Collaboration has a long history in art and has always been part of artists’ life. Artists are considered by many as “lonely creatures”, but they also need to perform, to be recognised, to be seen. They can hardly live without applauses, audiences and public criticism. They need to exchange, to share,  to collaborate. Because only by sharing and collaboration with audiences, as well as between artistic communities, new creative inspirations and innovative artistic approaches could occur.

Participating in online “art collectives” (groups of artists) is beneficiary: it helps for professional exchange, for working together and inventing new approaches, it simply has no limits and open new doors of inspiration.

On another hand, the rapid development of online platforms and the possibility for promoting ourselves free and fast, allows everyone of us to become a creator: to write a poem, a song,  to make a film or a photo, and to share it with millions worldwide by using Web 2.0 tools. We can not only create individual content: we can create in groups, in a collaborative manner, using the “wiki” approach and other online tools. The world of online collaboration is endless and offers daily more and better technical opportunities for creative input.

Could these collaborative online groups create a poem, or a painting, or a song, or a novel? We tend to believe that artistic inspiration is very individual, and a “group behaviour” a “group approach” can not be a really good inventor. A group could contribute to a process with creative ideas, but an online community groups can not be an author of a work of art.

Or we are wrong?

YouTube launched its orchestra project last year with a sold-out Carnegie Hall concert featuring more than 90 musicians from 30 countries, including a surgeon-violinist and a professional poker player-cellist. March 2011 will mark the YouTube Symphony’s Orchestra return…

Have a look at several selected online artistic platforms allowing collaboration, as well as online tools for a joined creation of an online content (below). The debates around who are the artists and who are the audiences seem to blur with the ongoing digitalisation of content and creating online pieces of art. Our approach towards policy, research and management in the cultural sector will certainly change with the time. Not surprisingly, this change is much slower than the innovation in online technologies which change artistic projects and content.

Artist Data – A site that enables artists to enter upcoming performance information once and then syncronising it to many different social networking sites and notify local newspapers and media about artist’s performance. There are over 5 million shows, news, or blog updates across MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. as a result of this website.

Artlog is designed to connect people to art and artists to other artists. It is possible to build your own professional artist portfolio site. The website provides comprehensive event listings, reviews and conversations about the latest and greatest in art, theater, dance and culture. It offers tools to easily find, follow and engage with the best of art & culture in your city.

Groupsites are inspiring the social collaboration movement by empowering ordinary people with self-serve, professional grade social networking and collaboration. Every day, a wide variety of people within companies, communities, education, government and non-profits create Groupsites to come together and make things happen.

DanceJam is a new online dance community promotes itself as “the biggest dance floor on the planet”. The Action Sports Group (ASG)/Grind Networks is the world’s leading action sports/entertainment company, featuring leading print, online and event properties reaching more than 10 million enthusiasts every month through action sports, comedy and custom client web solutions.

Humble Voice is an online artist community that allows members to share their art and network news. It contains 6 sections: art, photography, music, video, world and community.

Garage Band is an online school of rock, a Mac-size practice space, your own recording studio. If you want to learn to play an instrument, write music, or record a song, GarageBand has everything you need.

Local Artists allows you to present your work effectively, initiate contact from peer to peer and from artist to curator, and offers many new networking possibilities as well as enhanced search features.  Among many other features the New Artist Membership Account allows you to upload unlimited videos to your portfolio. The project is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

MacJam is an online studio where musicians congregate, collaborate and critique each other for the betterment of their music and skills as musicians.

MySpace is a very popular online social networking platform for artists, providing options for self-promotion, connecting people, announcing concerts and events, and much more.

Ning is a well known social networking platform, offering an an easy-to-use service that enables people to create custom branded social networks. With more than 300,000 active Ning Networks created across politics, entertainment, small business, non-profits, education and more, millions of people every day are coming together across Ning to connect around the topics they are passionate about.

Wikibooks is an open collection of books that anyone can edit. Currently (October 2010) it contains 2,353 books with 35,630 pages.

LinkedIn and facebook are probably the most well known collaborative platform for promotion, exchange and collaboration. Both of them have specialised groups in arts, culture, cultural management and policy.

Browse LabforCulture section on Artistic Platforms. We have selected more than 110 diverse online platforms which bring together people and ideas in the field of arts and culture.

Read the blog post also on LabforCulture: http://www.labforculture.org/en/moderators/lidia-varbanova/51495/74755

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Photo credit: « MUsa », by Darina V.