What the community wants.

How do we know what they want….

I just had an interesting conversation with a local artist who is organising an arts event.  We were talking about whether or not people ‘wanted’ different kinds of artistic happenings in our community and how did we know.  

Over the years as a creator of many arts programs in this area, I have asked myself this time and time again.  What is it that this community are wanting, and are they prepared to experience something different and new if I offer it? How do we know as artists or arts programmers what the audience want?

For instance, young people really resonate with circus, and the Hip Cat Circus has gone from strength to strength over the past 9 years.  On the back of that I have attempted to offer other kinds of theatre experiences for young people, none have equalled the success of the circus, and quite frankly most have down-right failed.  Circus has that ‘je ne sais quoi’ that young people in particular are looking for; it is accessible, fun and ever so slightly risky.

So many times I have been caught in the trap of thinking ‘I know’ what will attract an audience or participants just because yesterday I did something similar and it was a resounding success.  Not sure why, but this just never seems to work.  Even down to: just because we had an actor doing a one-hand show about a topic that was so successful that we could’ve sold it out 4 times over, then the same actor comes back on another topic – or even brings the same show back, on the same topic, at another time – and we struggle to sell even one show….go figure!

The times that I have spent asking the community what they want, and then programming that, still has had mixed results – as often the person who talks the loudest is not necessarily speaking on behalf of the all.  When it comes down to it we are all just speaking on behalf of ourselves.

I guess as an arts programmer, or artist in a community, all we can do is make offerings.  If some of these offerings are taken up and are seen by an audience, or participated in, then we take that as a positive.  If it’s new and different to anything that has been on offer before it might take a community a bit of time to ‘get it’ and that has got to be OK.  Ultimately for either the artist or for the programmer, if we believe in the art, can communicate that passion and the reason for it, then the community can make up their own minds, and we can learn from that.

If you would like to join in the conversation or let me know what you want to see in your community, please leave a comment here or on facebook

Merryn Tinkler

Urban screen or exurban screen

All around the world, buildings are being projected on with wild and amazing digital art.  Animation has gone 3D and is growing out of old heritage buildings.  

There are many amazing examples on the internet that show spectacular animations as part of community celebrations. Some of my favourites include our beloved Hamer Hall in Melbourne being deconstructed last year during the Melbourne Festival (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgVHXO1QZoA); or this one called “How would it be if a house was dreaming?” (http://www.urbanscreen.com/usc/41 )

Perhaps building projection has taken over from fireworks by providing major community events with the WOW factor.

Urban screens is a phenomena that is a part of this digital projection culture.  These differ slightly in that they are permanently installed screens that are programmed with various digital art, promotion or even propaganda.  They are electronic canvases in urban environments all around the world, including LED screens and signs, plasma screens, information terminals and projection surfaces as well as intelligent architectural surfaces and media facades.

And there is Frankston's screen at Cube 37.

London is also a prime example.  A number of years ago urban screens were set up in 18 sites across London in preparation for the Olympic Games. The aim being that the public could get a taste of what to expect in July and then in July to create a destination for families to enjoy the Games within their own borough. Like a large TV in the middle of the town square without the capacity to change channels. They are funded by the BBC, so have a slightly more commercial aspect to them, however, what it highlights is the power of digital mediums to bring people together and to create communities.

The likening to fireworks, where we all gather around in the dark with children on our shoulders and go ooohh ahhh at gun powder powered colourful explosions going off over our heads.  It brings us together as a community because we love to gather and we love spectacular.

This aspect of community building is something that is being explored on a much more ground roots level in urban environments all over the world.  Not all local areas can afford the likes of London’s urban LCD screens or the technical genius of the 3D animations on heritage buildings.  Any surface can be utilized, and cheaper technologies that can produce light, project colour and create atmosphere can be used to bring a sense of newness and aliveness into otherwise dark and empty areas of towns and cities.

Frankston is going to explore just this in late June.  exUrbanScreens is a project that is going to bring life to the dark corners of Frankston during the darkest time of the year.  Check it out www.exurbanscreens.com   

Alive...

What drives artists to create transient art?  I’m talking about the kind of art that is there one minute and gone the next.  There are many examples of what I call transient art.  It is not the kind of art that you hang on your wall.  Not the kind of art that you can store on a shelf and revisit – like a movie or a book. I think about installations created for a specific length of time.  Like a festival that happens over a weekend.  Like a musician playing live, or a performance artist on the street.

Like theatre. 

Theatre is akin to a sand mandala.  It is created from scratch – out of nothing.  People come together to build something that has a life – long or short.  It is often an intense personal experience and is born of the human experience.  

Theatre is a pattern – a template created by a script and a direction, then every night the coloured sands fall – slightly differently than the night before – and a mandala is created, held for a moment and then put to the wind, never to be seen again.  The template still exists, but the expression will always be different. Never again will the same people experience that same thing.  Never again will the grains fall just so.  Live theatre is a shared group experience, one that can be translated each night but never completely replicated.  The cast and crew are sharing that experience with the audience, and vice versa.  The audience is sharing it together. It is start and finish and will never be the same again. That is the nature of the human experience.  Change is the one reality.

So perhaps there are 2 kinds of artists.

The first kind of artist is one who likes to make something permanent.  Something that can hang on a wall or sit in a garden in perpetuity. Something that can be taken from the bookshelf and revisited time and time again. A statement and something that will leave a lasting legacy.  A bid for immortality perhaps. Even from an ego-less perspective, who doesn’t want to think that they will leave something behind that will make the world a better place after they are gone?

Then there are other artists. The kind who create the sand mandalas.  The actors, the dancers, the musicians, the directors,the monks, the ephemeral installation artists.  All those whose work is created in the present moment and then gone.  Relationships are built and disappear. Stories of the time when…are shared and laughed about.  The art only lives in the reminiscence.

So what drives the artist of transience?  I would like to think that it is the love of the present moment.  Like the sand mandala, perhaps it helps us to realise the impermanence of reality and everything.  I love to adorn my walls with beautiful art, but most of all I value the experience of the alive in transient art.

Arts Evolution

At the end of April the Frankston Arts Centre is presenting an award winning comedy by the hilarious Fiona Scott-Norman.  The show bemoans the loss of the vinyl record and blames that loss and the development of electronic music on the increasing unease and violence in club culture.   Through her warm and charming manner and comically delivered arguments, Fiona proposes that the demise of partner-dancing and disco music has paved the way for electronic dance music and has encouraged social anarchy.  “If we brought back light-hearted disco music, street violence would disappear; if we brought back partner-dancing, social order would resume.”

This got me thinking about evolution and ‘progress’ in a broader arts arena.  What impacts are new technologies and new art forms having on the evolution of art as we know and perceive it?

I think of something like the Mona Lisa.  An image we are all very familiar with because multi-media, photography and printing exist.  In the not too dim past – we are only talking a mere 100 years or so – we have gone from perhaps not even knowing that the Mona Lisa existed or  to being able to have the image at our fingertips whenever and wherever we want without having to stand in long lines at the Louvre.  Does the experience of seeing the painting reproduced; diminish the experience of it in ‘real life’ – or even the impetus to want to see it in real life?  I guess the lines at the Louvre speak for themselves in answer to that, and I think that having the ability to have the Mona Lisa as the wallpaper on my computer actually enhances my engagement with it.  I for one am still keen to stand in line.

So then, there is the whole concept of new art – or digital art; art that is created and facilitated by new technologies.  Frankston will be exploring more and more digital arts as expressions of our culture over the coming months as an extension to the digital arts we have been presenting in the past.  Digital art is still a very new and fresh field and brings an opportunity for dialogue about difference and relevance. There is no difference to me in how a piece of art is created – and that goes for music as well.  There are just different expressions of the same journey.  Whether art is created by getting my hands dirty or by taps on a keyboard is irrelevant.  Whether I look or listen to that art on a vinyl record, paint on canvas or as a digital image on my computer is also neither here nor there.  As we engage more with the digital world every day, I would think that digital art is potentially more relevant.  Whether or not it is responsible for the demise of a decent society is a much broader question.