The Virtual Carpet - ICOC XIII Washington DC

From Hali, Issue 185, Autumn 2015 

The XIIIth ICOC offered us some utterly new topics for reflection complimenting the orthodox means of communicating rug knowledge. Of these, one especially pertinent to the present state of Carpets Studies addressed the question of what role the Internet might be playing in reshaping the study field in the early 21st Century.

The Internet brings some impressive features; most especially the easy accessibility to a potentially infinite number of readers the immediacy of its contents, and its 'virality'.

Consequently, rug information has become available to the largest audience ever. Indeed, this could well exceed the two other groundbreaking events in the history of rug studies; the launch of the International Conference of Oriental Carpets,1976, and the publication of the specialised quarterly magazine Hali in1978. 

Countless numbers of untapped readers can now access an unthinkable amount of information. Museums, Universities, Cultural Foundations, dedicated websites and blogs all now offer online a wide range of knowledge from the general to near esoteric, whilst updates on related historical and artistic arguments are accessible through University's websites and specific educational platforms. These last are mostly useful for a focused research and freely publish on a large array of topics. Just to give an idea of their potential value, one single visited platform has signed up some 25 million academics adding some six million papers and one and a half million research interests. The immediacy and viral nature of this type of information is neatly conveyed by the statistics which show thirty-six million unique visitors a month. 

ICOC panel - The Virtual Carpet

Accessibility of all this varied material can only be a true enrichment for any serious researcher, despite limitations to the contents reliability. Compare the serious difficulties sourcing information in the era preceding the Internet: physical library searches, purchase of expensive books, seeking appointments with scholars and museum curators and the hazards in accessing the all important images have all been removed by the new medium

Yes images: the big question for anyone interested in understanding and knowing about rug design visual comparison being one of the basic tools of study. Try for yourself the magic Google search: type a 'name' of rug, select the 'images' mode and screens full of rugs: an embarrassment of riches will magically appear before you. An invaluable tool and a delight for even the non-expert user. 

TheTextile Museum - Washington DC

Then we have Social Media where mobile and web-based technologies are used to create highly interactive instant forums through which individuals and communities can share and discuss user-generated contents. So far these sites do not have as strong an impact in the rug world as they do in other society related topics, yet the opportunity offered to all users to voice their ideas online could have profound effects. The first might be to undermine traditional scholarship: a serious issue considering the varying reliability of the information in Social media itself. The second, far more interesting, is the potential to meet and share common rug wisdom; new ideas and perspectives presented by individuals who otherwise could never have the opportunity to share them. Specifically, a few Facebook forums appear to be a growing and favoured arena of some educated and passionate people amongst whom fruitful observations arise in ongoing presentations and debates.

Indeed, the perception of Oriental Rugs via the original insights of so many online individuals may shed light on some still esoteric topic as well or better than the methods of traditional scholarship. 

ICOC XIII - Visiting the new Textile Museum Conservation Laboratories

Potentially, the huge virtual audience, immediacy and accessibility of online information may become a fresh driving force which drives rug scholarship. New findings clearly await us, but how these might solidify in the quicksilver of the new media is rather harder to predict.