So proclaims The Guardian‘s Jonathan Jones, which seems odd to me. Seriously? I’m trying to think of counterexamples, but I’m coming up with nothing. There’s the theory that Shakespeare’s plays may have been actually composed by a group of people, but as that’s only a theory, I’d be interested in hearing some better-documented examples of group-made art.

In his article “Not everyone can be an artist,” Jones takes a look at the rise of interactive and democratized artwork in the digital age. He says:

Some forms of interactivity are obviously good for art, as they are good for society. The more democratically ideas and information are shared, the more accessible art will be. [...] So democracy is great – except when it shapes the actual work of art. I do not believe a great work of art has ever been created by communal consensus, let alone by multiple editors. There will never be a wiki-masterpiece. This is because art, if it has any value at all, is the product of deep and often rationally incommunicable perceptions, and to try and explain or share those perceptions in a communally created artwork will negotiate and re-edit them to banality.

Participatory art is a denial of talent. It panders to a cosy lie, that everyone is equally able to create worthwhile art. What chance have we of nurturing those rare wonders in our midst, the born artists, if we claim this infantile right to put on a badge that says “artist”?

I think it’s a little premature to begin making claims about how true crowdsourced artwork will fail, as this new art from is only in its infancy (See also: “Why the Internet will fail” article from 1995–d’oh). Neil Gaiman and the BBC’s crowdsourced Twitter audiobook last fall wasn’t an enormous success in turning out a high-quality piece of literature, but it’s helped to kindle the recent interest in crowdsourced art; I imagine Gaiman and the BBC’s project will be only one of many large-scale collaborative art projects we’ll be seeing in the coming months/years. And maybe someone will come along soon and find a way to make crowdsourced art a bit more palatable.

Wild predictions aside, I think Jones has some valid points, and also some invalid ones. Read more »

Twitter is not especially well-known for fiction. But maybe that will change. Writers are embracing Twitter for the creative challenge imposed by its 140-character limit, for its real-time functionality, and for its interactivity. Twitterature, or Twiction, or whatever else you’d like to call it, is not just a means of reaching today’s ADD-raddled reader–it’s a new medium entirely, spawning new ways to create and interact with fiction.

So without further ado, here’s a short guide to try innovative and interesting Twitter fiction projects, past and present:

@ElectricLit

Electric Literature’s highly anticipated “microserialization” of Rick Moody’s novel begins today, and is definitely worth a read. Rather than chopping up a pre-written story into 140-character bursts as many other Twitter novelists tend to do, Moody wrote his novel Some Contemporary Characters expressly for Twitter and embraced the character limit as a source of creative inspiration. Each section of the novel comes every 10 minutes and lasts until December 2nd.

Bloomsday

Last Bloomsday, two Ulysses enthusiasts took the novel’s 10th chapter, Wandering Rocks, and retraced all the events of that day on Twitter. Videogame designers Ian Bogost and Ian McCarthy registered 54 of the novel’s characters as Twitter users, who all Tweeted about what they were doing on June 16, 1904 at the correct fictional times. (Old project, since June 16 is long past at this point, but still worth a read. Here’s hoping Bogost and McCarthy will revive the project in some way next Bloomsday.)

The Twitter of Oz

Read more »

Ficly is a new collaborative writing community based on the idea that writing doesn’t have to be something you do alone. As a member, you have the option to build on others’ story stubs, compose sequels and prequels to existing stories, or work on story challenges—and all in less than 1,024 characters. To put this number in perspective: that’s just over 7 Tweets. If Ficly sounds familiar to AOL’s short-lived writing community Ficlets, that’s because it is. Ficly was built by alums of the Ficlets developer team, who have dedicated a “memorial” section to their alma mater.

Normally I’d be a little hesitant about distributing my writing freely on the web. But Ficly is less about the writer than it is really about the story. And thanks to the 1,024 character limit, more than one writer is needed to put together a well-developed story. In a profession so focused on the individual, where some of the best work is done when no one is around, it’s refreshing to see a community that does just that: build community.

Check out Ficly for yourself and join here.