User:Niek Hilkmann/Reading, Writing & Research Methodologies 2012/2013/Synopsis - Youtube Reader - Giovanna Fossati - Youtube as a mirror maze

Fossati's text starts with a contemplation on the role of a curator within a network based media framework. She distinguishes two 'curatorial modes' concerning this topic. The first is a traditional role of curatorship in which the curator presents material from an 'archive' that is deemed important within a newly presented framework. The second mode lays the curatorship in the hands of a collective entity in which the curator would be no more than a single voice in the organisation that actually curates 'the archive'. Fossati believes both modes can actually enforce each other and coexist. The single voice is still able to maintain a privileged position in regard to the mass of material the collective holds together.

The second part of the text gives an example of this coexistence of curatorial modes with regard to network curatorship in the form of a 'Youtube Reader'. Fossati chooses the concept of 'Youtube as a mirror maze' as starting point in search of video's concerning reflections on the viewer and the youtube video itself. Within the mirror concept, she identifies four categories into which the clips can be loosely sorted: reflections, global reflections, (meta)reflections and the mirror paradox. YouTuber’s reflections of and on themselves, life, everyday trivialities and big issues, special personal moments and global events are selected as individual topics for 'the reader'. This is however only an example of how the network material can be organized, other approaches, based for instance on genre, mise-en- scène, image content and topic, categories derived are possible as well.