在數字時代如何當一位策展人

Xavier Di Petta and Chris Wild arrived at their vocation — as digital curators of historical pictures — in very different ways. For 18-year-old Mr Di Petta it was an outcome of a hobby that he fitted in around his schoolwork; for Mr Wild, 44, the route was more traditional. He had worked for a number of years in museum and photographic archives.

澤維爾•迪佩塔(Xavier Di Petta)和克里斯•懷爾德(Chris Wild)以不同的方式找到了自己的事業——歷史圖片數字策展人。對於18歲的迪佩塔來說，這是他課餘愛好的成果。而對於44歲的懷爾德來說，他的路線比較傳統，他曾在博物館和照片檔案機構工作多年。

Curator used to be a rather rarefied tag, applied to specialists who preserved artefacts and organised collections. In the digital era it has become a catch-all term for anyone who aggregates and selects content. Anyone creating an iTunes playlist could be called a curator. This democratisation suits Mr Wild, who insists cultural institutions should not be precious. “We are all casual curators when choosing and showing things to other people. It’s a gradient.”

策展人曾帶着高高在上的標籤，專屬那些保管文物和整理藏品的專家。在數字化時代，策展人成了對收集和篩選內容的人的一個籠統的稱謂。人們只要創建一個iTunes播放列表，就可以被稱爲策展人。這種大衆化很對懷爾德的胃口，他堅持文化機構不應故作清高。“當我們挑選事物向他人展示時，大家全是某種意義上的策展人。這是種變化。”

Originally from Shepparton, Australia, Mr Di Petta’s path into archive curation was accidental. In July 2013, aged 16, he set up a Twitter account with his friend Kyle Cameron, a student from Hawaii — the pair had met through a YouTube partnership programme. The two had already created @EarthPix which posts pictures from towns and forests around the world, and wanted to see how historical pictures would fare. The first post was the Depression-era photo of New York construction workers lunching on a crossbeam hundreds of feet in the air. “I was surprised by how many times it was retweeted,” says Mr Di Petta. Two years later the @HistoryInPics account has over 2m followers and legions of copycats. Mr Di Petta shrugs off the competition. “It’s the way it is. I don’t care.”

迪佩塔來自澳大利亞的謝帕頓，他走上檔案策展這條職業道路是個意外。2013年7月，16歲的迪佩塔與朋友凱爾•卡梅倫(Kyle Cameron)建立了一個Twitter賬戶。卡梅倫來自夏威夷，他們通過YouTube夥伴計劃相識。兩人此前已創建了@EarthPix賬號，用來發布全球各地的城鎮和森林照片，於是他們想看看貼歷史圖片是什麼效果。他們發的第一張歷史圖片是大蕭條時期，紐約建築工人坐在數百英尺高的一根橫樑上吃午餐。迪佩塔說：“這張照片的轉發次數讓我驚訝。”兩年後，@HistoryInPics賬號擁有了200萬名關注者，還引來大批模仿者。迪佩塔聳肩表示不介意競爭。“現實就是這樣，我不在乎。”

Ambitions to study accounting fell by the wayside. He moved to Los Angeles to become strategic partnerships manager for , which oversees @HistoryInPics and creates editorial content, contextualising historical pictures.

迪佩塔半路放棄了會計學的學業，搬到洛杉磯成爲網站戰略合夥經理。負責管理@HistoryInPics賬號和創建編輯內容，對歷史圖片進行情境化處理。

Youthful naivety has had its drawbacks. As a 16-year-old he had no understanding of copyright law. When news stories accused him of reaping profits from the Twitter account’s affiliate website while not paying to use the pictures, he faced a storm of hostility. Subsequently, he says, they have formed partnerships with agencies. “I’ve matured,” he reflects.

年少天真有其缺點。16歲的迪佩塔對版權法一無所知。當新聞報道指責他從其Twitter賬號的聯盟網站攫取利潤，卻不支付圖片使用費時，他遭遇了強烈的敵意。他說後來他們與代理公司形成合作關係。他反省道：“我已經成熟了。”

Laurence Kaye, a partner at Shoosmiths law firm, specialising in publishing and digital media, says that while the law states that copyright must be cleared before photographs are published, in practice it can prove unwieldy. Last year, Getty Images, the photo agency acquired for $3.3bn by Carlyle in 2012, decided to make more than 30m images available to share for free on blogs and social media. In part this was because it felt unable to stop people using its pictures without permission. The move upset photographers who saw it devaluing their work.

Shoosmiths律師事務所合夥人勞倫斯•凱(Laurence Kaye)專門從事出版和數字媒體方面業務。他說，雖然法律規定照片在發佈前必須確定著作權，但現實中卻難以實踐。去年，華蓋創意圖片庫（Getty Images，2012年被凱雷(Carlyle)斥資33億美元收購）決定在博客和社交媒體上免費分享3000多萬張圖片。華蓋作出這一決定，部分原因在於該公司覺得無法阻止人們未經允許使用其圖片。此舉令攝影師感到沮喪，他們認爲自己的工作遭到了貶低。

For the Oxford-based Mr Wild it was his “lowly role” at the UK’s Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (later incorporated into the Arts Council) that convinced him of the need for archivists to find a wider audience. He became fascinated by making the equivalent of “hit records” for historical photos. Driving this was a childhood ambition to time travel.

常駐牛津的懷爾德認爲，在英國博物館、圖書館和檔案館委員會（後併入英國藝術委員會），自己是一個“卑微的角色”，這令他確信檔案管理員有必要找到更廣泛的受衆。他開始癡迷於爲歷史照片製作類似“暢銷唱片”的照片集。懷爾德的動力來自於童年時代關於時空穿梭的願望。

In lieu of a time machine, he set up Retronaut, a website, as well as social media accounts. These promoted historical pictures that encouraged the audience to put themselves in the shoes of the photographs’ subjects. “I was saying ‘look if you want to go back in time, you can’t build a time machine but look at these pictures because they’ll have a similar effect’.” High resolution or colour pictures help this ambition.

結果他沒有造出時光機，而是建立了Retronaut網站以及若干社交媒體賬戶。這些平臺推出歷史圖片，鼓勵觀衆將自己代入到照片的情境中。“我當時這樣講，‘看，如果你想回到過去，你不能造時光機，但可以看看這些照片，因爲它們會具有同樣的效果’。”高分辨率或彩色照片幫助人們實現了這一願望。

At first — in 2010 — his audience was just himself and his mother. A colour picture of Piccadilly Circus in central London dating back to 1949 was one of the first to go viral, thereby raising the site’s profile and building its audience. Over the past five years he has received money from seed investors, including Steve Pankhurst, the co-founder of Friends Reunited. “I’ve been through times where things have looked very bleak for Retronaut and I’ve wondered if it’s going to survive,” he says.

在2010年的起步階段，懷爾德的觀衆只有他自己和他母親。一張時間可追溯至1949年的倫敦市中心皮卡迪利廣場的彩色照片，成了首批火爆的圖片之一，從而提高了網站的名聲，並壯大了受衆。過去5年懷爾德獲得了種子投資者的資金，投資者包括Friends Reunited的聯合創始人史蒂夫•潘克赫斯特(Steve Pankhurst)。懷爾德說：“我多次經歷Retronaut的慘淡時刻，我曾懷疑它是否能撐下去。”

However, last year Mashable, the technology news site, announced a licensing deal with Retronaut. Mr Wild sees Nate Silver’s statistics blog as a model — after it was licensed to the New York Times, it was bought by ESPN, the sports channel. Mashable’s arrangement with picture agencies means that Mr Wild has access to a wealth of material.

然而就在去年，Mashable科技新聞網站宣佈與Retronaut達成一項授權協議。懷爾德視納特•西爾弗(Nate Silver)的數據統計博客爲榜樣，該網站在授權給《紐約時報》(New York Times)後，被體育頻道ESPN收購。Mashable與幾家圖片機構擁有協議，這意味着懷爾德能獲取豐富的素材。

Mr Wild believes he knows what makes a photo a “hit”: its ability to surprise. He calls up a series of pictures of Edwardian women shopping, which evokes the modern street style blogger, The Sartorialist. “Historic pictures most engage us when they don’t fit with what we think the past should be . . . that’s what creates a viral hit.”

懷爾德相信自己知道是什麼使一張照片火爆——要能讓人大吃一驚。他集合了一系列愛德華七世時代女性購物的照片，它們令人想到現代街拍博客Sartorialist上的照片。“最吸引我們的歷史照片，是那些與我們想象中過去的樣子大相徑庭的照片……這樣的照片會火爆。”

Nostalgia is also potent. A popular series was shopping malls in the 1980s. One of the shoppers in the picture emailed Mr Wild in shock. “I thought I looked absolutely fantastic,” he wrote, “and I look terrible but what’s weird is now I also think I look great.”

懷舊也是一股強大的力量。上世紀80年代購物中心的一系列照片受到很大歡迎。照片裏的一位購物者驚訝地給懷爾德發電子郵件，他寫道：“我那時覺得自己超級帥。其實我長得不怎麼樣，但奇怪的是我現在依然覺得自己很帥。”

For @HistoryInPics the photos with the most traffic have often proved to be celebrities in unusual settings, such as David Bowie’s 1976 police mugshot.

@HistoryInPics上訪問量最高的照片通常是名人在不尋常狀態下拍攝的，比如大衛•鮑伊(David Bowie) 1976年的犯人照。

Fakes are an occupational hazard. Mr Wild says he sees very few deliberately falsified photos. “Usually the fake element is that the image has been mislabelled.” Researching a picture’s provenance is crucial, says Mr Di Petta, but he admits to accidentally posting fakes.

僞造照片是這個行業中的一種職業病。懷爾德說他很少見到刻意僞造的照片。“常見的僞造因素是將圖片錯誤分類。”迪佩塔說，研究照片出處是關鍵，但他承認一不小心也會貼出僞造照片。

Both Mr Di Petta and Mr Wild have deployed their digital skills to promote archive centres and museums. The US National Women’s History Museum appointed Mr Di Petta to its advisory council. “I’ll admit we were quite surprised [to be approached by Mr Di Petta] because he was a young man and the overwhelming majority of our supporters are older women,” observes Marjahn Golban, the museum’s external affairs director (feminist Gloria Steinem, for example, sits on the

迪佩塔和懷爾德利用他們的數字技能，促進了檔案中心和博物館的發展。美國女性歷史博物館(National Women’s History Museum)委任迪佩塔爲諮詢委員會成員。該博物館外部事務負責人瑪爾雅恩•戈爾瓦(Marjahn Golban)說：“我承認，（當迪佩塔找到我們時）我們感到非常驚訝，因爲他是位年輕的男性，而我們絕大多數支持者爲年長的女性。”比如在諮詢委員會與18歲的迪佩塔共事的，就有女權主義者格洛麗亞•斯泰納姆(Gloria Steinem)。同時，懷爾德曾受邀在檔案中心策劃展覽，還在Retronaut上展出大量藏品照片。

advisory council alongside the 18-year-old). Meanwhile, Mr Wild has guest curated exhibitions at archive centres and hosted collections’ photos on Retronaut.

不過懷爾德認爲，對於Retronaut的成長，一位女性功不可沒——阿曼達•尤倫(Amanda Uren)，“她是我遇到過的最好的數字策展人”。她在哪兒接受的培訓呢？她在樂購(Tesco)超市擔任銷售助理直到2013年。