The project

Since the beginning of October I have been working on a praxis based project titled The Democratisation of Art in the Attention Age. As I have only just created this blog, you have missed 3 weeks of research and development that has led me to this point. I will try and condense this period of work into as fewer words as possible, whilst retaining some sense of the journey I have been on.


The beginning: an end as a start


Flash back to the last week of May, which brought The Accidental Festival 2010 to the BAC. I was one of the producers and was responsible for running our web-page and marketing the event. The Festival is a right of passage for any student on the Performance Arts strand of  BA Theatre Practice at Central and anyone who has sailed it's seas will tell you it can get very rough out there. Admittedly we gave ourselves a big task; I think in the end we programmed almost 60 artists to perform over three days. But we did everything, from building the website, designing the flyers, finding the artists, attracting attention to our campaign, liaising with venues, getting licences, recruiting technicians, baking cakes and food for artists....need I go on.


By the end the whole team were exhausted. I mean producing a festival is hard, harder still when you have little to no experience, not much money, 15 or so passionate voices all being asked to be heard and several contradictory influences from above. Problem after problem was faced by a core team of collaborators with an attitude that we can only do as much as we can.


I was left with an experience that gave me a definite problem. "Why was that so painful?" I have since found a number of problems with the project and with how I worked in it.


Firstly, the structure of the production team was over-designed. Following a typical ladder formation we had a few executives who over-saw a large group of co-ordinators, facilitators and liaisons. The titles we delegated to one another ended up becoming a huge problem. For instance if a problem arose, that no one person felt it was within their role to help solve, then it would usually fall to the executives to resolve. This meant the people designed to over-sea the project ended up doing most of the leg work also. As a result, about 80%of the work was done by about 20% of the team. 


Second to point out, was the shear madness I experienced of bureaucracy gone wild. I may well have a bias against files of administrative paper work as I have always rejected regimented patterns of 'office' like behaviour, but it was shocking to me to see a group of people, once so practically engaged, so experimental and daring, suddenly become consumed with emails, licenses, application forms, more emails. I mean, we had realised the efficiency of having e-applications and facebook groups, but it was so un co-ordinated. I am a strong believer in the creative power of collaborations and group problem-solving, but often the poor communication left us working against each other.


The biggest problem for me was this idea that the festival needed to 'SELL'. A huge amount of energy went on calculating ticket prices, designing posters and marketing ourselves as "exciting, new, risk-taking". But what else could we do? We had no previous experience, no reputation to help us and no help whatsoever. We were expected to use a tiny budget to create the best festival we could, so that we raised enough ticket money to at least break even. This may work for some festivals, but there are so many problems with this model as an educational practice. 


The festival came and went, and there is a lot of good to be found in the resulting event and the experiences from creating it. However, I still have issues with so many facets of the experience.


I wanted to find a different way of collaborating in a production; Why is there such a need for roles, titles, institutions? Is there not a more creative, even democratic way of curating and producing art? Surely being more honest with your market makes a more ethical piece of art? So now I am in search for it. I don't want to create another festival, however I do want to take a deeper enquiring look into the creative industries. Why do these models show to be prevalent? Must we climb the same ladders that arts institutions dictate? As well as looking at the arts and where it is now (need I mention recession and funding cuts), I also want to study the wider context of the technological landscape. Can I learn anything from the technological advancements of the late 20th century? Is there in fact a need to completely rethink our creative industries in the context of web 2.0?


Project shape


Working on the website of the festival opened my perspective to include a wider array of media that shapes my understanding of the culture and society I live in. We explored several different social medias to help draw attention to the festival. But now I want a much deeper investigation into the web. I see the project as having three main parts.

• Look at social media now
• Look at art that explores the boundaries of social media
• Find an exciting exchange/ a new model between social media and art.    

Up to now I am still in the first phase of research and will use some more space on the blog documenting the research I have undertaken and the things I am finding about social media.