In Denmark, a few weeks ago, the Ministry of Culture launched the "Cultural Canon" of Denmark. 7 committees consisting of "experts" in their field nominated 10 works of "art" (theatre, film, visual art, music, architecture etc) that everybody should know if they want to know the milestones in Danish culture. Im not going into the debate about whether such a canon is a good idea or not, but just want to point to an off-spawn project of the canon, to which I was asked to contribute.

Tom Ahlberg, editor of the websize Søndag Aften (sunday evening) (and in an earlier Major of Culture in Copenhagen (kulturborgmester), thought that we should have a canon that pointed towards the future, not towards the past. He tried to get official funding for a project examing the potential digital canon, but the application was rejected. However, he couldnt forget the idea, so after the official cultural canon was released, he contacted 7 people working with the digital arts(and culture) in Denmark and asked us for some nominations. The idea was to have a "canon" that all the stake holders in Danish Cultural Politics should know, so they could give more qualified support to the digital culture (I think). I.e. a canon not for the people, but for the politicians... Our suggestions have now been collated and presented at the website. So here goes:

The (Danish) Digital Canon - it's in javascript, so if this link doesnt work, find the link at the bottom of the intropage to the digital canon.

If you are curious, my nominations were
The Remix-function at Digte.dk
Blogger.com (obviously ;))
Samorost
Implementation (as an example of a distributed narrative)
The Cloudmakers (the collective sleuth that came of out the alternative reality game A.I.
"The tag"/"tagging"

- see my grounds for these nominations at the website. Obviously I could have nominated more works, had I had more time (we had a pretty short deadline). Would have liked to nominate a game or two as well, but thought that other person in our ad hoc commitee would do that. For a variety of reasons, this didnt pan out. Right now, I'd probably nominate World of Warcraft, since I spend as many as my leisure hours as possible in there!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 11:54