To curate is to choose. To choose is to select one over another, to set apart, to devote. Choice, in turn, is born from constraints. When you cannot have everything your are forced to choose something.
Consider the clothes in your closet. Your closet can only support a limited number of clothes. You are forced to choose a finite set of clothes which fit your personal taste, your level of comfort, and your budget. The set of clothes must also accommodate different seasons and dress occasions.
In the same way, a museum exhibit has a limited amount of space on which to display works. The curation chooses a set of works which together comprise the exhibition. Each work functions as an individual and also as a part of the telling the story of the exhibit as a whole.
Constraints need not be tangible. Consider the limits of human cognition. There are bounds to human perception and memory. While the choices of what is perceived and what is remembered may be happening subconsciously, these cognitive processes are, in a sense, curating your reality.
To curate is to choose and to choose is, ultimately, to lose. In choosing one you are losing another. For every work in the exhibit there may be five or five hundred others that are left out. The element of loss and sacrifice adds meaning and weight to the choice.
Digital ‘curation’ removes some of the burden of choice and thus removes meaning and weight from digital curations. Digital curations do not have as many constraints as physical curations. Bit space is orders of magnitude cheaper than museum space. Pin boards, tumblr blogs, and IdeaMaches have no limits on their size. The only limits are those of human perception and memory.
Tools should embrace these limitations as factors for forcing curators to thoughtfully consider each element as an individual as part of the whole. Instead, digital curation tools are working to develop new techniques for expanding the capacity of human cognition. An example technique would be semantic zooming, which attempts to support the perception and remembrance of more information.
Similarly, the ideation metrics of curation fail to capture the importance of choice. Developed to accommodate digital media of curation, the metrics bias large curations. Fluency and flexibility metrics both reward a curation for containing more elements, instead of encouraging the thoughtful consideration and choosing of specific elements.
Curation tools and metrics should focus more on the aspect of choice. Constraints should be used to encourage thoughtful choosing and metrics should reward the sacrifices made.
There are many types of collections. Different types of collections for different purposes. To distinguish types of collections I have aligned them on the amount of choice involved. I identify three types of collection which encompass the range of choice: the hoard, the archive, and the exhibit.
The hoard is everything. It is devoid of choice. It is compulsory. The hoarder doesn’t necessarily want to choose but has to choose. The hoard is an incredibly high fluency collection and potentially high flexibility, yet I would argue that it is not creative.
The archive is everything of value. It is sorted and filtered. It is referential and comprehensive. The archivist chooses things of value. Damaged elements are discarded, perhaps duplicates are also discarded. The archive, like the hoard, is high fluency and potentially high flexibility.
The exhibit is everything part of the message. It is thoughtful and concise. It conveys a message. It juxtaposes and synthesizes elements. The exhibitor chooses specific elements to form a whole. The exhibit is low fluency and low flexibility compared to other types of collection, yet I argue that it is the most creative and meaningful form of collection.
I posit that the exhibit is the highest form of collection and thus collections should be moving toward more choice. Filter all the valuable items from the hoard and you will have an archive. Choose small subset of those items to tell a specific story and you will have an exhibit.
As I gathered clippings around different types of collections I stumbled upon an article about architectural components to discourage skaters from skating on rails, benches, and other building features. These components are naturally integrated into the space in a way that a non-skater might not recognize and a preventative measure. They secretly serve their purpose. These inspired me to think of how can curation tools and metrics encourage and reward the act of choosing?