Wikipedia Art

Wikipedia Art is a project in self-realization. The idea is for folks to collaboratively work on a Wikipedia webpage about the project... According to Wikipedia's standards, an encyclopedia entry must be notable and backed by third party sources. And, based on that, the first version of the Wikipedia Art wikipedia page has been deleted.

But for Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern, who conceived of this project, that's just a start. If a big enough stink is made (if enough people blog, write about the project, and continue to add it to Wikipedia), doesn't it become notable enough to merit a Wikipedia entry?

On the Wikipedia Art project page Kildall & Stern wrote:

Wikipedia Art is art composed on Wikipedia, and thus art that anyone can edit. Since the work itself manifests as a conventional Wikipedia page, would-be art editors are required to follow Wikipedia's enforced standards of quality and verifiability; any changes to the art must be published on, and cited from, 'credible' external sources: interviews, blogs, or articles in 'trustworthy' media institutions, which birth and then slowly transform what the work is and does and means simply through their writing and talking about it. Wikipedia Art may start as an intervention, turn into an object, die and be resurrected, etc, through a creative pattern / feedback loop of publish-cite-transform that we call "performative citations." Wikipedia Art MUST BE written about extensively both on- and off-line. This serves the dual purpose of verifying the work - which is considered controversial by those in the Wikipedia community, and occasionally removed from the site - as well as transforming it over time. WE INVITE YOU TO DO SO!

In a Rhizome discussion of the project, MTAA noted:

But I can sympathize with the Wikipedians. If these Wikipedia art interventions became a popular game it would become vandalism (the resources to clean them up would become burdensome to the volunteers). But just this one is fun.

[via Networked Performance]