Our discussions, partly as a result or reflection of our own activities, remained focused on the value of the internet as principally a distribution system. We spent some time in the discussions looking at how our various projects are reproducing on the internet various paper-based forms of publication: the book, the archive, the journal, the newspaper column/reportage, the letter, databases, publicity material or posters advertising an event and the photographic archive of works of art. The reactionary fear or uncertainty from within the discipline of art history to this use of the internet as a medium appears to be fuelled by its own attachment to paper-based and physical collections and obsessive fears about copyright abuse. The transfer of this material to a digital form is happening at a terrific speed in other disciplines: for example, the transfer to e-journals in the sciences. The humanities could be said to be lagging behind in their slow embrace of electronic media but not in all disciplines. Very few art historians have their own personal sites, yet it is worth recording that - in contrast - several philosophers have study websites in which other scholars discuss their work in blog form or via posted/ edited emails. Here the ability to generate discussion (and a school of thought), is perhaps valued over and above simply the ability to publish. Whether the benefit of international exchanges and a discipline beyond the borders of one country in art history (ie as a challenge to "nationalist" or even nation-based art histories) will really be recognised remains a key issue. The capacity of the internet to connect communities of scholars is still under-used. Will American scholars really be interested in French or Indian interpretations of American art history or will they simply refuse to acknowledge this potential dimension to their subject? The medium will not shift this "ideological" and "hierarchical" way of thinking.

The two days prompted me to think more carefully about how pedagogy in art history operates. Verbal discussion - the lecture and the seminar - and a physical presence in relation to the object of study (through visits to museums, collections or sites, including the contemporary art exhibition) remain very important to common ideas about "transmitting" the culture of art history from lecturer to student or from expert to public. Bubbling under our discussions was the question of whether we are talking about sharing knowledge among small communities of experts or whether we have a populist intention for our work and a broader audience in mind: be it that undefined notion of the public or the interests of schoolchildren and their teachers to inculcate future generations of art lovers and maybe art historians.

Has discipline of art history failed to capitalise or make use of the resource or functions available to it through the internet? I think, we should extend this question to embrace other media of communication in our age: why has the discipline of art history - which prides itself on its skills of visual interpretation - failed to make use of TV or for that matter even radio? TV operators, like the BBC, have made great play of using the internet as an extension of their programming. Since art history failed here - with some notable exceptions to use this media, the prospects for art history on the net remain limited. We did discuss innovation in podcasts, web-streaming of video, the virtual catalogue, and various sites which operate to promote an artist, an art movement or an idea, and the value of these which often operate as personal sites. We did also discuss business models of which web 2.0 and its inclusion of "social media" is but one even though most of our activities remain "not-for-profit", in so far as they are geared to the public sector of the museum and the university, or even in utopian terms, "the public good" and as a result have education in mind as the primary goal.

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Autres Aperçus Singuliers :
> Introduction
>B. Kelley Jr
> C. Kuan
> M. Ledbury
> M. Marmor
> W. Tronzo
> C. Welger-Barboza