sessions, we didn’t do much direct talking about the blog itself, as it seems to be working and it felt too early to assess its success or otherwise. However, two of my Re:view artists are Wur authors (Caroline Hick and Andy Abbott)both of whom have contributed a post to the blog; ‘What is a Generous Work of Art and Where Can it Exist‘ by Andy Abbott http://wurblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/what-is-a-generous-work-of-art-and-where-can-it-exist/ and ‘The Guide’ by Caroline Hick http://wurblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/the-guide/. Caroline’s comments in response to Andy’s post formed the basis for some real time discussion within my Re:view session with Caroline on DIY culture, which I blogged about here in post 41. Also the gift circle which I did with fellow Bradford creatives and Wur authors Ivan and Georgia Mack at the DIY conference organized by Andy in Bradford in May was done under the banner of ‘Wur’.
In addition, Andy has been the first to respond to last night’s email, with some positive feedback on the blog and suggestion of a real time meetup to organise around a collective project as a way to pull all the strands together and move conversations on.
So although not explicitly discussed much within the Re:view sessions themselves, there has been a lot of activity and conversations generated by Caroline and Andy’s involvement in Wurblog, which has been very valuable in adding to my knowledge and moving my practice on.
