Curating

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Curating has a traditional meaning and context of collection, preservation and presentation. The word curate is derived from the Latin verb curare, to care or to cure. In a traditional view, a curator is tasked to organize, filter, preserve, store and occasionally present art and artifacts in a gallery, museum or library. Historically, curators were not seen as creators of content, but simply as keepers of important objects.

In the remix culture of creative commons, fair use and copyleft, the concept of a creator has expanded to include those who reasonably transform and present existing content as something educational, interesting, new or satirical (Cariou v. Prince, Universal City Studios v. Sony Corp., Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music). Curating is the greatest example of the remixing content. While designing the presentation of objects by making strategic choices considering audience and understanding goals, a curator gathers pieces that already exist in order to provide an interesting or new perspective on a subject. A curator is creating a sensory learning experience to aid in understanding and conversation. A curator is not simply a collector and preservationist, but rather a contributor to the story the art and plays an important role in learning and understanding. Albert Einstein recognized the traditional concept of the collection and cultivation of established theories in science by practicing recombination of knowledge to enlighten new ideas. In a letter to colleague Jacques S. Hadamard in 1945, Einstein wrote:

The desire to arrive finally at logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of this rather vague play… taken from a psychological viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in pro...

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...meo and Juliet; the toothpick Bridge you constructed in Freshman Physics, the History paper on the Russian Revolution from Junior Modern History class; the college entrance essays you're forced to produce with the acute understanding of yourself and your life goals at 17.

Usually they are treated as separate objects usually sorted into age group piles and filed away. Meaning that all first grade objects are with other first grade objects, second grade objects are with other second grade objects, and so‐on, chronologically. The ordering is fitted into the academic pigeon holes of age and development on a straight trajectory. This seems arbitrary in significance and experience by simply being ordered by academic year. The misunderstanding in this is that learning doesn't really happen in a straight line or chronological progress, although it can still be progressive.

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