Online Evaluation of Creativity and the Arts. Hiesun Cecilia Suhr (ed.).

Abstract

Online Evaluation of Creativity and the Arts. Hiesun Cecilia Suhr (ed.). New York: Routledge, 2015. 173 pp. ISBN: 978-0-415-74985-5. £85.00 (hbk). This book ambitiously sets out to give an overview of the potential, as well as the limitations and challenges, of ‘online evaluation cultures’ in eight chapters focusing on ‘creativity and the arts’. In the introduction, the editor and contributing author Hiesun Cecilia Suhr outlines the motivation and scope of the book and also argues that for artists, building a reputation—built on evaluation and judgment—is of economic importance. Because digital environments help build such a reputation, she continues, there needs to be interdisciplinary understanding of these digital environments with regard to their ‘evaluation cultures’. The collection includes diverse contributions covering the ‘different creative fields’ of visual art, music, photography, makeup tutorials, design, fashion blogging, reputation ranking, and game design. In an attempt to unite the different chapters, the introduction identifies five distinct dimensions that are related to online evaluation, on the grounds that all chapters ‘intersect with at least one of the five aspects’. The first of these aspects is linked to the materiality of the medium and its role in the modalities of communication-evaluation practice. Joseph Reagle’s chapter about one particular online gallery might be seen to fit within this particular aspect. Reagle’s contribution is an interesting account of how an online user community assesses the potential implications of different … anna.jobin{at}unil.ch