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Comment by Richard Saville-Smith on September 3, 2010 at 23:08

Hi Anne,

I wasn't thinking of doing "it" on my own! I was rather thinking you might help by suggesting useful resources! And that others might help in ways they feel comfortable with. I just see a great big opporutinty - and I'm trying to work it out.

Creative Scotland sent me an (unsolicited) copy of 'Thinking Big' so I'm taking that as a sign...(!) ho, ho. Andrew Dixon had me in for a chat (unsolicited) and I'm speaking with Ros and Kate at the EPPP. My plan is to work out the arguments and (proably more importantly the language) on 38minutes - on the grounds that it's an appropriate place to explore a digital/arts/creative idea and in the hope that if people can't think up decent reasons to be against it, they will, in time come to be for "it".

Cheers.

Comment by Richard Saville-Smith on September 2, 2010 at 22:48

Hi Anne, I was starting from an attempt to answer the question: how could digital technology, in particular social media, be used to improve the audience experience of events in Scotland. There is no particular reason why this shoud exclusively relate to subsidised art forms as it could just as readily include sporing events or music events. The difference is that Creative Scotland has financial levers which don't exist in these other mostly profit making sectors - and there is a greater point of crisis and therefore opportunity.

Whatever, the point is to stop looking at this from the point of view of production companies, promoters, venues or any of the others with a professional interest and start looking at the equation from the point of view of the audiences. When one does this, it is quite clear that the audiences for sport, pop, subsidied arts and video games overlap as people don't confine their social lives exclusively to these particular ghettos. The "massive demographic gulf" may exist between the extreme, but the overlap exists and when you chuck in a temporal factor it is the case that over time people will engage with and experience different types of events in their lifetime.

So, my question remains, how can social media be used to increase participation - and this partly connects with the "Stream 7" discussion about the future of 38minutes going on contemporaneously elsewhere on this site. I suppose that part of the reason that many people enthusiastically join 38minutes and then fade away is because 38mins provides a kind of hybrid platform because of it's 'specialist' twist which means it mostly can't substitute for a personal blog and...well theres a question of purpose beyond just sharing a space when most people are away somewhere else. It seems to me that the question of purpose is crucial.

In an arts and culture context people have a purpose(s) - people want to go out, be sociable, see a particular show, see any kind of show that takes their fancy. It is that wanting to go out itch that a social media strategy can satisfy. It provides a solution to a genuine problem - what to go to, where to go, who to go with. The lack of evidence of changing demographics is not the same as evidence that more tickets aren't being sold. My core conceit is that if everyone brought a friend, the audience for the arts would double (without much changing the demographic) with a consequent radical increase in turnover and reduction in subsidy. Social media allows all manner of strategies for personal recommendation that a marketing deparment can't begin to touch. This is the radical core of the proposition I'm making.

Heavy Rain is (personal) screen based and therefore counts as part of staying in, as do all other live arts things you can watch on telly at home or on a personal screen - this may be the on-screen future but it is not the future of live events. Paradoxically NT live - projected on a cinema screen is a live event in my book. Back in the day the Musician's Union muddied the water with their slogan "keep music live" which meant that going to a dance music event with some of the greatest DJ's (what I used to call a disco) was somehow an inferior cultural experience to watching musicians (of whatever quality) play live. It was a self-serving strategy but it was wrong. An arts event is live because of the audience not the artist. If there is no audience it's just a rehearsal. A live event is one where people come together in a "site-specific intense theatre experience" (to borrow from Stuart Cosgrove, above) and NT live can certainly provide that.

You "doubt that creating a single space for publicly subsidised arts will necessarily extend participation from a wider section of people in Scotland". Again, any radical increase in the number of people and the number of events attended would not be captured by your evaluation criteria. I do actually believe that a wider section of the population could be reached if there was a more manageble way of knowing what was on, buying tickets and sharing the experience (and things like the Edinburgh Portal Pilot Project are heading in the right direction), but the demographic criteria you incorporate is not actually relevant to my propostion which is that the current subsidy system is broke and that a creative use of a social media digital strategy based robustly on a web 2.0 approach will prove to be a lot more compelling than you currently allow. But thanks for the comments as they really help me sharpen my thoughts.

Comment by Stuart Cosgrove on September 2, 2010 at 17:58

Richard says "The question of whether arts companies would sufficiently prioritise participation is one that is in flux. As the spending cuts bite, I predict that there will be increasing interest." I agree with this and the geographically diverse nature of Scotland makes it attractive for other reasons.

Still like my site-specific, intense theatre experience too tho.

Comment by Richard Saville-Smith on September 2, 2010 at 10:24

Hi Ian,

Cheers for your comments. Firstly, I'm not sure I go with the term "massively integrated" - it makes it sounds like an IT project for the NHS! The whole point about web 2.0 infrastructures is that they are massively disintegrated - allowing individuals to take control over their own space and make use of the networking possibilities on their own terms as they see fit.

The question of whether arts companies would sufficietly prioritise participation is one that is in flux. As the spending cuts bite, I predict that there will be increasing interest. Especially, if it is combined with Creative Scotland funding being denied if they do not get their act together - this financial sanction is likely to do far more than any number of webinars to persuade the core management of arts companies to take the internet seriously.

I also think that you do an injustice to the older generation of arts audiences. The older generation is the most rapidly expanding group of digital participants. These middle class people have computers, what they don't necessarily have is a social space which they are driven to time and time again and in which they can carve out their own space to fit their interests and their personality. Why would you want to continue having to trawl through fractious information sources to find listings, tickets and more when it's all in the one space controlled by you?

As to the scale issue, I think you have a different thing in mind than I was seeking to communicate, so that's a failure on my part - sorry. Facebook and Twitter have hundred's of millions of users. Web 2.0 concepts in practice indicate that size doesn't really matter. You wouldn't really be "bringing together" so many art forms, nor would you be relying on "uniformly" smart use of the environment. Different arts companies and different individuals can find their own way - that's the beauty of web 2.0.

As to the high-risk element - the high-risk is continuing to pump £100 million of tax payers dosh down the subsidy plug-hole. Compared to that an investment in a decent digital strategy seems to be a positive, practical alternative. I accept it may not work, but doing nothing already doesn't work - massively!

Thanks again for the comments.

Comment by Richard Saville-Smith on September 2, 2010 at 9:13

Thanks for the Radio 4 reference John, I'll "listen again" but we seem to be moving in the same direction of travel. It's the "how" that I'm committed to. I'm not proposing subsidising web 2.0 initiatives by individuals or groups of arts companies to better enhance their individual prospects. Instead I'm proposing the provision of an inclusive platform which can be big enough to accommodate everyone - more of an infrastructure thing like electricity or drainage or telecoms (though any analogy with a web 2.0 digital strategy is inexact) - which is fundamental, radical and capable of providing a genuine alternative to the existing subsidy culture by developing audiences. As for the personal issues surrounding our cultural leaders - ho, ho, - you articulate part of the problem very well - as long as people are defending their little corner (however big that is) we are all sub-optimised, which is a euphamism for buggered.

Comment by Dr John Sutherland on September 2, 2010 at 8:31

One thing: stop relying on public subsidy for any organising culture, whether web 2.0 or A3 posters. Last night's Radio 4 debate on whether The Arts should be subsidised was eye-opening by the agreement reached: in the new austerity there should be no more big subsidies for big names. Instead, move the remaining monies to the small. Question is: how to do that in a sector and national culture (I mean Scotland, BTW) which is by its very nature narcissistic, obsessed with profile, standing and name-dropping.