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Is This An iPad I See Before Me?

November 4, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Last week we hosted an Immersive Game + Simulations Technologies conference in my facility. This is an area in which I am only generally familiar so some of the speakers had some very interesting things to so. The keynote speech given by Simon Solotko provided me with an immediate vision of a likely intersection between live performance and technology.

Fair warning: Don’t read any further if you can’t tolerate the idea of cell phones and iPads being used in your arts facility.

Solotko addressed the idea of augmented reality where technology overlays some sort of information upon the “real world.” For example, if you pointed the camera on your cell phone down the street, an arrow might appear on the screen over the image of the street showing you which way to turn to get to a bakery.

Solotko’s thought was that you could use this technology to provide whatever information you wanted people to know about you, and only that information. If you were at a writers’ conference you might put information out on the Cloud that you were doing research on a book about the Civil War. When someone pointed their phone/iPad in your direction they would see that information, but know nothing more about you than that. So if they shared your interest or had some resources you were seeking, they might come over and speak with you.

Solotko noted that you wouldn’t want to use facial recognition to connect yourself to the information you put out there because it is far too permanent and identifiable to be able to retract. Not to mention that there would be problems in low light environments. (This has a lot of social utility and you might want to put some information out there while you are in a dance club, after all.)

According to Solotko, this is really what the Samsung Galaxy Gear is all about. Its utility is about more than just moving the functions of a phone to your wrist, but providing an platform to deliver the augmented reality experience Solotko envisions.

As he describes it, you would put some information out there on the Cloud then program your wristband with some distinctive pattern of color. When someone pointed their camera at you, it would pick up the pattern and provide whatever information you chose to share.

I immediately recognized live performances could use this to provide supplemental information about the artist performing; the character they are playing; provide stream a real time translation of Shakespearean speeches or Italian aria being delivered; and perhaps even offer another layer of characterization by revealing a character’s internal thoughts that belie their spoken sentiments. (Though if an actor is any good, they shouldn’t need a virtual thought bubble to communicate, but it could definitely have its uses.)

Of course, orchestras had this idea a long time ago with the ill-fated Concert Companion project.

As I noted earlier, this means actively encouraging people to hold up their phones or wear their Google Glasses and ceasing to worry that they are recording every moment on stage. Whether audiences and venues are ready to embrace this shift in the viewing environment is likely to depend on a number of factors.

Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations, Info You Can Use, State of the Arts

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Welcome To The Emporium

October 30, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

There is a method of teaching math colleges have begun using called the Emporium Model. Basically, it is an inversion of the usual classroom experience. The student spends time watching videos of lectures or interacting with teaching software outside of the class period. During the class period, students essentially do “homework” with assistance from each other or the professor. The approach has shown some respectable success, especially with remedial classes.

I was wondering if a similar approach might be constructive for the arts. One of the things audiences say they value most about an arts attendance experience is the social aspect interacting with friends and other people.

It got me to thinking if there might be some value in setting up a situation where people could watch a performance or participate with some sort of massive open online course (MOOC) before gathering in an interactive setting. This interactive setting probably wouldn’t be a full live performance, but rather some sort of workshop/master class/discussion where people would have close contact with an artist/facilitator while also having informal social interactions with their friends.

This is sort of an imperfect application of the Emporium model idea because who would want to spend a few hours viewing a performance or participating in an online class of some sort in preparation for a social occasion with their friends?

Except, maybe they would. To those of us closely involved with providing live performances or opportunities to experience visual arts in person, it may seem absurd to set up a situation where we encourage people to substitute a recording or picture for the full live experience. But if people are increasingly interested in having these experiences on their own schedules, rather than ours, there may be some logic to this solution.

People can watch something in 20 minute segments throughout the week and then have fun with their friends at one of three facilitated sessions scheduled every day over the course of a week.

While this may eliminate the full live performance as we know it, it could also provide an entree to eventual attendance by making it seem like something you would inevitably do at some point. You have been going to workshops and discussions with friends for months now, why not actually attend one of those performances some time?

Peer pressure may not only motivate people to attend, but to pay closer attention to the materials they review in advance. If your friend asks why you fast forwarded past a particularly interesting section, you might be more apt to watch the video all the way through the next time and pay closer attention.

Those discussions about what was skipped can also provide hints about programming decisions to the arts group facilitating the sessions — a workshop and focus group in one!

I don’t claim this idea is full developed. It just struck me as an alternative way to use people’s desire for a positive social experience. Probably the biggest hurdle for arts organizations is making what is now seen to be their central focus ancillary to the education and social mingling.

But if colleges can make the homework the focus of the in class experience and the “lecture” portion secondary, it can be accomplished. Since it will require artists who have the skills to teach and interact as well as perform, it could provide more employment opportunities to artists.

I haven’t looked at the full active offering of MOOCs, but one benefit of this approach that I see is that a fair portion of the educational material and media has already been developed and placed in accessible locations. If the internet doesn’t already host suitable content, the distribution channels are available for anything you might create yourself.

Art(ist) Education, Arts in an Age of Technology, State of the Arts

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The Tao of Kermit the Frog (Be At Ease Making Green)

October 29, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Over the last two months, I have found myself returning and pondering a review written by Maria Popova of the book, Make Art, Make Money, by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens. The book uses the example of Jim Henson to inform people’s creative careers.

Popova discusses Elizabeth Hyde Stevens’ use of Jim Henson as an example of a person who balanced himself between artistic and commercial success. In particular to “debunk this toxic myth” [that] …tells us art is necessarily bad if commercially successful, and commercial success necessarily unattainable if the art is any good.”

The book apparently start out talking about Henson’s 1968 Muppet appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that sets muppets chanting business jargon against those chanting idealist credos. The idealists knock the business muppets down, but soon begin to take up their jargon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97iZQvyPinQ

Stevens notes that in 1968 Henson was doing commercial work for Getty Oil, IBM, Oscar Mayer and owned a print making business. He started working for Sesame Street in 1968, but didn’t decide to stop making commercials until 1969.

I didn’t take much from the stories about Henson being a capitalist who also walked around barefoot and got together to “sing, laugh, and play with puppets in the kind of collectivism that hippies celebrated.” The social dynamics of that era have passed and there is nothing to be gained by artificially trying to recreate that environment for yourself.

What did catch my attention was a comment made by a collaborator that Henson never saw the money as an end.

“..Fraggle Rock producer Larry Mirkin, who worked with Henson:

He viewed money as energy, the energy that makes concrete things happen out of worthy ideas. Money was not an end in itself. It could provide physical infrastructure or it could help him hire other artists and technicians to realize a nascent idea. I don’t ever recall him being the least bit concerned or afraid of money or obsessed by it, which many people are. It just wasn’t what drove him — at all.

Apparently an artist’s inability to disregard money as an end and find the balance between creative freedom and commercial success is where the perception of art being tainted by money originates, according to Stevens. Finding that balance and resisting the fear or obsession with money is a difficult skill to master.

It didn’t initially occur to me as I wrote this entry, but the Muppet Show might have reflected Henson’s outlook. It was set in an old dingy theater and there were occasionally plotlines where Kermit was worrying about paying the rent, but it wasn’t a constant plot point and the Muppets never seemed to be starving artists. (Granted, they didn’t have to worry about “being stuffed” at the end of the day.)

It always just seemed like a place Kermit was running to give his friends a place to express themselves, from the borderline inept Fozzie Bear and Gonzo to the hard rocking, enthusiastic Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

What I appreciated was Popova’s closing paragraph,

“…concept of “selling out” is just as oppressive as the very commercial ideology which it purports to defy, and that pitting doing good work against doing well robs culture of its dimension, flattening both art and financial stability into mere caricatures of real life.”

I liked the thought that extreme devotion to any ideal, whether it be art, money, fame, justice, education, becomes a “caricature of real life,” despite the frequent insistence that we are living authentically.

Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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Do U.S. Arts Suffer From A Lack of Working Class Voices?

October 28, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Earlier this month, The Independent asked “Are drama schools just for the middle classes?” The question lead a story about a youth program in England that seeks to provide training regardless of social class. The article cites:

“The domination of public school accents on stage and screen was already raising concerns about a thinning of the acting profession’s social spectrum…”

and later

“Dominic Dromgoole, the artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, describes the lack of working-class children in the industry as a “real worry”, arguing that English theatre’s portrayal of the proletariat is what makes it distinct from its French and German counterparts.”

I tried to think about whether there is a similar concern in the U.S. about a lack of representation from all social strata in the arts.

There is an ongoing conversation that all children be exposed to the arts and be taught creative expression in school. While affluent communities are no guarantee of arts education in schools, there is a better chance of experiencing the arts in an affluent school district.

There has been concern expressed that only those with means of support are able to participate in a career enhancing internship experience. Certainly, living in certain cities provides more opportunities for employment and ability to contend with the higher cost of living may be a function of social class.

What I haven’t seen a lot of discussion about is whether there are enough actors, dancers, musicians and visual artists emerging from an appropriate cross-section of social strata. I am not sure if it is a problem, much less if anyone feels the situation is a detriment to our cultural landscape.

My first inclination is to think that the environment in the U.S. is inadvertently democratic. It is so difficult to be able to support yourself as an artist, those privileged with an extensive arts education may not enjoy a significant advantage in becoming employed in their area of study over someone with less training. As a result, few people mutter about opportunities lost to someone with a prep school education.

Is this something to examine and be concerned about? When we talk about programming not connecting with today’s audiences, could it be a result of training too many artists who come from the same narrow social strata as the audiences?

Or are people from a good cross section of society being trained and the problem is, as we often say, that those with the money have had the greatest influence on what new artists are being taught to perform?

Art(ist) Education, General Musings, Working In The Arts

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