The 'window' as information interface has been ubiquitous from the Renaissance's Alberti to Microsoft, and Web 2.0 will not change this main frame of engagement (Friedberg 2006, though see note 2). Sharing its technological trajectory with developments in early 20th century cinema and current digital video (Monovich 2001: 287-92), new media interfaces will increasingly converge with digital video, particularly in the capacity as mobile and web-connected personal multi-media devices. Like with early cinematic experiments challenging the confining dimensions of the screen, a productive usage in archaeology of this trend of media convergence in single, multi-platform devices (Jenkins 2004) will be to, if not to remove the framed interface of information, 'open' the frame by locating it within live, synaesthetic environments as prosthetic, information tools (see Ashley and Tringham this edition, Webmoor 2005, Witmore 2004). Such new technological apparatuses will further develop the model of the computer screen as interactive window. Part visual display, part control panel, the computer screen will increase its interactivity with new media technologies.

Given that, you need look no further than the 'window' you are already viewing to see one of these new Web 2.0 interfaces. This wiki is a type of 'social software' which characterizes the platforms of Web 2.0. Social software denotes any software platform that operates via computer-mediated communication and which foster community formation. As such, the term may be applied to familiar, 'older media' such as e-mail, electronic mailing lists, and instant messaging (IM). However, it typically corresponds to the new media platforms which have moved from these one-to-one and one-to-many forms of electronic communication to more open and democratized, many-to-many mediums such as blogs and particularly wikis. A wiki, meaning 'quick web', differs from Web 1.0 web pages in several key ways we might expect given an understanding of the user model of new media. Indeed, while the hyperlinking intra- and inter-structuring of traditional web pages (allowing Deleuze and Guattarian 'rhyzomatic' engagements) launched much discussion concerning the liberation of readers from closed and controlled narratives in a manner paralleling post-modern and historiography manifestos (eg. Haraway 2003, White 1973), the differences between 'static' web pages and wikis compelled one theorist of media to update a book on hypertext with a re-edition on 'hypertext 2.0' (Landow 1997[1992]). While there are a bewildering variety, all share several key functionalities that underscore the many-to-many and 'quick' descriptors. Based upon 'plain-text', 'mark-up language' approximating the word processing text more familiar to non-programmers, as opposed to more technical programming languages (such as HTML typically used for websites), a wiki facilitates direct and personal control over what is displayed in a wiki. This greater interactivity includes both open posting of commentary and open editing by users (as opposed to blogs). Looking at the window of this wiki, the functions of 'post a comment', 'attach file', 'edit this page', 'new page' or 'add an image' allow users to not simply view what web designers have coded in html, but to contribute their own textual, sound or video content. With open editing, users may also place their own hyperlinks, and so augment the sphere of possible connections with personally relevant sources of information or content. A wiki administrator, generally the individual or group who created the wiki or the host running the servers, may tailor this interactive functionality by requiring passwords to edit, view pages and/or post comments, but the latent technical capacity to allow 'radical participation' remains. Finally, all of these modifications of form and content of a wiki, unlike most security protocol blogs, happens in real-time. Wikis accelerate participation in and responsitivity to the online global information archive (the world wide web).

But this new digital technology and infrastructure is no informational or political panacea 4. Much is collected but still much still slips by. If Yahoo!'s laser had launched from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, what would have been rendered of the local human condition – of those watching the laser show from the surrounding pueblos? Unfortunately very little. The content of the time capsule still remained largely confined to a few nations in Europe, North America and East Asia. This has been quite common for the history of Teotihuacan and other sites of the public imagination. The material is valued for anchoring memory practice. For instance, Yahoo! could quite have easily lasered its capsule from the apex of the Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas – which was in fact suggested. But there was a felt need to convey longevity; perhaps because the past is nostalgically viewed as the antithesis to the media-driven acceleration of the present. Local denizens, however, are generally seen only as informants for archaeological narratives; or more often than not, seen as dissonance for archaeology producing its un-forgetting of these places. Yet these sites do not exist in ‘media ecology’ vacuums.

As Yahoo! demonstrated, the capacity to manifest more, to not let slip by in the digital sieve, is widely and cheaply available for archaeologists. At Teotihuacan I began a project in collaboration with INAH and the five local pueblos to bring forward much more of the heritage, much more of the memory, of this mainstay of the archaeological imaginary. My attempt has been to collaboratively build from the ground-up an ethnography of the various associations between residents of the valley and the material of the site. Initial interviews with several spokespersons – with INAH supervisors, local mayors and traditional elders – allowed me to formulate a series of questionnaires with questions that these individuals believed would get at the most critical associations of locals-and-site. After randomly collecting more than 460, 7-page questionnaires, I could identify key associations that normally are missed by archaeologists: particularly associations built around spiritual, economic and identity formation engagements. As material came in, it was all placed upon a wiki hosted on a server at Stanford, but easily accessible in the expanding internet cafes in 3 of the 5 pueblos. Figure 5.9

While I still invariably serve as form and content manager of the project, all material is stored as a digital archive on the wiki and may be commented upon in ‘real time’, or as the formulation, collection and write-up occurs. Like the contributions to Yahoo!’s project, the digital technology of the Teotihuacan Project increases functionality in three key ways: 1) richer media capture – eg. audio and video, as well as digitized text and images 2) greater collaboration – both in determining content and in commentary 3) distributed and accessible retrieval – though visits to local internet cafes are necessary. Furthermore, as a wiki - as 'quick web' - it accelerates all three of these functionalities.

Thinking in terms of new media, this project wiki retains the functionality a traditional HTML web page. While text based with hyperlinking, streaming audio and video may also be incorporated for richer, experiential information. Archives of data, such as of the original questionnaires and statistical information, may easily be stored. And customization of the site, while more limited than with html coding and Flash programs popular with web sites, is also possible. As new media the wiki is, however, more malleable. It is a 'liquid text', rapidly accommodating changes and additions and translucent in operation. Rather than requiring training in html code and intervening web design software, such as Dreamweaver or Update, all design changes, content additions or hyperlink addendums to the wiki occur directly at the web browser interface. The wiki collapses the distinction between editable background files on servers and the 'projection' of such data on the visible web. Neither 'off-line' work in desktop applications, nor server permissions and file transfer programs are required. Collectively, the trade-off in design customization and display features of Web 1.0 web sites for bare bones markup language in Web 2.0 platforms affords greater interactivity of a window of a wiki on the web. Viewing images, reading text, or clicking a hyperlink, podcast or video icon are all there. But now there is the customization and participation available on a personal level through the post a comment, edit this page, or add an image features. A wiki moves us from viewing the web to engaging with it as we would our own desktop computer.

In addition to the ease of use and heightened interactivity, the most appealing attributes of wikis are that they are distributed free as open source, are easily installed on institutional or private servers, or even personal computers with internet connection, and no technical expertise is required to manage them. In effect: desktop publishing of rich, collaborative and personalizable content with global distribution. While a form-fit medium for collaborative projects in archaeology, allowing unprecedented participation in the archaeological process, the question remains whether wikis will work 5. The proliferation of social software in China, the middle-east and India, with an estimated world wide creation of a blog every half-second, does not translate directly to uptake in international archaeological projects. There remain cultural, technological, and generational divides. At Teotihuacan, there is dire interest for greater public participation in and control over archaeology, but there remains hesitancy to make transparently public what are often personally held convictions in a highly politicized climate. Nonetheless, with new media rapidly expanding world wide, the interactivity of Web 2.0 will become more of a commonplace feature and initial reluctance may give way to the enabled 'radical participation' of the next social revolution.

Forward to Media(Works) and the New Cultural Heritage Logic of Mixing

Containments

Return to New Media Matters