Hey guys, we’re happy to announce we’ll be participating at the 13th Pecha Kucha Tel Aviv event, trying to blast through 20 slides in 6:40 minutes. The lineup this time is pretty phenomenal, be sure to get your tickets now (the 4000 tickets usually run out in 2 hours or so)
See you there!
A few months ago we’ve received a great illustration for the “Moustache” article. The illustration was designed by Yanka as a vector poster featuring 12 different moustache types, as described in the Wikipedia article.
The poster has been featured on the Wikipedia article but since Wikipedia’s layout requires small thumbnail images and does not allow for convenient zoom-in features, the details are lost and the text is unreadable. Following the discussion on the site we realized this is actually a great opportunity for us to explore the collaborative potential of vector illustration. Since Wikipedia does support thumbnail galleries, it would actually be more useful to separate the different moustache illustrations into separate files and have each one of them enjoy the full size of the frame.
I have used Yanka’s file, played with the colors a bit to use a color tone more representative of the moustache, and created 12 different SVG files. They are now proudly featured as their own Moustache styles gallery in the Wikipedia article page.
Enjoy!
DONE Edited into Wikipedia [ view article | view edit ]
Markers on paper
Though the composition is similar to the one uploaded earlier, this is one is slightly softer. It’s hard to decide between them but for now we will upload this one to Wikipedia and take it from there.
DONE Edited into Wikipedia [ view article | view edit ]
The Little Albert Experiment was a horrifying yet fascinating breakthrough in Classical Conditioning. It shows just how much influence the design of the learnign environment has over children’s educations.
Same goes for the design of user interfaces. An interface to a social software conditions the culture of the community that coalesces round it. In Wikipedia’s case, the heavily-text-based, highly technical editing interface conditions the culture of the Wikipedia community and the character of its editors. It defines the tone of the invitation to collaborate.
Other editing interfaces might follow the WYSIWYG approach (What You See Is What You Get), in which the editing screen attempts to resemble the published result. However, Wikipedia’s interface expects its editors to be trained and versed enough in its syntax to know how would the markup and signs translate into the article layout after hitting the “save” button. It also provides extensive tools for text formatting but very limited ones when it comes to the presentation of images.
Anyone can go in and edit a Wikipedia article, but there is a steep learning curve to mastering its unique syntax. It is reasonable to believe that the relative complexity of Wikipedia’s interface helps keeps outsiders from flooding the system with unorthodox edits. It serves as an implicit hazing ritual of sorts, making sure that by the time you have practiced the syntax and have mastered the interface, you are already assimilated into the community and conditioned to abide by its other regulations.
This classical conditioning serves as yet another barrier that stifles change in Wikipedia’s culture and prevents visual culture from developing alongside the more mature text-based collaboration model. And so, when considering Wikipedia’s collaborative model by looking at its editing interface, in a way, What You See Is What You Get…
Screenshot of Wikipedia's editing interface
After much fear-mongering of a ruthless storm heading our way, we actually had a great opening event with not a single drop of rain and quite a few drops of wine. We enjoyed some heated debates about the role of images in the construction of knowledge and were generally very pleased with the overwhelmingly positive response to the Wikipedia Illustrated room in the show.
Here are a few images from the opening, more detailed documentation of the installation will follow soon.
Oh and here’s a promo video made for the show by its curator Ran Kasmy Ilan, featuring…
After a long time away from this baby focusing on that baby, we’re back! (baby!)
Wikipedia Illustrated was invited to participate in Deviants, a new exhibition opening in the Israeli Center for Digital Art on February 18th. Deviants is an exhibition that deals with gestures. Deviating from the mass communication’s normal conditions, the artworks in the exhibition sabotage it. Participating artists: Orit Adar-Bechar, Dor Guez, Amir Yaziv, Elisheva Levy, Roy Menachem Markovich, Nir Evron, Galia Offri & Mushon Zer-Aviv (that’s us), Lenka Clayton, Alona Rodeh, Guy Saggee, missdata. Curator: Ran Kasmy- Ilan.
We will be presenting the project in a dedicated room with a special Wikipedia Illustrated installation translating the project into physical space. (here’s a sneak preview of the space during the installation process)
We hope to see you at the opening, in the following artist talks and events, and mainly back here in the site.
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/348482991843284/
DRAFT a later version will be contributed to Wikipedia
During my second year in Bezalel, one of my projects was to illustrate a psychiatric syndrome called Folie à deux. This is a very rare complicated syndrome, and I hope that my illustration will help to better understand it.
and this is my illustration:
Yana.
DONE Edited into Wikipedia [ view article | view edit ]
As part of my school project i chose to illustrate the entry about Moustaches from wikipedia,
Moustaches always have always made me smile, but this article explains in a serious manner. The difference between all the various types of moustaches, and their history.
My illustration:
This is an editable vector file (click to download the SVG)
Good Day 
Yana.
DRAFT a later version will be contributed to Wikipedia
Zeigarnik effect, ink on paper
A waiter can serve on a large table remembering each and every dish ordered, starters, main, drinks, everything… Try asking them about the order details a moment after it was served and they completely forgot it.
This phenomenon encouraged Soviet Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik to research into it and find that what you don’t finish sticks longer and deeper in your memory. This revelation was very profound for cognitive studies and is extremely relevant for advertising, entertainment, communication and education.
It is very relevant to Wikipedia too, and it is something that illustration can provide. An image is never finite, its reading is unstable, uncontrolled. Yet this exact ambiguity can be the source of better learning, deeper understanding and further engagement. It is not unlike what Open Source hackers call “scratching an itch”. They are moved to do something because it itches, because it is unstable, unsolved. It is what makes Wikipedians go back to an article edit, reedit and then reedit again.
While the pursuit of factual representation of knowledge drives Wikipedia, not reaching this ideal is probably one of its greatest strengths. We don’t pretend to have collaborative image making figured out, but it itches us and we hope it itches you too.
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