I'm extremely lucky to be attending REVEALING THE ARTS, a conference which unfolds today and tomorrow in Sydney, and whose tagline, "creative conversations and solutions for the digital era," sounds very promising indeed.
Presented by the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the conference was set up for those of us wondering what will happen to culture and the arts in the digital era. My interests span the arts, with a special focus on film culture and social media. My concerns, for example, are twofold.
First, how can culture and the arts - and, by extension, cultural diversity, be protected from the pressures of the liberal economy's supply & demand model, as I think they should? How do the current (fast) changes in the landscape, both social and technological, impact the consumption and dissemination of art? Which new opportunities - if any - are emerging, in this digital era, to rethink the way cultural diversity can be guaranteed in a climate where everyone seems more interested in building a creative industry than a creative culture?
Secondly, how do new technologies - especially in social media - facilitate artistic enterprise, from inspiration to production, from distribution to exhibition? What are the models of best practice?
Even if some of my questions remain unanswered, the sturdy line-up ensures constructive conversations. The conference organizers' own set of concerns also bode well for the insights likely to be gleaned by those who tune in: Where will the money come from? How will we manage rights? Where do we find creative partners? What works and what doesn’t? And what are we leaving the next generation?
I'll be posting my comments on Twitter and, depending on time constraints, right here on the blog. You should also follow attendees' reactions (vis #RTArts), and follow some of the speakers:
- @revealingarts (guest tweeter: @elliotbledsoe, project office, Creative Commons Australia)
- @paulabray - Manager,Visual & Digitisation Services, Powerhouse Museum
- @kate_stone - Manager, Online Branch, National Screen & Sound Archive
- @christydena - Director, Universe Creation 101
- @artsdigitalera - Fee Plumley, Australia Council for the Arts (check out their new blog)
- @michela - Michela Ledwige, consultant and director, MOD Films
- @GGadney - Guy Gadney, Director of The Project Factor
- There's a live webcast of the conference via ABC Arts Mon 26 2-5pm (EST) & Tue 27 10am-5pm (EST).
- Marcus Westbury compares and contrasts the Australia Council and the ABC's radically different approaches to dealing with technological change.
Rather than paraphrase what you can watch live (or retrace on Twitter), I'll try to blog commentary as much as paraphrase. It's going to be rough.
INTRODUCTIONS
...by the directors of the ABC and the Arts Council are kept brief and, to our collective surprise, somewhat poetic.The digital era can liberate the arts by eliminating traditional gatekeepers, provided new ways of thinking catch on amongst practitioners and institutions. Today is about exploring these new ways, a conversation which should help us identify who audiences for the arts are, and how the arts are being accessed in this Brave New World.
KEYNOTE
John Richmond is the commissioning editor with Teachers TV (UK). On air for 5 years, Teachers TV receives 10 million pounds each year in government funding, topped by sponsorship, advertising and co-funding. Its mission is to improve the quality of learning in the UK through television. In fact, a lot of the content is available worldwide thanks to the internet (1/3 of the viewing). Australia is second most frequent non-UK visitors after the US.
While the arts are being squeezed by other "hard" subjects, mathematics and engineering for example, Teachers TV does broadcast 300 programs on the arts, split between content aimed at teachers and content made for student use. The best arts resources cross curriculum boundaries. Rights: the content is, legally, only available to UK audiences. John Richmond's advice: ignore it. A simple illustration, then, of how outdated and ill-fitting rights policy (and the mindframe which goes with it) still is.
More info at www.teacherstv.com and @teachersTV
PANEL: GET'EM WHILE THEY'RE YOUNG
Elizabeth-Ann Macgregor (Museum of Contemporary Arts): the thirst for information from kids about artists and art institutions is huge, and technology can help communicate that information to teenagers. But nothing replaces interaction and experience of the arts in a physical, social space.
Panelists seem to agree: traditional mindset prevails. Experiencing art needs to be done in situ. Online experience is no substitute. The issue is one of access: remote students, difficulty of fitting excursions into the curriculum, etc, mean that internet broadcast of the arts in schools is a real resource.
Scott Rankin (Big hART): Are we rolling out the literacy rather than just the technology? Without online / broadband literacy, the technology won't address the injustices linked to access. There's an opportunity which must be taken.
Susan Mann (Curriculum Corporation): There is still a digital divide in schools across the country, but the infrastructure is improving rapidly. Yes, but are teachers being taught how to use these new tools, ie: problem of literacy just as pressing as that of technology.
Arts education outreach in schools: is it a long-term relationship? Do the kids grow up to become consumers of art? E-A Macgregor: it's the wrong question. Arts education should be looked at in the broad sense: the insights can inform career choices, community involvement, sense of self-worth, etc.
SR: User-generated content can be an educational experience. Main arguments in favour: it's cheap and democratic. This should be questioned. Cheap: not if there's curatorial integrity and responsibility. Democratic: not if the usual pattern, where a majority experiences the content in a very passive manner, is retained.
Macgregor: Technology is only useful if the access if widened, the opportunities are multiplied and the choices are more numerous. There's a danger that that technology, if used badly, can narrow choices.
Richard Gill (via video): Twitter and blog for Youth Opera in Victoria are the main tools for Victoria Australia. A new education manager will launch a project called "Write your own opera". Technologies are about raising awareness of Opera. Twitter and blogger will never convert anyone to opera the way seeing it live will.
Linda Lorenza (Bell Shakespeare): Online tools might not be able to replace the real experience but they will complement it. Example: a project mapping Shakespeare's mind in Second Life.
John Richmond: it doesn't take much to take a child from being a non-citizen to being a citizen. There need to be extended moments in their day-to-day learning, even if they are occasional, which "turn the light on", for example through access to the arts, which make each child feels part of the society rather than outside it. Being taken into the theatre as a child is an example of one such moment. Recently developed technologies can facilitate the frequency and intensity of these moments.
How can "learning by doing" online opportunities be better incorporated into school curriculum? Adult practitioners perhaps put the emphasis on the format (online vs, offline) whereas younger generation does not make the distinction, see online avenues as just another series of tools in their palette. Perhaps giving them more access to online experiences in schools will, paradoxically, open them up to being more participative in offline classroom activities.
Accounting for online use of artistic content can be quite simple. TeachersTV seems to use one-off payments (buy-outs) for content makers and facilitators, enabling the accounting to be simple and the content to be distributed freely. Licensing educational content in Australia is problematic, making the use of free online material in schools very difficult, which is where creative commons can become useful.
Rep from the WA Symphony Orchestra: Again, you can't experience a symphony orchestra without being there, but online tools can enhance the experience (incl. before and after in the classrooms). Main challenge is teacher training, which is severely under-resourced in Australia. Webcasting and online content can help with that.
PANEL: SHOW ME YOUR ARTS
Michael Lynch, former director of London's South Bank Centre
Helen O'Neil, Council for the Humanities, Artds & Sciences
Guy Gadley, president of The Digital Project Factory
Robyn Holmes, curator of music, National Library of Australia
Michael Lynch, former director of London's South Bank Centre
Helen O'Neil, Council for the Humanities, Artds & Sciences
Guy Gadley, president of The Digital Project Factory
Robyn Holmes, curator of music, National Library of Australia
Traditional model: Organizations and institutions debate what to put online, what would work best, etc. New model: put everything online and see how people use it. There are projects in Australia, for example, digitizing public domain newspapers, photographs, music etc, with advanced search facilities. Interesting community involvement: digitized newspapers are full of translation and transcription mistakes, 350 million lines of text of digitized public domain newspaper were corrected by users.
Michael Lynch: rights dog everything that arts organizations do. We need government policy at the front end to say "the opportunity is too great" and solve any rights issues before they arise.
It seems also important for artists to see audience use (and reuse) of their work online as a priority and to build it into their planning, funding, practice.
Guy Gadley: What evolutions in the music industry has taught us: if the audience want to see something, the internet allows them to see it by whatever means necessary. Better work with audiences at the source.
Michela Ledwige: Digital collaborative tools to manage internal documentation in a way that is web-centric.
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Update.
Want to know what I learned today? Live blogging a conference is impossible. Live tweeting is feasible, though aiming for fast, witty insights that don't just paraphrase what's been said (especially when you're competing with a live video feed) is very difficult. I'm going to abandon the latter for the former.
Head to http://twitter.com/#search?q=rtarts for that particular conversation.
Michael Lynch: rights dog everything that arts organizations do. We need government policy at the front end to say "the opportunity is too great" and solve any rights issues before they arise.
It seems also important for artists to see audience use (and reuse) of their work online as a priority and to build it into their planning, funding, practice.
Guy Gadley: What evolutions in the music industry has taught us: if the audience want to see something, the internet allows them to see it by whatever means necessary. Better work with audiences at the source.
Michela Ledwige: Digital collaborative tools to manage internal documentation in a way that is web-centric.
----
Update.
Want to know what I learned today? Live blogging a conference is impossible. Live tweeting is feasible, though aiming for fast, witty insights that don't just paraphrase what's been said (especially when you're competing with a live video feed) is very difficult. I'm going to abandon the latter for the former.
Head to http://twitter.com/#search?q=rtarts for that particular conversation.
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