Taking Crowdsourcing to a Cultural Crossroad

Writing a novel where everyone types

Antonella Beccaria interviews members of the WuMing collective, translated by Bernardo Parrella.

WuMing is a collective that produces crowdsourced writing and other projects. It has been based in Bologna, Italy, since 2000. "Wu Ming" is Chinese, meaning "anonymous" or "five names," and it is meant both as a tribute to dissidents ("Wu Ming" is a common byline among Chinese citizens demanding democracy and freedom of speech) and as a refusal of the celebrity-making machine which turns an author into a star. Among its literary and cultural activities throughout Italy and Europe, the group published "54" in 2002, a novel with dozens of characters (including Cary Grant and Marshall Tito) set in 1954, also translated in English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese. The WuMing Collective just released a new novel, "Manituana," revolving around the American Revolution and the Six Iroquois Nations. On it's Web site, the collective is soliciting crowd contributions to "level 2" of "Manituana."

Q: "Manituana," your last collective novel, just hit the shelves in Italy, while its companion Web site serves as an on-going extension based on the crowdsourcing model. Do you employ a particular model?

A: We do not follow a specific recipe, there is no predefined method. We pay close (attention) to the community around us, the community that keeps us alive. Trying to embrace that rhythm, we dance to it. Each time we take a shot at creating or learning new steps, performing new acts and acrobatics, trying to avoid any routine. For many years we have launched and managed trans-media projects, collective writing and world-building activities. We pursued many different ventures: from the 'open reputation' of the Luther Blissett character to field investigations about oral history, from an open-source novel soon became musical and then comic book ("La ballata del Corazza") to the blossoming of new writing groups such as Kai Zen and Emerson Krott, from the establishment of DiQuindici (a reading committee aimed at discovering good unpublished material and providing assistance to doubtful and new writers) to a novel that inspired a music CD by Yo Yo Mundi to a movie script writing "Lavorare con lentezza"). Along with its Web site, "Manituana" is the first episode of our new project: the "Atlantic Trypthic," a synthesis of our entire journey so far. There are some fixed points, but we cannot say that we are following a specific method nor that we know how and where it will lead us. For instance, this "superior level" we opened up on Manituana.com -- it is a challenge, a bet.

Q: Yes, on Manituana.com you call it "Level 2," an open invitation to anybody to embrace your collective writing experiences. Is this a more advanced experiment along your path or a way to push for some reader participation?

A: Everything we proposed to our public up to date has always required, in one way or another, their alert involvement, their watchful and proactive participation.

Q: As for the user participation in the "Level 2" environment, can you share some figures and feedback? What is going on out there?

A: In less than a month we have about 800 registered users, with 16 on-going, in-depth and very crowded discussions on specific aspects of our novel. We also received a second possible epilogue and the first two chapters of an eventual 'forking' narrative, a sort of outgrowing sub-novel, which it is still unclear how and where we could use. Some musicians are writing more than one musical score inspired to our book, and some artists are sending us nice drawings. So far everything looks just fine.

Q: You have always supported content sharing and open licensing of your works. How do you plan to expand this trend for both WuMing Foundation and WuMing's literary works?

A: Everything depends on the quality of our future projects-which for us means a mix of beauty and usefulness. Such activities as writing together, group design, network creativity and crowdsourcing, are potentially quite attractive. But continuing on this path makes sense only if our fruits will grow luxuriantly, will be sweet and rich in nutrients, and if their seeds will grow from the soil new plants able to nourish with the sun and provide us with oxygen.

Q: What is really new about crowdsourcing? And where is it going next?

A: There is nothing really new about crowdsourcing in and of itself. The technologies are new, not the attitude. Folk culture (legends, ballads, fairy tales) has always been "crowdsourced," since it was up to the crowd to create it. Today we are going towards a new, interesting mix of popular culture and folk culture.

Q: Do you really think there is wisdom in crowds? If so, what is the clearest example you know of?

A: "Wisdom of crowds," if we stick to the definition given by James Surowiecki, is more about making a right guess on some future outcome by working out the average of many individual forecasts. It is about numbers, quantities, betting and hitting upon a figure. "Collective intelligence," which is the phrase used by Pierre Lévy, is a better description of the common pool we are tapping into. And we see examples of collective intelligence every day, all around us. Soccer teams may be examples of collective intelligence.

Q: What surprised you the most with your projects?

A: It still surprises us that we managed to make a living out of them :-)