Yesterday I was in the “Show and Talk” session, where a project is analyzed in some detail by invited respondents, followed by feedback from the audience. The project that was dissected yesterday was [murmur], a project I’ve written about here several times. (What’s [murmur]?)
[murmur] was viewed through the lens of “relational culture”, a term used at the McLuhan Festival to describe a mode of cultural production that inspires, modifies, and casts new light on human relationships.
From the point of view of the reception of [murmur] stories, Darren Wershler-Henry, one of the invited respondents, makes a nice point that the act of calling a [murmur] story is in itself a performance, and how does standing around with your cellphone to your ear, saying nothing, only listening, make you obvious on the street and change your relationship to the location itself as well as passersby?
From the point of view of the collection of [murmur] stories, John Sobol notes that there seems to be a particular tenor to the stories that, despite the diversity of storytellers, lends an emotional homogeneity. He called for stories that might make people cry or get angry, to expand the emotional range of the [murmur] experience. Shawn and Gabe of [murmur] responded by saying that the essential criterion for including a [murmur] story is simply that the story be well told – and as of yet they haven’t had a well-told story that may strike out at the extremes of that emotional range. They also noted how difficult it is to collect stories – that there is a bit of performance anxiety that emerges when they attempt to collect stories that might be surprising, given the success of “open mic” type platforms like Speaker’s Corner.
I raise the point that at this moment in [murmur]’s development, it might be time to critically review the curatorial process, (that is, the process of collecting and selecting stories), in order to broaden the spectrum of emotions expressed and diversity of voices included. How can the process of collecting stories be refined, does a question need to be asked? When handed an open mic, it may be harder to find something to say. When handed a mic with a question or critical direction, whatever that question or proposed direction may be, it might be easier to open the floodgates that hold back the stories we all have. As well, establishing some clear axes of intention behind the story collection may provide an interesting new direction for [murmur], which would be well-timed since they currently enjoy a solid base (three murmur-ified cities) from which to move forward.
It’s a delicate moment…. how to make a great project even better?