Ben Masbaum

With this being my first blog for the IMA, I implore you to scroll away if you consider yourself one of those people who doesn’t particularly hold noobies in high regard. If you’ve stuck around, allow me to share a few thoughts on music videos as an art form.

I remember sitting in my living room when I was thirteen years old: voice cracking, flannel shirt around my waist with my combat boots on the coffee table and my mother urging me to wash my hair.  I couldn’t, of course, because I was busy watching MTV, pre-Real World and before the internet we know of today.  I would stare the wild camera effects of the music videos and think to myself, “Wow!  I love this!” It seemed easy to do and I wanted to be a part of it.

Fifteen years later, I’m about half-way there… with a bit of a different idea on the whole thing.
Music videos are a thirty year old venture that have gone from phenomenon to nuisance in the span of their lifetime.  I’ve seen so many mundane videos in the last ten years which only seem to be created to fulfill some pop star’s need to be seen on T.V. I actually believe that the music should support the video (Which I’ll get to in a bit).  That is it!

Enough about pop stars. Let’s talk about art. The music video as an art form can and should showcase the artist behind the camera and the artist at the editing table, as well as the musician (and in some cases more than the musician!) At the same time, the video should not lose track of the overall message.

It’s about experimentation.  Boundaries that cannot be crossed in conventional cinema are welcome in the music video world. An artist who is not crossing those boundaries is missing the point.  A great example is Michel Gondry.  Known for films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Human Nature, and Be Kind, Rewind, Gondry also swims through the music video world. He has given mainstream videos a wake-up call and a smack in the face.  Here are some examples:

Occasionally, one will find collaboration between video artist and musician.  I’ve always favored this concept.  In fact, this an idea that I have put on my personal hit list.

However, one problem that can arise with this kind of collaboration is that the video art probably already comes with a soundtrack of some sort. If the artist decides to replace the music, the results can be drastically different. In the next example, the musical artist Kenna and video artist Mark Osborne team up on a video.  Kenna’s song “Hell bent”  is dubbed over an already existing clay animation short by Mark Osborne, called “More.”

The Kenna/Osborne collaboration is better, in my opinion.

Videomaker.com says that the primary goal of a music video is to serve the music artist.  I don’t completely agree.  I believe that this philosophy has turned the video into a showboat opp for musicians, not always in the best interest of the song and the story.  I think that the audience is fed up with artists in music bragging about themselves on this platform.  Aren’t they?  I certainly hope so. Sure, I believe that the video should exist to serve the song.  But perhaps the music can serve the video just as well.

You’ve probably heard enough of my ranting and raving on this matter.  I suppose it is up to me and others like me to step up and do something.  Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve already taken a stab at it.  This one is mine:

We enjoyed the peace and quiet of our little haven as the rest of the museum toiled away inside the big building yards away. For the first few months it seemed ideal. But as I spent more time in the cottage bonding with my department, I realized that I had met very few of my colleagues in other departments. More remarkably, those colleagues barely knew the members of the marketing department (some had been on staff for several years). It slowly became apparent that our insulated, cozy existence had led to misunderstanding and turmoil between our department and the rest of the staff. The physical separation was also a cultural separation. We were seen by many as the “others” – a department that utilized “corporate” strategies and in turn, diluted the artistic mission of the IMA.

Despite the unique physical separation, we were not unique in our department’s divide from the greater organization. Rifts between marketing departments and other museum departments occur frequently. Last year, I was reminded of this during an email conversation with a well-respected colleague at another museum. As part of the exchange, the person referred to marketing as “anti-community.” I have to admit, the phrase shocked me. I had never received such a blatantly negative response to the work that I do. I was crushed. I don’t think it was intended to be a personal attack, but I took it to heart.

As in many cases, I think the negativity was due to a lack of understanding about what marketing is. While we are hired for our talents in communicating with the public, often marketers fail in how we communicate with our fellow museum colleagues. Just like my early days at the IMA, we can become isolated and comfortable operating within our department and fail to reach out to the greater museum. Some of us need to make a better attempt at understanding the collections side of the operation. We also could to do a better job of teaching our peers about how and why we serve the mission.

Through my new series of biweekly blogs, I’ll attempt to do just that by sharing my daily experiences as an arts marketer. Over time, I’ll tackle questions such as: How do campaigns get created? How do we collaborate with other departments to accomplish our work? What are best practices in the field? What challenges do we face as we work to promote the museum? Who is our audience, and how do we engage them?

In the meantime, if you have any questions about marketing at the IMA, please ask. I’m happy to share.

Art is quite pervasive at GenCon, from the richly illustrated manuals of role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons to the decorated cards of collectable card games such as Magic: The Gathering. Even the war games that sprawl over multiple tables feature sculpted miniatures, some of which are painted in painstaking detail by the players. And of course, we can’t leave out the creative fashions put together by live action role players (also known as LARPers) and cosplayers. For those interested, the costume contest is on Saturday, though you will undoubtedly see people in costume downtown throughout the event.

There is even an art gallery at GenCon that features paintings and sketches mainly in the genre of fantasy, many of quite high quality (at least compared to my skill) and most available for purchase. And speaking of purchasing, one of the best reasons to visit GenCon is to check out the dealer hall, where hundreds of shops sell dice, games, t-shirts, videos, comics, costume garb… pretty much anything a game enthusiast might desire. Video game companies even have a presence that has been expanding annually.

All of this is fascinating of course, but board games are the reason that I go to GenCon. Board games have been a part of human culture for thousands of years. Those available today comprise a spectrum from games based on simple rules that bear out complex competitive strategy like the games of Go or Chess to games like Arkham Horror, where the complex rules define interesting game mechanics that pit players in a collaborative challenge against the game itself.

As with other types of games, there are a number of aspects of a board game where design is important. The physical materials that make up a game can be elegantly simple, like stones on a wooden board, or made up of intricately carved wooden pieces placed on a board printed with gorgeous artwork. The concept of a game can be based on history, on novels or movies, or be completely original or abstract. Then there is the most important aspect of a game… the mechanics.

A game’s mechanics can be defined by simple or complex rules, and their design can simulate real-world experiences such as trading, resource management, and evolving systems, or fictional elements such as magic and time travel. The best games, in my opinion, have balanced mechanics that allow for a variety of strategies.  And lately I’ve become more interested in well-designed cooperative games.

Hopefully I can find a great new game to add to my collection this year.

That’s right, we are thrilled to announce the arrival of 10 new partners on ArtBabble! Along with these new partners comes a whole new batch of art videos to check out. Good luck getting any work done today!

And, here is the definitive list of our official new partners:

• Art Institute of Chicago
• KQED
• MCASD – Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
• Museum of Arts & Design
• Norman Rockwell Museum
• Rubin Museum of Art
• San Jose Museum of Art
• The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• Van Gogh Museum
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Enjoy!

Monsters vs. Aliens © Dreamworks Animation

I’m an avid NPR listener and I was intrigued by a segment a few weeks back that discussed the resurgence of 3D in the movie theater. The Dreamworks film, Monsters vs. Aliens, saw a $58 million opening weekend of which $24 million was from 3D screens (ref). Over 40% of the film’s revenue came from less than 10% of the screens. When 3D glasses first hit the big screen it was a less than desirable experience.  The alignment was less than par and many movie goers would leave feeling queasy. This is a far cry from the experience of today. People are more than willing to pay extra for the immersion and they will have many more chances in the near future.

“….G-Force on July 24, Final Destination: Death Trip 3-D on August 14, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on September 18, the reworking of Toy Story in the 3-D format October 2, Astro Boy on October 23, Disney’s A Christmas Carol on November 6, Planet 51 for Thanksgiving and, finally, James Cameron’s long-awaited Avatar.” – from Slashfilm

Another 3D project caught my eye yesterday as well. A Google employee has leveraged his 20% time by creating a 3D video viewer for YouTube. You can see one view in the video below. Click the video and visit it on YouTube to see a dropdown of many different 3D option (e.g. anaglyph red/blue).

Artists have been capitalizing on perception for thousands of years, so I set out to find examples in our collection.  My esteemed colleague, Ed, pointed me to a technique called Trompe-l’œil (French for “trick the eye”). A quick search of the collections yielded some interesting results.

Still Life by Edwaert Colyer demonstrating Trompe-l'œil

Still Life demonstrates a perceived 3D scene from a 2D work and conversely we have 3D works that appear flat from the initial vantage point. Most notable is Robert Irwin’s, Untitled, which is anything but flat.

Untitled by Robert Irwin

Finally, a shout out to the sidewalk chalk artists.

World by Julian Beever

Do you have any favorites that “trick the eye”?

(On a tangent, NPR had a similar segment discussing the upcoming series of movies based on board games. Greatly looking forward to Candyland.)

"Look I can too." Photo by Joe Wallace

I recently traveled to Spain where I had the pleasure of re-visiting a favorite museum, the Reina Sofia, in Madrid. I trekked to the museum district for what I believe are two must-see works—Pablo Picasso’s Guernica and Salvador Dali’s Muchacha en la Ventana. It has been my experience that even if art museum visitors don’t understand what a piece means, most can at least appreciate what great works like these mean to art history or to an artist’s career. For me, taking pleasure in the viewing experience of these paintings comes very easily as well. Guernica’s scale alone (over 25 feet wide and 11 feet tall) begs for a few extra minutes of consideration, not to mention its iconic, violently contortioned figures and the work’s importance to Spanish history. I enjoy Muchacha more for its peaceful, contemplative nature but also because of a personal memory I associate with the work—a reproduction was sent to me from my brother while he lived in Spain. (The painting’s ‘girl’ is Dali’s sister.)

Salvador Dali, "Muchacha en la Ventana", 1925

What made my museum experience particularly memorable this time around was not my enjoyment of these two works, but instead how disturbed and confused I felt after seeing another work—a film by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali called Un Chien Andalou (which you can view here—warning, please view it before showing your kids). It was bizarre and crazy and I didn’t want to understand it. Though my museum companion explained that it was a Surrealist masterpiece and pivotal film studied and known by any film buff, I didn’t and wouldn’t like it. Even after I learned that its shocking opening sequence—a man slicing open a woman’s eyeball with a razor blade—is one of the most recognized moments in film history, it did not matter, I could not take pleasure in this piece. All I could do was reluctantly appreciate it for its place in film history and its creators’ reputed genius. Because this visit left me feeling unusually more out-of-touch with the art than other visits, I was determined to find a reason to like Un Chien.

Still from "Un Chien Andalou", 1928. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Surprisingly, it took three minutes of research on the trusty web to find that 1) my uncomfortable response was exactly what Bunuel and Dali intended for me (according to Roger Ebert and many other critics) and 2) my aesthetic interests in other art works can be loosely connected right back to this very film. In my defense of #1, I am aware of the Surrealist affinity for shock and non-sense, but the required 15+ minutes of weirdness made possible by the film medium (versus the limited seconds I would have to spend with surrealist paintings to “see” it in full) made this work seem particularly off the wall—sorry for being slow to figure that out, Mr. Ebert. And in regard to #2, please allow me a quick ‘degrees of separation’ exercise. Un Chien has been (more than) rumored to have influenced David Lynch, the director of the Twin Peaks series and several cult classic movies. David Lynch’s Blue Velvet directly influenced Gregory Crewdson, a photographer of large-scale, highly orchestrated, strange and dream-like images. Crewdson was a major interest of mine during my undergraduate study of photography and inspired the aesthetic of many of my projects, including my thesis show. And there you have it, a reason for me to be thankful for Un Chien Andalou. It seems the IMA can claim similar thankfulness, as it boasts Crewdson’s Untitled (1998) in its collection.

Gregory Crewdson, "Untitled", 1998. From the IMA collection.

So, I’ll charge you with the same task I assigned to myself—the next time you stumble on a piece of art that offends, frightens, discourages, enrages, or plain annoys you, try not to dismiss it. Instead, let it be that much more of an inspiration to find a reason to relate to it. You might find that you can alter your entire experience of it.

But, you might be quick to point out, that’s yesterdays news.  And you’re right.

Goodies on ArtBabble

On Tuesday Kate wrote a brief news story on ArtBabble’s front page, so I thought I would expand on that.

What have we been doing since April?  A lot.  After the launch, we received a tremendous amount of requests on how to become an ArtBabble partner.  It was slightly overwhelming, but also inspiring.  We went through the process of assessing all of the requests, working closely with our original partners as advisers (actually setting up an Advisory Group), to identify the next steps and next batch of video content.  Since IMA staff run ArtBabble (kind of like a second job) we had to figure out the balance of growing ArtBabble and keeping up with all the other projects at IMA – the blog, exhibition(s) planning, video production, Flickr, an iPod Touch tour, grant writing, Bird cams, office pranks, meetings, you get the picture…This meant instead of adding 40 new partners at once, we had to consider adding in stages.  Somewhere in the middle of this, we added a new Goodies page on the site, and started a Play Art Loud Flickr group featuring AB bumper stickers.

So, the next step is a Phase Two launch of ArtBabble on Tuesday, July 28. Mark your calendars!  We’re talking lots of new partners, lots of new videos, and a more diverse selection of art content.  This Phase Two launch will be followed with more rolling launches as we’re able to manage the new partner relationships and content preparation for AB.  It’s all leading to what we hope will be the premier destination for viewing art videos online.

So, please feel free to help spread the word about July 28.  I would love to hear any comments, theories or suggestions for next ArtBabble steps. And we still have lots of bumper stickers.

More ArtBabble Goodies

In the midst of writing this post, I announced it on Twitter, soliciting questions about ArtBabble.  Below, you’ll find the list of some of those questions, with my responses.

Why create something new instead of just using a channel on YouTube? Long list of reasons – improved art search results, the prospect of creating an art-focused video community, the ability to create a space managed by museum professionals, incredible video quality, transcriptions, the Notes that appear to the right of each video, a chance to seize a real opportunity online….

How did ArtBabble get championed in-house and how did it get funded? We already had a successful  in-house video team, and were already developing Web sites in-house.  Max Anderson, Rob Stein and I had been talking about some version of IMA TV for a couple of years – ArtBabble seemed like the best approach (something more relavant than just IMA content).  Since video and web development were already a big part of IMA efforts, it was a pretty straight project forward to initiate. The site was developed entirely in-house by IMA staff, with support from the top down, and was funded by a grant from the Ball Brothers Foundation.

If y’all got any do-overs w/ respect to ArtBabble, what would you change? Such a tough question. More videos, and more partners, but this will take time.  And, I would love some Robot Art content (but that’s me).

How will the site evolve? In terms of content and partners, it will evolve through these rolling launches as quickly as IMA staff can handle this process.  The actual site will evolve with new features…but that’s further down the line.

Could a visitor contribute? Not right now (except for comments), but it’s something we’re thinking about.  So, who knows in the future…

Babble On!

]]> http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2009/07/09/what-next-for-artbabble/feed/ 6 http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2009/06/30/project-management-system-the-ima/ http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2009/06/30/project-management-system-the-ima/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:00:15 +0000 Charlie http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/?p=6253 One of the more complex software projects we have undertook at the IMA happens to be the one we talk least about publicly. Athena, is a Project Management System created by the IMA back in late 2007. At the time, there was a lack of a good open source solution and online commercial alternatives did not allow us to own the data. It also was our first chance to cut our Drupal teeth. I’m happy to look back at 18 months and see that it has been used quite successfully by most of the staff (and a lot of non-staff).

A view of a user dashboard

Each user has a customizable dashboard with a personalized view into their projects and activity.  I might be considered an average user with 27 projects.  Some users have more than 100! The project order is customizable so you have quick access to your most frequent projects.

The project listing widget on the dashboard.

Below is a peek inside a project.  Each project can enable and disable features such as file sharing, an image gallery, tasks, etc.. You can also see recent activity on just the project you are viewing.

A view inside a project.

We wanted a way to engage users in the system and promote fast adoption.  Our solution was a built in gaming module. Users earn a small amount of points for every action they perform in Athena. — This feature can be turned off with the flick of a switch for those without a sense of joy in life. — As users earn more points they unlock new features. The features include themes and helpful widgets for their dashboard (e.g. a todo list).  Additionally, users are assigned a certain rank based on their points. Users must work hard to be promoted from “Newbie” to “Tom Brady” to “Intern” and so on.

An elite Athena user am I.

Below you can see an example of when a user earns a new feature.

You earned a new level.

Additional motivation is given by a ranking dashboard widget. Users can see other users right around them and track how to they move relative to others.

I will get you Daniel.

In the spirit of transparency, here is a few of the statistics we monitor. Of interest is that we have more external users than IMA staff users. Any staff member can invite any e-mail address to a project.  That external user gets their own dashboard and rank. In just 18 months we have accumulated over 11,000 files weighing in at 22GB of office documents. All these documents are indexed and their contents are searchable, so they are actually very easy to locate.

Athena statistics so far.

Moving ahead we would be interested in releasing Athena for others to use. It’s always a work in progress. We’re also keeping our eye out for better solutions that could come along.

It’s things like this that remind me how lucky I am to work where I do. How many workplaces do you know that have a talent show!? You won’t see this in any of our galleries, at least not anytime soon, but it’s all amazing stuff!

These are all photos I took on my iPhone (hence the shady quality) of artworks brought in to our in-house talent show. The festival took place on Monday, May 18th, 2009. Enjoy…

Heather Hudson - Artwork

Pat Williamson - Paintings & Drawings

Gary Hutchison - Photographs & 2D Art

Jeff Julius - WWII Ships from Recycled Materials

Lindsay Lord - Handbags & Totes

Mary Schnellbacher

Matt Warner - Drawings, Painting & Photographs

Phil Hughes - Paintings & Pewter Miniatures

Joseph Vasquez - Fine Art Prints

John Todd - Ceramics

Carol White - Jewelry & Metalsmithing

Len Bibeau - Painting & Prints

I’ve tried to caption these things as best as I can, but surely I’ve made a mistake or two… please, feel free to chime in and talk about your art if I’ve featured it here (or if I missed you… it was not intentional, I promise!).

I should also mention, there was a performance part to the talent show, but photos won’t do much justice. People performed songs, and performed them amazingly well I must say! Maybe one day we’ll see a clip or two pop up on the internet… if so I’ll add those to the post.

The Artist's Party by Joseph Delaney

I was in New York for an annual symposium on American art in the spring of 2003. I went even though the IMA was still contemplating the purchase of a work that I had strongly advocated for the museum’s African American collection. The symposium was important, but so was the purchase, so I kept an open communication with the IMA via cell phone.  The decision to purchase this painting was difficult because Joseph Delaney is not a well known African American artist.

At the time, his brother, Beauford had a broader reputation for his abstract canvases, but Joseph was just beginning to be acknowledged for his expressionist New York scenes populated with crowds of people.  I had very few examples of this type of art in the American collection and none by an African American artist.

I thought this was a rare opportunity to acquire a painting that not only showed the expressionist style but also contained images of a group of Abstract Expressionist friends of Delaney that he had invited to his studio for a party.  The party appeared to have turned into a heated discussion with Delaney at the head of the table facing away from the viewer.  I also liked the setting which was Delaney’s Harlem studio complete with fire escape and kitchen interior typical of 1940s New York apartments.

The artists in the painting were tentatively identified as Adolph Gottlieb opposite Delaney, Willem de Kooning on the left and the most famous of all Jackson Pollock, who is the one artist in the scene whose identity is most certain.  This would be the second painting supported in part by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Indianapolis Chapter fund.  As in the previous blog other funds would have to be found to support the remainder of the purchase price, which would not prove difficult. There were numerous back and forth phone calls and voicemail messages between me, the IMA director and chief curator which resulted in a decision to purchase the painting.

Delaney’s work has since become more sought after, but that is true of much of African American art before 1945.  It seems that museums and collectors have discovered this wealth of great art and are trying to make up for lost time.  The Artist’s Party bring together the museum’s American and contemporary collections in that it leads to a discussion of Abstract Expressionism, the first art movement that is represented in the contemporary galleries and the first art movement that made America a leader in the art world and New York an art scene similar to Paris.  It also leads to a discussion of the relationship between Abstract Expressionism and earlier art and what artists like Delaney, who still focused on representation, thought about this relatively new abstract art movement.  It looks like that topic could be part of the heated discussion depicted in the painting.

You can’t miss the Delaney hanging in the American Scene section of the American galleries.  It makes a striking contrast as well as a welcome addition to the other pieces in the gallery that focus on American life in the 1930s and 40s.