Art.go is a simple, easy to use platform that provides a personalized experience using data to recommend and curate the arts events you want to see! Beyond this, it is also an online network to connect with both other audience members and the artists themselves, and completely open to all citizens as potential art-makers, art-critics and art lovers. Art.go is at it’s core about engaging new audiences and opening and democratizing participation.
05/15/2013
05/14/2013
Audience 3.0: Social Media and the Arts (Revision)
"We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it?”
-Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics
In the age of television, the internet, and the iPhone, the question of how to get individuals engaged in the [live] arts inevitably turns to two golden words---Social Media. Perusing the agendas for any conference in the arts field over the last five years will yield a litany of sessions encouraging artists and adminstrators alike to embrace the digital age and to leverage what are seemingly touted as the mysitcal powers of social media. This should come as no surprise as "artists have always been using technology," which I was reminded of in my interview with artist and activist Steve Lambert. They have always been on the cutting edge, whether that was simply utilizing new lenses or innovating progress in the arts space.
The interaction of art and social media is occuring in a variety of different forms. Ben Davis cleanly breaks it down in an article on this precise topic in Artnet Magazine utilizing a semiotic square to make sense of the various categories that social media integration falls into:
In this scenario by Art, he is referring to "products of the traditional, professionalized art world, a privileged class of esthetic objects set apart from ordinary communicative acts, authored by a special person called an artist," and by Social Media, he means "all these new-fangled media platforms which are highly accessible, and based around enabling open-ended conversations between networks of participants."
So that leaves us with FOUR main categories that result from the coalescensce of social media and the arts (see the basic breakdown below, or visit Ben Davis' article for further elaboraiton):
art that uses social networks: Technology is the vehicle! Art that uses social networks doesn't pariticularly disrupt the art form or rules of engagement, but adds to the process, becoming a component of the art-form.
new media art: Perhaps the most obvious of incarnations, new media art is the most literal interpretaiton where artists implement technology as the means and the subject matter (think video art).
art mods: This medium is the most-closed; participants can create within given constraints with the possibility of creativity, but a more or less defined number of possibilities (think creating a Wii character).
social art collaboration: This is about engaging audiences in the production of material. It is open and crowd-sourced and often includes projects that are dismissed or not recognized as "aesthetic art" by traditional avenues (think Wikipedia).
The final category, And so the question for me, is not whether artists are utilizing social media, but rather...
"how are artists utilizing social media to change the rules of engagement with the audience?"
The National Endownment for the Arts recently published a report on how Americans are using electornic media to participate in the arts entitled Audience 2.0: How Technology influences Arts Participation. The main findings addressed social media, within the context of Davis' square above, in the "art as social media" space---merely a one-way conduit (a short summary of the findings can be found in this press release).
The terminology 2.0, seems to reference the idea of Web 2.0, a term first coined with the second wave of the World Wide Web.
According to P.C. Magazine Encyclopedia, "Web 2.0 is not a specific technology; rather, it refers to two major paradigm shifts. The one most often touted is "user-generated content," which relates more to individuals. The second, which is equally significant, but more related to business, is "cloud computing."
Or in non-techie jargon: "a site that does something unique, practical, and powerful while creating a social connection."
Web 2.0 pages may have had user generated materials, but they did not engage deeper or in an true exchange with users, this is what I believe falls under the heading of Web 3.0.
Web 3.0 is the next evolution of interactive content. In my understanding, I beleive will herald the age of interactive and OPEN content that fundamentally changes the way power is divided and wielded and how and who gets to make decisions. It may even bring back echoes of direct democracy.
So what does Audience 3.0 mean:
- Anyone is a Qualified Critic
- Anyone can be an Artist
- New Collaborations and Exchange
- The heirarchy of the arts world will have to evolve.
As promising as these findings are of Audience 2.0, and as much as these advancements deserve recognition, it is simply not enough. We need to stop lauding the accomplishments of Audience 2.0 and start thinking about what Audience 3.0 might mean.
Audience 3.0 would move into the space of "social art collaboration," engaging audiences in a two-way dialogue and making them active, involved participants with power in the process.
Technology can facilitate connecting with people like you, to find out their opinions rather than the NYTimes or any other "professional." And speaking of professionals, it is hard to draw the line as to where professional art ends and amatuer art begins. When someone was able to win an Oscar for a film shot on an iPhone it become clear how technology can facilitate a breakdown of the heirarchy.
It's not eough to get people in the seats or in the galleries. It's time to embrace the untapped potential of social media to allow engagement throughout the process, but deep and meaningful. The current methods of engaging with audiences are mere pony tricks meant for shock and awe. No one is changing the artistic heirarchy by letting patrons tweet in there seats, or by photographing feedback cards for their instagram accounts.
It's time to find out what new power structures, and more access mean for the arts.
It's time for Audience 3.0. It's time for Art.go.
05/05/2013
Data-Driven Artists: Alex Dragulseco
Artists have long sought to provide compelling, thought-provoking representations of life, but with increasingly more parts of life beginning to take place on digital platforms, many are turning to data as the raw material for their masterpieces. Through a variety of data sets, artists have begun to create new and exciting pieces turning the world of information into a world of inspiration. One of the leading creators in this space is Alex Dragulseco, a visual artist working at the intersection of art and technology. His projects are experiments and explorations of algorithms, computational models, simulations and information visualizations that involve data derived from social feeds, public databases, unwanted emails and video games. He has been a researcher with the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab, the Experimental Game Lab and the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts at University of California, San Diego.
Here are a few of this project highlights:
Spam Architecture: "The images from the Spam Architecture series are generated by a computer program that accepts as input, junk email. Various patterns, keywords and rhythms found in the text are translated into three-dimensional modeling gestures."
Lexigraphs I (Twitter Data Portraits): "The first visualization from the Data Portraits series. Micro-blog authors use mobile text messaging or web interfaces to post short answers to the question What are you doing?, creating a stream-of-consciousness account of their daily encounters, musings, plans and actions. Using salient words from an individual’s postings, we visualize the topical and temporal patterns to create a portrait of the author.
The words on the left side of the silhouette show the daily rhythm (one day is two seconds) while the right side shows a cumulative view."
Spam Plants: "The ASCII values found in the text of spam messages determine the attributes and qualities of the 3D objects in the Spam Plants series."
To check out more of Alex Dragulseco's data [de]constructions visit his website HERE.
To read more about data-driven artist visits Wired Magazine's special, "Fram that Spam!," an inside look at the growing practice of data driven art.
05/01/2013
Give your platform some "Style"!
"What we can acknowledge is that art is not about knowledge, conveying 'meanings,' or providing information. Art is not just an ornament or style used to make data more palatable or consumable. Art may well have meanings or messages but what makes it art is not content but it's affect, the sensible force or style through which it produces content. Why, for example would we spend two hours in the cinema watching a film if all we wanted were the story or the moral message?"(Colebrook, 2002, P.24-25)
What does it take to get a community engaged, to motivate a crowd, or to generate genuine interest and impact? The unfortunately reality is that even the most complelling causes and cases that truly deserve our attention will fail to imbue involvement without the proper consideration of aesthetic and style.
Technology cannot simply be the means to an end or the product being delivered, but must be an integral part of the overall process and as such it should strive to facilitate an enjoyable interaction that reflects the intentions and overall style of the cause. The design and aesthetics of our programs and platforms for change matter just as much, if not more, than our mission.
How does getting involved make you feel? Where does this project situate itself?
One great example of this is the website good.is. The design of the website is simple, clean, and personalized. Good.is, through it's design, makes me feel like I can have a tangible impact---create good! Good.is describes itself as "a global community of, by, and for pragmatic idealists working towards individual and collective progress," and I would say the design reflects these goals. It is inviting, bright, and easy to access. Below is the banner when you first visit the page.
Aesthetic sensibility is crucial in the congested world of innovation and change, and this is where partnering with an artist can be a necessary and invaluable investment!
04/26/2013
The Role of Design in Engagement
This week we had the pleasure of hearing all about a new space opening in New York: The Centre for Social Innovation. The centre is a new branch of spaces for collaboration and innovation, orignally launched in Canada.
"The Centre for Social Innovation provides its members with the spaces, relationships and knowledge they need to translate ideas to impact. We're part coworking space, part community center and part incubator for people and organizations that are changing the world.
More importantly, the Centre for Social Innovation is a place of possibility.
The space seeks to create a generative, inspiring environment for social entreprenuers, non-profits, creatives, and any innovator attempting to create positive change in the world.
The space provides a co-working environment that serves as an incubator for new ideas and ventures. The idea behind it is the sharing of administrative costs for start-up projects, as well as the sharing of motivation, resources, ideas and energy!
One of the most compelling parts of our conversation around this for me though was the considerations the centre has taken to design a space conducice to these exchanges. They have thought deeply about how to foster progress through the aesthetic space.
RUMOR HAS IT THERE IS EVEN A HAMMOCK IN THE WORKS....
To learn more about how design can affect productivity check out this article, from Payscale.com, and the infograph below sourced from it.
04/10/2013
Audience 3.0: Social Media and the Arts
"We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it?”
-Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics
In the age of television, the internet, and the iPhone, the question of how to get individuals engaged in the [live] arts inevitably turns to two golden words---Social Media. Perusing the agendas for any conference in the arts field over the last five years will yield a litany of sessions encouraging artists and adminstrators alike to embrace the digital age and to leverage what are seemingly tauted as the mysitcal powers of social media. This should come as no surprise as "artists have always been using technology," which I was reminded of in my interview with artist and activist Steve Lambert. They have always been on the cutting edge, whether that was simply utilizing new lenses or innovating progress in the arts space.
The interaction of art and social media is occuring in a variety of different forms. Ben Davis cleanly breaks it down in an article on this precise topic in Artnet Magazine utilizing a semiotic square to make sense of the various categories that social media integration falls into:
In this scenario by Art, he is referring to "products of the traditional, professionalized art world, a privileged class of esthetic objects set apart from ordinary communicative acts, authored by a special person called an artist," and by Social Media, he means "all these new-fangled media platforms which are highly accessible, and based around enabling open-ended conversations between networks of participants."
So that leaves us with FOUR main categories that result from the coalescensce of social media and the arts (see the basic breakdown below, or visit Ben Davis' article for further elaboraiton):
art that uses social networks: Technology is the vehicle! Art that uses social networks doesn't pariticularly disrupt the art form or rules of engagement, but adds to the process, becoming a component of the art-form.
new media art: Perhaps the most obvious of incarnations, new media art is the most literal interpretaiton where artists implement technology as the means and the subject matter (think video art).
art mods: This medium is the most-closed; participants can create within given constraints with the possibility of creativity, but a more or less defined number of possibilities (think creating a Wii character).
social art collaboration: This is about engaging audiences in the production of material. It is open and crowd-sourced and often includes projects that are dismissed or not recognized as "aesthetic art" by traditional avenues (think Wikipedia).
The final category, And so the question for me, is not whether artists are utilizing social media, but rather...
"how are artists utilizing social media to change the rules of engagement with the audience?"
The National Endownment for the Arts recently published a report on how Americans are using electornic media to participate in the arts entitled Audience 2.0: How Technology influences Arts Participation. The main findings addressed social media, within the context of Davis' square above, in the "art as social media" space---merely a one-way conduit (a short summary of the findings can be found in this press release).
As promising as these findings are, and as much as these advancements deserve recognition, it is simply not enough. We need to sto lauding the accomplishments of Audience 2.0 and start thinking about what Audience 3.0 might mean.
Audience 3.0 would move into the space of "social art collaboration," engaging audiences in a two-way dialogue and making them active, involved participants with power in the process.
It's not eough to get people in the seats or in the galleries. It's time to embrace the untapped potential of social media to allow engagement throughout the process. And by this I don't mean to suggest a "chose your own adventure" format, or a set-design contest, but really listening to and understanding your audience, and engaging menaigfully with them throughout the process to potentially foster more encouraging and more generative engagement with social media leading the charge!
Social media can't be landing place, it needs to be the starting point to explore new frontiers!
03/13/2013
Transparency, Participation, Collaboration and the Artist
As I sit down to write a reflection on all I have learned about opening government, about tapping into the expertise inherent in all communities, about creating wide-scale change through innovation, and about delivering the best to every citizen, I find myself pleasantly overwhelmed.
The amount of innovation that I have been exposed to inlcuding big data/open data, and data visualization, various projects, and so many other inspiring videos, presentations, work, as well as how this is spreading globally is exciting! (A full list of our weekly readings, videos, and other resources can be found here. )
With all of these burgeoning ideas, inspiring interviews and presentations, and alternate angles to take, it is difficult to sum up all that I have learned in a single post (at a length that would be of any interest to the general public) and so I have resolved to share a few highlights with the three essential principles of open government as my lens and framework: transparency, participation, and collaboration.
TRANSPARENCY: #accountability #citizenship
By providing transparency of data, governments are not only able to be held accountable, but they are able to cultivate the talent and expertise of their communities, build citizenship, and encourage growth and progress.
Artists are encouraging this by interpreting available data in new ways. Artists and creatives are able to engage people because they are associative, rather than illustrative. I think this is where their strength is in transparency--sometimes transparency can best be achieved by creating opacity, by which I mean illuminating data and problems in new ways and sometimes through obscuring one component to focus on another. They demand attention by creating materials that provoke reaction and provoke people to pay attention to the information available.
One example of a provocation by artists is the creation of "Automated Truth Machines" by the Rainforest Action Network. Artists devised a way to create transparency of existing information by covering up the Bank of America ATMS with a familiar looking, but new, menu that allowed customers to "select" where their money would go: coal-fired power plants, home foreclosures, bankrolling climate change, or padding executive bonuses.
PARTICIPATION: #civicengagement #publicinput
By involving and inviting input from all citizens we are able to dip into a much wider and deeper pool of knowledge. This does not mean that everyone must participate at once, but that by expanding who is involved and how they are involved we can cultivate and curate the best solutions--particularly through online platforms. As Chris Vein so eloquently stated in his visit, "the community becomes the capacity to help government work better; you can invite them in to help solve the problems."
Artists can encourage participation and input both locally and globally, by engaging audiencs in new ways. Artists have always been concerned with their audience and sharing materials in alluring ways.
One example of this is the If I could say to America project, which began in May 2012 at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France, as part of a six-week summer residency, where fellow artists at the residency and locals in the city were given an open moment of opportunity to say anything to america. The project has continued online with perspectives from many countries.
Another example, which is local in the context of its enactment, is the use of art to encourage participation during the Arab Awakening. In the midst of this change, artists were some of the main contributors who cultivated the type of participation that is essential to building participation, community and engagement. For example, artist Nsar rallied other artists and community members to turn the ruins of their Tunisian Town into images of hope and connection. "Artists help create an independent space by creating opportunities, through art, for people to engage with others about social issues" and to create a civil participatory society that is paramount to democracy.
COLLABORATION: #connection #exchange
Collaboration engenders investment, commitment, and new potent partnerships. This type of cooperation among various organizations, particularly those that are not working together currently, has the potential to create many new possibilities and develop government engagement and capacity.
One underused space for collaboration is to employ the skills and creative strategies of artists and creative entities within our communities IN CONJUCTION WITH other agencies and agents. Beth Noveck has argued that the difference between invention and innovation is collaboration.
Artists are in a unique position to collaborate and utilize their mediums and creative capacities to work with in variety of different disciplines and problem-spaces. Many examples of collaboration exist, but perhaps one of the most promising is the collaboration between the arts and government in Arlington, Virginia, winner of the "Innovations in American Government Award."
To conclude, it seems that artists have always been using the ideology of open government, the question is how can they begin to integrate technology into this practice and how can technology help bridge and invite them to help problem-solve and participate in government. So far technology has certainly served to disseminate work and create awareness, but how can it become more integrated itself?
Questions I am left considering:
- How can we utilize technology to invite further artistic participation in government?
- How are artists using technology to promote civic engagement?
- How do we transform online connection into tangible social change?
I keep returning to one of my favorite TED talks on technology and opening government, "Coding a better Government," in which Jennifer Pahlka asks "can government be run like the internet, permissionless and open?"
At the end she asks,
"Are we going to be a crowd of voices or a crowd of hands?"
I'm starting to realize that all of these resources are just the first step, but with them artists can collect these voices and perspectives in innovative ways, and in turn activate engagement and help to raise our hands to participate.
