Ranch Community

Here at the Ranch we've been pondering a redesign of our website. Having completed six Artposia and six residencies, we are bogged down by constant changes to the site. With a redesign we plan to migrate to a data-base driven site. That would make admin changes easier. Blah blah blah.

The more important part is the online community–all of you who do or do not participate physically, and are interested in exploring the intersection of art, science and land/human issues. We would like to have the site do more than report upcoming events and store past events. What if the site could be a meeting space for individuals of all types who are interested in a certain topic? Based on that topic, what if we could link to artists, orgs, scientists, and other thinkers? What if discussions could take place? What if recommendations could be made for future Artposia? What if the community could help envision an actual ranch for residencies and events? Huh? What if?

There is a site out there called Polyvore that allows people to create collages of fashion items. The picture becomes what we used to call a brand board–a reflection of color, mood, tone and image. Now, this site attracts me not a bit. I wear blue jeans and t-shirts unless I am getting dressed up to go to Safeway, and then I might wear a button shirt. The technology, however, is intriguing. What if (yup, another what if?) the viewser could select a topic and then add elements such as: presenters, artists, music, images, books, articles, performances, of videos to that topic? The resulting think-collage could be saved and become a point of discussion for the next person. Would you like this?

What else would you like to see on our site?