807 images and counting . . . http://flickr.com/photos/tags/christo/
This contemporaneous flickr image homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artistic whimsy reminds me of two other stunning collective “knowledge building” events - both from Wikipedia (The Gates also has a Wikipedia entry). On March 11, 2004 I searched Wikipedia for “madrid bombings” and saw a single paragraph entry. As the day progressed, and then the weeks, the entry ballooned into many pages that contextualized the bombings with information about al-Qaida, ETA, 9/11, the history of the Moors in Spain, national and international political reactions, and on and on. It was amazing, actually, quite moving to see these pages evolve so quickly and deeply in such a telescoped time frame. I witnessed the same process beginning October 8, 2004 with Jacques Derrida’s death. What began as a simple 2 paragraph post developed instantly into a major appreciation of his life and work and influence. Both instances, and now flickr’s collective The Gates photos (and probably the Wikipedia entry for The Gates as well) were/are views onto the potency and efficiency of collaborative tasking. Models for the classroom.