How times change
The comment in the title is not brought on by excessive nostalgia or by recent contact with, say, eighteenth century lighting systems – otherwise known as the Rococo candle stand. Beloved as that has now become – you can read my 62 words about it in just over a week now – the now-defunct candle stand is just one sign of the way times have changed.
Technology accelerates change. Partly because of that, I’m thinking of more recent times and changes. Of course, I’m thinking about 26 Treasures and about how it could not have happened a very short while ago. If you go back a decade it would have been a project of a completely different kind, probably just based around a printed document of record.
It’s great news – have you heard? – that we will have such a printed item. The 32-page 26 Treasures pamphlet is now being printed in a limited edition and soon to be a collector’s item like…fill in your treasure. I always think there’s something special about holding a printed object in your hands.
But what has changed especially is the ability, given to us by technology, to involve many more people in a constantly changing, developing process. This website exhibits it. Twitter, Facebook, social media demonstrate it and pass on the word. On the website you can find films as well as words in many forms – you’ll see everywhere, if you go explore, signs of the writing process at work through the blogs, supplement pieces, creation stories. That wouldn’t have been visible ten years ago. Perhaps not even two years ago.
The fact is that the people and ideas feed off each other. We can celebrate that – and we can also hope that even more of it happens. That’s where you come in. We’d like you to join in this blog and website with comments, ideas, suggestions, questions that will keep us moving things forward. Because we don’t believe 26 treasures is an idea that will have run its full course by the time the exhibition finishes at the V&A on 26th September.
This idea has the potential to run and run. It needs your legs to do it – and your hands, your brains and your words. You can keep things moving by giving us your thoughts whenever you see the word ‘Comment’. Like here.
