Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog » aleksey vayner http://www.imamuseum.org/blog The IMA blog is a space to discuss everything related to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:20:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Trying to go viral http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2009/04/30/trying-to-go-viral/ http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2009/04/30/trying-to-go-viral/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:39:14 +0000 Daniel Incandela http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/?p=4810 Phil’s post yesterday got me thinking.  At Museums and the Web a couple of weeks ago (check out Charlie’s post), Rob and I presented our paper about online video.  At the end of our talk, I was asked if the IMA ever created viral video content.  My response was immediate and along the lines of this:  I’m not sure a museum could create a successful viral video.  It would have to come from someone outside the museum and break lots of rules. But then Phil wrote about viral videos and I started thinking.

The IMA is not immune to the viral video idea.  Our first ever YouTube video was conceived as a marketing, viral video in support of an exhibition.  That was almost three years ago.

To date, this video has 4, 621 views.  Not our most viewed video by any means.  It never quite took off virally, but does serve as our lone example of a viral video attempt.

Can a museum/corporation/individual purposely set out to make a viral video?  I always felt that a ‘viral video’ often exhibited a certain set of traits – unplanned, shock and awe, and the unexpected to name a few.  And I’m not sure I include sketch comedy in this grouping – videos from Flight of the Conchords, Old Gregg or anything with Michael Cera are not viral – they’re comedy.  Right?

So what about Aleksey Vayne’s video resume (below), Susan Boyle or an SNL short?  Possibly.  Some are unplanned (the outcomes anyway), some involve live TV and others are planned as something viral, where rules do not apply.

Phil reviewed some other viral videos yesterday, but it still seems to me that a true viral video usually involves an individual that happened to catch an unthinkable, unexpected, imperfect moment on camera.  But I might be wrong.  Can an organization self-produce, develop internally, and create a real viral video?

I did want to mention ArtBabble (of course I would) and a video we produced in time for the launch.  I’m definitely not calling it viral, but it is most definitely a marketing video.  We feature this on our front page and our views are currently around 11,603.  We also have it on YouTube where we have 83.  So enjoy our ArtBabble marketing video and please let us know how we would produce an IMA viral video.  Phil might just do it.  (OR – if you just want to share some of your favorite videos in the comments, that would be fine too.)

]]> http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2009/04/30/trying-to-go-viral/feed/ 5 Quoting Michael Cera… http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2007/08/26/quoting-michael-cera/ http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2007/08/26/quoting-michael-cera/#comments Sun, 26 Aug 2007 16:38:09 +0000 Daniel Incandela http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2007/08/26/quoting-michael-cera/ I’m going to talk about some soccer, my favorite videos on YouTube, the new IMA web site and more. I recently helped a friend setup for an outdoor movie party that involved a laptop, LCD projector, a tatty white sheet and some old speakers. It was like a DIY IMA Summer Nights experience. We bbq’d, invited a bunch of friends over, drank some good beer, sat under the stars and watched a brilliant soccer film called Zidane – A 21st Century Portrait, by artists Douglas Gordon and Philipe Parreno. It’s remarkable even if you’re not exactly a soccer fan.

When it ended, we noticed the laptop was picking up a strong wireless signal. With the projector still running and the speakers playing crackly but audible audio, we seized the opportunity to show off our favorite YouTube videos to party goers, people walking their dogs, and unfortunate neighbors trying to sleep. It started with some clips from Flight of the Conchords (Business Time, Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros, If You’re Into It) and snowballed from there, with segments from Neg’s Urban Sports, Aleksey Vayner’s video resume, and Michael Cera’s parody, Impossible is the Opposite of Possible. The list could go on and on. Somewhere in the middle of this viral video film fest, I actually thought of the new IMA web site and YouTube channel.

Our YouTube channel is something that the marketing and new media departments (I’m part of new media) have been developing for the past year, steadily building subscribers (88, not bad) and 38, 271 video views (not that we’re counting). This is one of our attempts at providing our visitors and online community a new experience with art, the stories behind it and to prove we can be cool. So far it’s been a great experience, with a lot more to come. We’ve applied the same creativity and thought to this new web site.

Work on this site began two years ago and was designed with the visitor in mind, combining essential information with new online experiences, such as tagging (describing art in your own words), searching the collection (finding something amazing), digital content (blogging, more videos and soon, audio), and the chance to join us on myspace and flickr (who doesn’t love flickr?). We hope that everyone enjoys the design and some of our experiments. If for some reason you don’t, please feel free to leave comments on other IMA staff blogs.

The IMA will continue to experiment on this site. The success of these new digital tools largely depends on how you respond to our attempts. It’s a relationship we will not take for granted and based on your feedback; we hope to respond in a way that shows this.

So that’s it for now. If you want to reply with some of your favorite online videos, I would love to hear from you, in the meantime I’ll leave you with a quote from Michael Cera, “…you have to bring your determination, and your a-game, and your drive to the field and success will follow.”

We hope so, so stay tuned (now you have to watch that video).

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