AdAptAtion As ConneCtion
39
approach this from another angle, stories only emerge through the combined
efforts of sharing knowledge in discursive interaction and negotiation. From
such a collaborative notion of knowledge, it is only a small step towards
concepts of collective intelligence or participatory culture. Jenkins’ claim
that “none of us can know everything,” and that instead “each of us knows
something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources
and combine our skills,” applies not only to collective intelligence and
crowdsourcing in the age of the Web 2.0 but may render adaptation as
the default position of cultural production in which “collective meaning
making” 28 through the construction and reconstruction of narratives keeps
stories alive but also facilitates creativity and the proliferation of knowledge.
Adaptation and pragmatism
Creativity, as a core ingredient for both knowledge and culture, is largely
dependent on adaptation, since every “new” element has to be connected
to something that already exists, thus making it “fit” in with both what
is already there and a changing environment. If “making is connecting,”
as David Gauntlett rephrases the poststructuralist claim in relation to
Web 2.0 culture, creativity necessarily requires an association between
previously separate things in which the two are made to fit together. 29 To
consider anything “new” as a combination or a re-adaptation of something
old is a fundamentally Pragmatist idea. “The junction of the new and old,”
Dewey states in Art as Experience, “is not a mere composition of forces, but
a re-creation in which the present impulsion gets form and solidity while
the old, the ‘stored,’ material is literally revived, given new life and soul
through having to meet a new situation.” 30 Dewey’s emphasis on creation as
“re-creation” challenges the notion of “origin” by highlighting that cultural
expression and knowledge are never finished but always in the process of
becoming. The function of adaptation is thus not only, as Bortolotti and
Hutcheon claim, to ensure survival but also to “operate” effectively in a
specific context, thus to establish a meaningful connection and thereby
dissolve the barrier between text and con-text, between text and recipient,
between subject and object. According to William James, ideas “become
28 Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 5.
29 David Gauntlett, Making is Connecting: The Social Meaning of Creativity from DIY and Knitting
to YouTube and Web 2.0. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011).
30 John Dewey, Art as Experience [1934] (New York: Penguin, 2005), 63.
39
approach this from another angle, stories only emerge through the combined
efforts of sharing knowledge in discursive interaction and negotiation. From
such a collaborative notion of knowledge, it is only a small step towards
concepts of collective intelligence or participatory culture. Jenkins’ claim
that “none of us can know everything,” and that instead “each of us knows
something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources
and combine our skills,” applies not only to collective intelligence and
crowdsourcing in the age of the Web 2.0 but may render adaptation as
the default position of cultural production in which “collective meaning
making” 28 through the construction and reconstruction of narratives keeps
stories alive but also facilitates creativity and the proliferation of knowledge.
Adaptation and pragmatism
Creativity, as a core ingredient for both knowledge and culture, is largely
dependent on adaptation, since every “new” element has to be connected
to something that already exists, thus making it “fit” in with both what
is already there and a changing environment. If “making is connecting,”
as David Gauntlett rephrases the poststructuralist claim in relation to
Web 2.0 culture, creativity necessarily requires an association between
previously separate things in which the two are made to fit together. 29 To
consider anything “new” as a combination or a re-adaptation of something
old is a fundamentally Pragmatist idea. “The junction of the new and old,”
Dewey states in Art as Experience, “is not a mere composition of forces, but
a re-creation in which the present impulsion gets form and solidity while
the old, the ‘stored,’ material is literally revived, given new life and soul
through having to meet a new situation.” 30 Dewey’s emphasis on creation as
“re-creation” challenges the notion of “origin” by highlighting that cultural
expression and knowledge are never finished but always in the process of
becoming. The function of adaptation is thus not only, as Bortolotti and
Hutcheon claim, to ensure survival but also to “operate” effectively in a
specific context, thus to establish a meaningful connection and thereby
dissolve the barrier between text and con-text, between text and recipient,
between subject and object. According to William James, ideas “become
28 Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 5.
29 David Gauntlett, Making is Connecting: The Social Meaning of Creativity from DIY and Knitting
to YouTube and Web 2.0. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011).
30 John Dewey, Art as Experience [1934] (New York: Penguin, 2005), 63.