It’s fascinating to see how far the tech has come on. For example, check out this video with James Zabiela showing off his DJing tech and techniques:

(That video’s just the highlights – the full hour is here)

The basic skill of beatmatching is pretty much redundant now – it’s a mundanity that’s best taken care of by a machine. In fact, the decks themselves are almost an afterthought – James spends most of his time in the video talking about Ableton, 3rd party plugins, his Kaossilator and how he uses his iPad as a midi controller over an ad hoc wifi network. He uses CDJs but doesn’t use CDs in them – “even those are a bit old school now” – the tunes come from an SD card or directly from a laptop.

I showed my Dad Traktor at my parents’ house. I said “Look at this dad, you just push this button and you’ve got four decks and they all play instantly”. And he just looked at me and said, “Isn’t that cheating?” I said “Well yeah, I guess so, but you have to then make up for that”

And that’s the point. As if to illustrate it, there’s a bit where he messes around with the effects unit and Kaossilator, taking a few seconds to improvise a track on the fly using samples. He says of the effects unit, “It was never designed to do that but that’s my sole purpose for using this in my sets”.

Much like I don’t expect the people who came up with the Akai MPC ever expected to see AraabMuzik using one like this to create a live set from Skrillex tracks:

Anyway, the point is, it’s a good example of how creativity responds to the tools available and how technology has (in some cases) given musicians and artists more time to spend on the creative elements of their craft.

Tweet

She said:

As I’m sure is a familiar story for many touring companies, one of our issues is connecting directly with our audiences. Despite the 2005 Audiences UK (was it?) report, we’re still finding almost all venues aren’t set up to share data easily – it depends on the goodwill of the marketing departments to do what they can. The way that they handle collecting data means that we’re classified as a third party, so the audience members aren’t given the option to distinguish between giving data to us, the company whose show they’ve come to see, and any other organisation. I’m sure theatres are very careful as to who they DO share data with but as an audience member I can see why many would choose to say no. For example at one venue recently out of a week’s worth of audiences we only had the opportunity to get in contact with one person afterwards. Most venues are willing in theory to pass on an invitation to audiences to join our mailing list but in practice this quite often doesn’t end up happening – it’s great when it does!

I totally understand why theatres find it difficult to do anything about this on a one off basis for us – box offices have so much information to give and receive and our shows tend to be less straightforward for booking anyway – but it’s frustrating.

What’s the answer?

I know this is a very common problem. For my own part, I’m currently working with a dance organisation that presents work in other organisations’ venues and in non-traditional (occasionally public) spaces. We’re currently working on tactics they can use to capture more audience data.

Has anyone else come up against this problem? If so I’d be interested in hearing more about the situation and what solutions people have come up with (whether they’ve worked or not).

Tweet

Chris scrapes the nonsense people like me throw at the wall, examines it to see what it’s for and turns it into something that actually works.

In the hyperbolic world of digital nonsense having someone like Chris around is essential.

I’m terrible at requesting testimonials from people and quite frankly couldn’t have written anything better myself, so thanks, Pete.

There’s actually more, but to read the rest you shoud get Pete’s book. The minimum price is a bargainous $0, but you’ll almost certainly enjoy it more if you hand over a little bit of cash. It’s psychological or something.

Tweet

Many times our design solutions fail following that crucial handover point, when we no longer control/curate the direction, and when the idea is too complex or demands too much from whoever is taking it over

He goes on to draw a really interesting analogy with how typefaces have been designed to take account of the way that ink behaves in the printing process. It’s great – well worth a read.

Now, I’m no typography buff so I thought about how I’d go about framing that same idea in the context of handing over a website to a client. I maintain that football’s both simple and complex enough to provide analogies for pretty much anything and this is no exception (although you could probably substitute your team ball sport of choice).

Proper passing

When you’re passing a ball to someone it’s not enough to hoof it in their general direction and let them take things from there. If they lose the ball when played into trouble by a hospital pass then it’s your fault, not theirs.

To pass a ball to someone properly you should take into account:

• Where they are
• The direction they’re moving (or the direction you think they should be moving in)
• Whether they’re left or right-footed
• Their level of skill, which will affect how likely they are to be able to control a firmly hit or airborne ball
• What their next move might be, and
• Whether they’re paying sufficient attention.

It’s not always easy. It requires vision, anticipation, empathy, good decision making and sufficient ability in execution in order to do it well. That’s what you see when Barcelona are knocking the ball around.

So that got me thinking about how digital projects are handed over to clients. At the most basic level it’s about making something that’s absolutely fit for purpose, providing some scope for future development (which may include scaling up or scaling back), taking account of the level of internal resource required and providing upfront and ongoing training and support as and when it’s needed.

So there you go. Football. I realise I’ve alienated most of the people who might be reading this but sod it. If it helps, here’s xkcd on the same subject.

Tweet

Call me a Luddite but I want to be in a room with my actors. Don’t anyone say 3D will change that. I need to know what they smell like and that they could leap out and throttle me if they choose to.

Don’t read the comment I left – I’m talking about something else and besides, I said ‘less’ when I meant ‘fewer’. Unforgivable.

There’s been a lot of talk about livestreaming lately and over the past week or so I’ve tuned in to quite a few, including Jérôme Bel’s Tate Live performance and a short Kathleen Edwards gig (archived somewhere here) and I’ve been involved with some livestreaming from the Royal Court Theatre. I’ve also had a poke around Tate’s Damien Hirst 360° Private View and the relaunched Google Art Project - they’re not live as such, but digitised versions of a thing that can be experienced.

Here’s my take on the whole thing. First up, here are the arguments for and against. Read these and save yourself a lot of time reading other articles…

Livestreaming is rubbish

This is true of livestreaming both in comparison with live events and in and of itself.

Firstly, as James says, it’s not the best way to experience theatre because there’s no way to reduce physical presence, atmosphere and communality to ones and zeros that can then be transmitted between machines.

Secondly, it’s not a particularly great use of the possibilities offered by the internet – ‘the equivalent of putting radio on TV’ is how most people put it, and a waste of all that lovely dynamic, interactive potential. Tacking on a #hashtag for discussion just isn’t sufficient.

Livestreaming is great

This is also true, because:

• It scales in a way that cramming people into a room doesn’t, so more people can get some benefit (and the same view)
• It increases access to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend (whether the reason’s economic, geographical, logistical or whatever)
• It might provide a new income stream
• It’s less risky for audiences

Want my rather disappointingly balanced opinion on the whole thing?

Livestreaming and live events are different

That means they’re good and bad in their own ways. One will inevitably feed off the other but I think there’s plenty of room for the two to rub along together. It’s a boring and less controversial opinion, but I’d say it’s surely more correct.

I suspect the current rash of commentary around this subject represents people trying to come to terms with it. For the time being they aren’t confident judging an online experience on its own terms and feel the need to anchor their criticism by comparison with something they are comfortable with.

Hopefully this will pass. Nobody writes hundreds of words about how the books produced alongside exhibitions are a poor substitute for seeing the real thing. There’s no real difference here.

A couple of extra points about access

To expand on my last pro-livestreaming bulletpoint about risk, I can well understand why some people might not want (or might not think they want) the experience that James Yarker describes. A hardened theatregoer might relish it, but someone else might not want to pay money, leave their comfy sofa and give up their evening to find out for themselves. An online taster gives them a way to dip their toe in.

On a different (but not unrelated) point, I liked this quote from Wayne McGregor:

Putting dance on the internet is leading to some phenomenal things. When I went to the Bolshoi ballet company in Moscow recently, a lot of the dancers there had learned one of my pieces from YouTube: they were really inspired by being able to see something that they had no access to in their own country.

Tweet

(Photo by revdode)

This post follows on from my previous one about how well the Arts Council have encouraged the use of technology and digital media. It might help to read that first to see where I’m coming from, but it’s not essential.

Investment in physical infrastructure

This week the Arts Council announced the 26 organisations that have been successful in the first stage of their application to its capital funding programme (the news caused a bit of a stir). Here’s some blurb about the capital fund:

Our £214.6 million capital investment programme will support organisations to develop resilience by giving them the right buildings and equipment to deliver their work, and to become more sustainable and resilient businesses.

The Arts Council’s announcement says that in this first round:

The majority of the 26 projects focus on the refurbishment or extension of existing arts buildings, and range from the replacement of critical equipment to large scale renovations and improvements

Investment in digital infrastructure

An organisation’s digital infrastructure is now becoming as important as its bricks and mortar infrastructure.

That’s not just empty hyperbole – take away the ability of an organisation (especially one that’s not venue based) to market itself and sell tickets online and watch their costs soar and their reach, effectiveness, range of opportunities plummet.

So If we’re investing in one, we should invest in the other. I’d like to see the Arts Council supporting the refurbishment, extension, renovation and improvement of websites, mobile apps, database and CRM systems, box office infrastructure and so on.

I’d love to see the capital fund’s description being tweaked slightly for a Digital Capital fund:

Our digital investment programme will support organisations to develop resilience by giving them the right technological and digital infrastructure to deliver their work, and to become more sustainable and resilient businesses.

I figure the money might go further too.  £214.6 million over three years to sort out the 696 organisations in the National Portfolio would give everyone £100,000 to use. Not that I’m saying that’s how much money should be spent or that it should go to that group – that’s just an example. Still, imagine.

Tweet

The next chair of the Arts Council will have to steer the organisation and the sector through another challenging period, in particular in increasing the amount of private giving to the arts and encourage the sector to make the most of technological changes.

I have to say I’m not really interested in the politics of it all and, although everything I’ve heard about increasing levels of philanthropy makes me sceptical, in truth I don’t know enough about it to venture a useful opinion.

However, I am interested in that bit about ACE having to ‘encourage the sector to make the most of technological changes’. The implication is that this is something ACE is responsible for, that hasn’t been done correctly or enough and isn’t likely to be at this rate. On balance, I’d probably agree.

What’s been done

The big initiatives that have taken place over the past few years include:

• The Digital Opportunities Programme (2008-11) which was a research exercise that culminated in a series of reports
• The Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture which, by and large, is aimed a little further ahead of the curve
• The Space, which I’m trying (and struggling) to keep an open mind on until it launches
• The Building Digital Capacity in the Arts programme which is a deeply unimpressive joint thing with the BBC Academy

There have been regional efforts over the years too, including AmbITion England, Melt, the DCD Programme, ad-hoc efforts by audience development agencies and various other things.

In terms of the national stuff, I don’t think much of it has been particularly effective. From what I can make out, the organisations that have done well so far are the ones that:

• have people at the top who are sufficiently engaged with technology and digital media themselves and have been able to pass that on to the workings of their organisations; and/or
• have the means at their disposal to hire good, tech/digitally-savvy people and/or engage decent consultants and agencies (yes, people like me and Made) to get them pointing in the right direction

Everyone else is asked to attend lectures where they’re told that the future is digital and they really should get on and do something about that. Oh, and here’s some (massively oversubscribed) project funding you can apply for.

On that last point, there’s a further problem with doing digital activity on a project-by-project basis. It means that when the project comes to an end, the staff who worked on it then have to leave and take their valuable experience with them. There’s an assumption that doing a digital project will somehow inform and develop the approach of the organisation as a whole. Maybe that’s the case with small organisations, but generally I just don’t think it works like that.

What needs to happen?

Before I start, I realise that I’m mainly looking at things from the admin, marketing, operations and distribution side of things, but then the Digital audiences: Engagement with arts and culture online report from Nov 2010 said (on p7):

One area of investment which can yield clear financial returns is marketing and audience development

and I believe in picking up the easy wins where you can. I imagine someone might have something useful to add about re the cuts to organisations working in digital artforms but I’ll let them do that.

That said, here are some suggestions. Take them, leave them – even better, suggest your own. I have more if you want them.

Idea 1: Lay the foundations

This one’s forehead-smackingly obvious. There are basics that every organisation should have in place. Those should be the priority. Call it the No Organisation Left Behind programme or something but at least get every RFO/NPO up to a basic digital standard.

This is actually the starting point of most of the work I do with organisations because it’s pointless building on weak foundations. It’s pretty satisfying because you know that, in a reasonably short space of time, you’ll leave them stronger and better equipped, both for their general day-to-day work and any individual projects they take on. It’d be entirely possible to roll this out to a few hundred orgs too (yay for having good processes in place).

Idea 2: Find and fix existing problems

My initial disappointment with the Digital R&D Fund mentioned above was that some of the projects seemed to be trying to fix problems that don’t exist. Maybe that was harsh and not the point of the exercise, but I’m convinced there are pressing concerns out there that aren’t being addressed and therefore there’s a gap to be filled.

I know many organisations wrestle with the same problems – be they general difficulties, inefficiencies and/or duplication of effort – but has anyone tried to identify them? It’s actually basic business sense:

• Identify a problem
• Offer a solution
• Profit!

How about surveying RFO/NPO staff to find out the things that drive them up the wall, then putting a call out for digital (or in fact any other) solutions? If there’s a sufficient business case for any of the ideas that are put forward they might not even require funding.

Idea 3: Understand the cost of conferences and seminars

Forget about projecting a #hashtag search onto a screen and project a meeting ticker instead. Then be damn sure that running the event is worth the money. For the record, I’m not sure how serious I am about this one. Maybe it’s just because I felt like I had my time wasted at an event last week.

Tweet

Someone on Twitter (apologies, I forget who it was and can’t find the tweet now) mentioned that it looked very similar to the V&A‘s website, which it kinda does – here’s a side-by-side for you:

They are similar – navigation along the top, a big hero image, a grid of smaller images to signpost people to other areas of the site and then a catch-all footer, with plenty of white space to let the images shine. The lack of social media-related features on either is an interesting sidenote but that’s off-topic for this post.

If you think about it, though, it makes a lot of sense for them to look similar and it has nothing to do with one ripping off the other. More likely, it’ll be down to feedback from rounds of user testing and maybe also the requirements of implementing mobile-friendly responsiveness.

The thing is, people might balk at the idea of a samey-looking web, but a recognisable structure means that people can spend more time doing whatever it is they visited the site for. Put me on a WordPress blog, a Facebook Page, a Tumblr or similar and chances are I’ll find my way around the all-important content without wasting time thinking about how to do it.

Call me utilitarian, but if I want info about what’s on or directions to a venue then I’m unlikely to want the website to ‘surprise and delight’ me with an innovative navigation tool (*cough*spiritnottingham*cough*). I just want the info and/or the directions, dammit. I’m not saying there’s no place for being clever/different/experimental, just make sure it doesn’t get in my way.

Tweet

The point Stephen made (when he wasn’t going out of his way to insult or defame people) was that people should save their time, money and effort for projects with solid business models. Of course, that’s a perfectly valid opinion and I’d agree that it’s a worthwhile thing to pursue, although not to the exclusion of other experiments. It’s also his area of study, so you can see why it would be his major preoccupation.

However, he attacks two things that I think are very interesting, both of which are encapsulated in this little quote:

While the trailer has an obscenely high production value and the project may have some biggish-in-this-insular-world names on screen, they never make a point to say where the money that unsuspecting victims donate is actually going

Personally, I think those are the best things about this project.

Storytelling

As Stephen points out, they’ve worked the Kickstarter format well – the video has high production values and they’ve got some influential people to lend their support. Presumably those people have helped/will help to spread the word too. Basically, they haven’t just told people that they’re experienced communicators with good connections, they’ve demonstrated it in their pitch.

Whereas Stephen sees that as conning ‘unsuspecting victims’ (patronising sod), I interpret that as an encouraging sign that the people behind Matter:

• have the contacts to reach (and question) the right people for their stories; and
• will be able to connect with an audience once they’re up and running.

I already believed that though, which is why this point is minor compared to the next one.

Trust

Stephen complains that:

it is a scam in that the costs of completing an operation like this have not been articulated to the people who may be making donations to the project

‘Scam’? Steady. Bit much. Actually, you’d think that such vagueness would hamper a fundraising project like this. What’s interesting is that Jim and Bobbie didn’t need to explain themselves (although they have now, a bit).

They’re trading off the reputations they’ve built up over the years, with plenty of people trusting them enough to risk a few dollars on them. Bearing in mind the public’s current opinion of journalists, that’s no mean feat.

Stephen doesn’t have that level of trust in them. Fair enough, I expect many wouldn’t, but going so far as to call Jim and Bobbie ‘Snake Oil Salesmen’ their project ‘a scam’, their backers ‘unsuspecting victims’, their benefits ‘junk’ and insinuating that they’ll just take the money and run… well, it makes you wonder all sorts of uncharitable things.

How this relates to art

There’s an article doing the rounds at the moment in which one of the co-founders of Kickstarter is quoted as saying:

It is probable Kickstarter will distribute more money this year than the NEA

For non-US readers, the NEA is the National Endowment for the Arts. It’s essentially the US equivalent of Arts Council England.

Now, I know that some have concerns around the whole idea of crowdfunding, with people questioning the range of artistic endeavours that would benefit from it. They say that only safe, populist work would be funded, that rich people would fund art for themselves and that some things - participatory work with certain communities, for instance – wouldn’t stand a chance. I think they have a point and (as the article says) there will always be a role for state funding.

However, I like the idea that organisations might be able to secure funding for unspecified projects, purely off the back of the reputations they’ve built up.

The thing that I especially like about this idea is that artists and arts organisations could take the effort they currently put into impressing/building relationships with funders and instead lavish that attention on their audiences and communities. What would they do if they didn’t have to spend time on funding applications, evaluations, meetings and other assorted hoop-jumping activities?

I wonder if an organisation’s ability to raise funds in this way might be a measure of the kind of relationship they have with their audiences. For instance, if every theatre company in the country were to say “We’re going to crowdfund our next production. We don’t know what it’ll be, but we’ll need at least £50,000. Trust us”, I wonder how many would hit the target.

Tweet

I dunno. There’s a part of me that sympathises with this kind of thing and I agree with the article’s earlier point about respecting a venue/performer’s rules.

On the other hand, it’s a daft question.  Evidently some people would rather wave a camera around, capturing the moment to relive it later, than simply look at a picture. Besides, experiencing something and capturing it on film aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive acts.

I also think this might be over-egging things slightly:

In the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg last year, I saw any number of tourists enter an incomparable Matisse room with a camera already held up before their face; they walked around, and left still with the thing raised. What had they seen? How could they ever surrender to the vast magic of Matisse in full flood?

I’ve been to a fair few galleries in my time and can’t remember seeing the people without cameras “surrender to the vast magic” of anything very much, it just doesn’t work that way. I’ve seen all sorts – boredom, distraction, mild interest, animated discussion and quiet appreciation.

At classical concerts my attention has wandered so far from the music that I was tempted to go back, just for the chance to do some good, uninterrupted thinking. I’ve also chatted through bands at festivals, dropped off to sleep in the theatre and caught up on emails and RSS feeds during talks and lectures (proof below). This stuff happens. In that context (and I’m sticking up for these amateur filmmakers and their creative acts now) is holding up a camera really so bad?

Tweet