New York Times: One in 8 Million

An incredible collection of short biographies combining photography and audio put together by the New York Times. I think One in 8 Million is a great example of how the internet can be used to create these multi-dimensional pieces that bring together several disciplines into an art form that has never existed before. Yeah, putting photos and audio together is nothing new, but throw interactivity and instant access into the mix, and now you're talking about a medium that has a few more tricks up its sleeve and more room for fresh thought than just your standard narrated photo story.

Web 2.0 and new emerging technologies (DSLR's that take HD video at prosumer prices, iPhones, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), allows artists and designers to explore new multi-disciplinary forms. There's an opening there to create new perspectives, even if it means just tweaking something with new technology or matching ideas together differently. Have you seen an incredible photo project that's already famous and you wish you beat it to the punch? Turn it into a video. Have you seen a short film that you wish you made? Make something similar and then integrate it into social media like Twitter and Facebook. Have you seen a cool multi-media style or approach that you want to emulate, but you don't want to look like you're just copying? Apply it to a completely different context (take the one in 8 million idea and apply it to chefs in Manhattan, mothers, rappers, or pet owners talking about their pets.) Instead of trying to be the best in some particular genre, create a new genre and explore it.

There is never going to be another Henry Cartier-Bresson or Richard Avedon. They were artists in a different context, a world with different social and technological relationships. What was fresh and new for them is not fresh and new for us if we stay confined to their original forms. The spirit of the age is different. Break out, combine, mismatch, be the pathfinder and pioneer of something really new altogether.