From April 11 - 14, 2007, Archives & Museums Informatics is hosting a conference on Museums and the Web in San Francisco, California. Workshops focus on everything from content management and archiving to Second Life, social media, and museum mashups. Check it out!
MySpace as an Arts Space
Today's issue of The New York Times features "MyTheater, Seeking Friends," an article by Steven McElroy highlighting how various arts organizations are using the social networking site MySpace as a platform for marketing and promoting to younger audiences. For early adopters of technology, using MySpace as a promotional platform for the arts may seem like a "no-brainer," but for many others in field, the why's and how's of adding their organizations to MySpace are not readily apparent. I remember speaking with the director of a university's performing arts series at a recent conference. She told me that she had yet to find a successful tool for promoting her series to the university's students. I asked her if she had considered setting up a profile for the series on MySpace and using that as a platform for promotions geared toward the student and local Gen Y demographic. She admitted that the thought had not crossed her mind - even though she knew that a great number of the students at her university spent time on MySpace.
With a user base of 55 million and 28.4 percent of users under the age of 34, it is more difficult to find a reason NOT to use MySpace to reach out to new or younger audience members.
McElroy's article mentions how musicians and comics have been using MySpace as a promotional tool for quite awhile now. I would also add the independent film community to that list. My organization recently established a MySpace page for our independent filmmakers tour because of the enormous presence of independent filmmakers and film lovers on MySpace as demonstrated by the MySpace Film area. By joining this community, we have been able to promote our calls for entries to indie filmmakers around the world AND notify film lovers of our touring program - all in four weeks.
Next week, IMAGE Film & Video Center here in Atlanta is hosting a "Pimp My Space" workshop to teach local filmmakers (and folks like me) how to get the most out of your MySpace presence. I wonder if they are going to have a session like that at the National Arts Marketing Project conference in November? They should!
When I think about the organized areas of MySpace for film, music and comedy, I think wouldn't it be great if there were areas of MySpace set aside for dance, literature, visual art and other art forms?
- Places where both emerging and established artists could promote their work - tours, performances, readings, publications, exhibits, etc. Maybe a fledgling modern dance group like Ash Contemporary Dance could become the Dane Cook of the dance world and play to audiences of thousands. (For those who don't know, Dane Cook became a stadium-selling touring comedian by developing a base audience on MySpace.)
- Places where arts organizations could find hip "friends" to invite to their events and venues. (Did I mention that Dane Cook currently has 1.8 million "friends" on MySpace?)
Don't get me wrong. MySpace is not a marketing panacea for cultivating the next generation of arts enthusiasts - but it sure could be useful!
Technology in the Service of Art
Lately I’ve been experimenting with Ableton’s Live software, which allows me to create interesting arrangements, construct new pieces from scratch, and generally play with music. Live lets me lay down every single layer within a track… by myself… fast… with thousands of different sounds at my disposal. It’s fantastic. Best of all, the anal retentive freak in me is able to go back and revise music I record to make sure that in the “saved” version of the piece, I hit the note smack dab at the beginning of the third thirty-second of the beat, rather than the hairs-breadth off that I actually played. Far from weaning me off traditional music making, Live has deepened my respect and love for the craft of artistry. I find that when I’m fiddling around with the digital manifestation of the music, trying to bring down the volume on the pedal point tones, or simply arrange the notes into a harmonic minor scale with just the mouse, I’m incredibly impatient with a task that should just HAPPEN under my finger tips.
Don’t get me wrong. Technology is wonderful. With Photoshop I can manipulate my images without investing in a full dark-room setup. With Illustrator I can create versatile graphics that can be used just about anywhere. With Live I can be an entire orchestra without leaving my home. And technology is especially wonderful when it enhances rather than detracts from art. When it allows me to do things that aren’t otherwise feasible. When it lets me experience things I can’t normally access.
Like the use of technology in Lois Greenfield and the Australian Dance Theater’s new performance, Held. For this work, Greenfield photographs the dancers mid-movement and the images are instantly projected onto a screen. This is a perfect exemplification of the Technology in the Service of Art principle. Greenfield notes in the Telegraph that in these images “you are seeing something you couldn't without the benefit of the photograph. I capture 1/2,000th of a second and our brains can't register that. But we can see it on a picture."
Held uses technology to intensify our ability to cherish and appreciate the craft of the artists. It’s a beautiful marriage of media because it respects the strengths and limitations of every component involved, from the camera to the artists to the audience.
Pittsburgh Bloggers unite!
On Sunday, February 18, the Pittsburgh Symphony will host a "Blogfest Extra" concert - a two-part community outreach event. The afternoon's concert will include traditional works from Mahler and Beethoven as well as a new work, Rainbow Body by Christopher Theofanidis. The work's title is derived from a Buddhist idea that when an enlightened being dies, his or her body doesn't decay, but instead is absorbed back into the universe as energy and light. As a spectacular display of technology-enhanced art, the PSO will perform Rainbow Body along with projected images of dying stars taken by the Hubble Telescope. Following the concert, the PSO will host a blogging reception, during which "blogging after the concert is strongly encouraged!"
The PSO recently established its own pair of blogs, one featuring staff contributors and the "internal perspective" and the other featuring community members, composers and volunteers who provide the "external perspective". The PSO blog has come a long way since its founding last fall, and now even includes a few video blog posts. It's clear that the blog has become an internal priority, and I hope the Symphony's artistic team will continue to create innovative events like this one.
Will the real artifact please stand up?
Italian geophysicist Pietro Cosentino is on a mission to identify works of art through unique "sonic fingerprints". Cosentino began using sonic tomography to study art in 2005, and hopes his work can help to end Italy's ongoing problem with faked and stolen artwork. Based on the principle that every object emits a distinct vibration, Cosentino's process involves fitting a network of sensors to an artwork, then tapping the sensors with a small rubber hammer. Recorded vibrations are unique, and even allow an educated listener to distinguish between artworks made as part of a series. The noninvasive process takes several hours, and can be used on stone, wood and ceramics.
The sonic fingerprinting system, in the process of being patented, has only one significant drawback - like X-rays, the scans must be performed every few years to provide up-to-date information.
Read more at Wired.com.
Wikimania
Penguin publishers and De Montfort University recently launched the first wiki novel - an experimental project designed to see if "the wisdom of crowds" can apply to more artistic disciplines. Contributors to "A Million Penguins" will include Masters students in Creative Writing and New Media, who study writing in the evolving fields of online communities, blogs, and wikis. The project went live on February 1st, and the wiki has already seen a flurry of editing activity. The novel's current cast of characters includes a penguin "trying to save mankind from its own destruction" and the mysterious "Tango Prisoner".
The experimental novel will be online for at least six weeks, according to Penguin, who insists that this project is not a talent search for the publishing house. Even if fleshing out the character of the "Tango Prisoner" won't lead to your big break, writing in this new collaborative medium will certainly be a great challenge.
Attend an opera in New York for $5
All you have to do is accompany a teen, and buy your tickets online. Patron Technology recently featured High 5 Tickets to the Arts in their monthly newsletter as an e-marketing superstar. High 5 offers tickets to hundreds of performances and events in New York for the low price of $5 per ticket. In 2006, the New York non-profit conducted roughly 85% of ticket sales online with some tickets sold out in a matter of hours. High 5's idea of making arts more accessible to young audiences through inexpensive tickets has also spread to other cities including Columbus, OH, and Montreal. Cultivating younger audiences is a hot topic in my arts management program at the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, so I imagine it may also be of interest to you as arts managers in the field.
It would be interesting to evaluate the effectiveness of High 5's service. Will the teens snatching tickets up today be our loyal patrons and donors twenty or more years from now? Some of my classmates believe the best way to ensure a lifelong commitment to the arts is through arts education more so than just accessibility. I agree with them to some extent, since through my own experiences, I was exposed to the wonderful world of opera in Dallas through an education program focused on introducing new (and diverse) audiences to the art form. The combination of severely subsidized tickets and education sessions made the experience complete. I doubt I would have attended an opera out of my own volition if it weren't for the empowering educational experience I had through that program.
Recent Articles Worth Reading
Here are just few articles I have come across lately that I think you might find interesting: Web Refocus - Jeremy O'Neal examines Web 2.0 and forecasts the role that media arts organizations will play in it - namely preserving and promoting the noncommercial space.
Welcome to Wi-Fi-Ville - Kristina Dell reports that more than 300 cities and communities nationwide plan to have wireless ventures in the next year. While we all want free Internet access, what are the contentious issues surrounding the offering of a low-cost or no-cost wi-fi municipal plan as a public service?
Can't Touch This - Welcome to the future of the human-computer interface. Jeff Han, a research scientist from NYU's Courant Institute, wowed the tech world with his touch-driven computer screen. Learn more about this amazing device and watch the demo video.
This last article comes from the current issue of Fast Company magazine. Another article in this issue that is not available on the web, "An Unlikely Story: Tech Where You Least Expect It," documents the success that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA has had with podcasting its classical music concert series. Check it out.
Art on the Web and Other News
I read an interesting article on CNN.com today, and I wanted to pass it along. The piece examines STUART, a site for art students to hock their creative wares. Also, check out our latest podcast, which features part one of our interview with Microsoft's Ian Lindsay. He was very engaging and a very good sport.
Oh... and Happy Holidays!
Social Networking Technology and Arts Organizations
Recently in the Artful Manager blog, Andrew Taylor discussed how social networking technology evident in popular user-driven sites (MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Dandelife, etc.) is rapidly changing the nature of the web and how we use it by enabling individuals to share their voice, vision and story with the wider world. For many months now, I have been ruminating over how to (a) strategically integrate the use of social networking technology into my programs and services, and (b) convince my organization's leaders that we need to move in this direction.
I know many artists are finding ways to utilize this technology as a tool for furthering their artistic endeavors. Comedian Dane Cook has used his MySpace network to catapult himself into the national spotlight as today's top-selling comedian on tour; Boston painter Jeff Hayes produces a successful painting-a-day blog to sell his work on a daily basis; hundreds of filmmakers post their trailers and short films on YouTube to promote awareness and generate buzz for their work.
So what can social networking technology do for arts organizations?
- Given the current trend in the field for arts organizations to market the "artistic experience" coupled with contemporary audiences' desire for greater interactivity, social networking technology has great potential to assist arts organizations in deepening their audience's experience by providing more avenues for engaging with the art, the artists, the organization, and each other. For example, check out Chicago Classical Music (CCM). Founded by nine classical music organizations, CCM launched in March 2006 as a six-month pilot program under the auspices of the Arts & Business Council of Chicago. This online community is dedicated to connecting its 11 current membership organizations with classical music enthusiasts through a blog, interactive forums, a chat room, a ticket swap feature, an events calendar, and more.
- Due to the "tell your friends, who will tell their friends, etc." nature of this technology, another benefit for arts organizations is the viral expansion of their reach and awareness. Earlier this fall, I started a weblog for our Southern Circuit - Tour of Independent Filmmakers program wherein touring filmmakers post about their experiences on the road in the South. Even in its nascent phase, the blog has been viewed throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America; thereby providing our program with a reach and awareness we could never afford to garner through another channel.
- A third potential function for social network technology is to galvanize a virtual community around a mission, goal or issue to spur positive change in the real world. Take a look at how the New Orleans Video Access Center has been using YouTube to answer the question "Why should New Orleans be rebuilt?"
These are just a few ways in which these sites and online services can benefit arts organizations. With every passing day, further innovative uses are realized. So why stay behind the curve? What could social networking technology do for your organization?