I’ve had a website for about 3 years now (+ sadly I have not modified it in 3 years, but will be getting on top of that by September!). A couple of things- the website had helped spread my photos + my message far around the world. The emails I received from people who had viewed the work gave me both optimism that some people were touched by my work and other opportunities to present the work.
I had more photos available on the site than when I had formal exhibitions. I did have lengthy caption, as with the show, but categorized the photos into sections of concern. A plus was links to organizations to find out/do more.
The website was substantially different than the show and functioned exactly how I had hoped. The non-linear delivery seemed to not affect my message. Perhaps because of the lengthy captions!
That being said, I was frustrated because I could not easily modify the site (as the 3 years attests to!). The 2.0 Web stuff has opened up substantially different opportunities for my work. It does help that I already have organizations and people (networks) who link to my work.
Without these already established links, the spread of the work would not be as quick and far if I had to start over with no established network. However, the potential to now grow these networks are vast.
Now that we are thinking about the web as a presentation space with different characteristics, I would like to create work on the web that takes full advantage of these qualities: non-linearity, randomness, viewer creation…
As to this blog, well, I have not linked it to my old site, nor sent the link to my network as of yet.
I did, however, post the video project from last semester’s class on you tube (with Estelle) about 1.5 months ago. That has been interesting- again, the effect could be maximized with linking the video to my network. The major thing to consider in that case is the size of the work. It is different viewing a postcard size film (or photos) than viewing whole screen (or 11X14 prints).
I do like the lack of control I exert over where, when and how people view the work. I would just like to consider these things and build in an awareness of them when viewing the work itself. I think that there are potentials to then deliver different kinds of messages that rely not only on content, but on context and materials as well.
