I have the distinct pleasure of being in Daniel’s class this fall, Museums and Technology.  While it is surprising for my classmates that I would take a class about something I do already, I am excited for the opportunity to explore more thoroughly the meaning of technology for the museum experience and how the visitor is affected by these changes. I see continual parallels between issues encountered with visitors in physical space and issues we are encountering all over again in our digital spaces. I’ve talked about Twitter before and I have been thinking about how it is harnessed by museums and where we are going wrong.

We were talking about Twitter again in a recent class, more specifically what we consider to be a successful museum tweet, and why. It’s very hard to nail down, and even harder to do. The main reason is because it’s so hard to avoid becoming a marketing ploy, something which happens without rapt attention. A museums use of twitter now stands as an analogy for the way the actual museum interacts with its visitors and the traditional barrier between the inner workings of an institution and the public at large. So many museums need to release their stranglehold on twitter feeds to actually let interesting information get out.

I was at the Indianapolis Greek Festival this past weekend, and I couldn’t help to think that they were doing something right.

There were throngs of people, tons of Greek food, everyone jostling and yelling and having a great time, but here’s the part that baffled me- you had to pay to get in, and the food was delicious, but quite pricey. What is the Holy Trinity parish doing that connects so much with their audience that museums cannot seem to do? I think we can be the Agora marketplace discussed by Dr. Steven Zucker (@drszucker) and Dr. Nancy Proctor (@nancyproctor) a vibrant place for community and discussion, in the same way that the Greek festival is. I think the problem is balance- how do we sell ourselves as experts in our field while maintaining that we want everyone else’s opinion, too?

Some people are getting it right, figuring out how to sift through all the noise and clutter to connect with their audience while maintaining their voice. One such person is the British musician Imogen Heap, who felt a divide between herself and her fans before she started to utilize blogs and Twitter, not dissimilar to the separation between and institution and it’s community. In a recent interview with Melissa Block on NPR, she describes the divide quite succinctly. She then discusses what it’s like to have that direct connection throughout the process of making her music.

It’s been so amazing. I’ve always struggled with this barrier that I felt like I’d had up until blogging came along. Just one comment from somebody really sparks something in me. It doesn’t need to be this huge wall between me and the listeners anymore. I really thrive on that.”

@ImogenHeap gets it- the audience has become part of the process, and there’s no going back.

Dear Co-Blogger Dude,

And so it begins, writing for IMA blog. Never blogged before, and I’m not quite sure what to write about. I think it comes down to two possibilities: our Team Building project at the Art & Nature Park or music. I’m gonna choose a combination of the two.

Although our tastes in music differ quite a bit, there’s quite a lot of crossover. Shared music includes Clutch, Secret Machines, Radiohead, Dragonforce, Vast, Sugar, Sigur Rus, The Good The Bad and The Queen, and host of others. My most recent purchase is by “Battles.” It might end up on heavy rotation at the studio. (*)

I grew up with classical music as much as you did with rock. While I was being taken to Symphony Hall in Boston you were being taken to hear Zeppelin or the Eagles or the Stones. I think you got the much better deal. In any case, I ended up with a love of classical music that surfaces from time to time, and last week was one of those times. On Friday I took Gaby to hear Emmanuel Ax and the New York Philharmonic perform Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto. It’s a piece that’s moody and masculine, moving through thunderous and aggressive passages into delicate intricacy, and back again. It’s one of my favorite pieces of music and it was the first time I had a chance to hear it live. I was blown away. What I took away wasn’t measurable, wasn’t tangible. In fact the music itself doesn’t really exist except in the performance. The score isn’t the piece, a recording of the piece isn’t the piece either. The piece exists only when a group of people agree to do what it takes to perform it. This got me thinking about a word that came up recently regarding our work: “residue.”

The project we’re doing for the Art & Nature Park involves working with a team of 26 people from a wide variety of departments within the museum. Working within the basic methods of Experiential Education, or Team Building, we’ll play games and solve problems and talk about work and art and taking chances and respect over the course of several meetings in the months to come. In the end we are hoping that the group will be better positioned to successfully open the inaugural show of the park, and we will have collectively shifted the culture of the museum for the better. We were describing this project during a recent studio visit with John Hanhardt and he was trying to understand what tangible artifacts will remain after this project, what the “residue” will be. The fact that there will be not measurable residue seemed to fascinate him and defined the project for him as completely contemporary. Being at that concert last week gave this assessment a completely new meaning.

Lack of residue in art is nothing new. While the traditional parameters of art and criticism emphasize the presence of the object and consequentially the artist’s hand, music is one medium in which these two are not necessarily connected. We would no sooner represent the Team Building project with our notes and documentary photographs than a composer would present a score as the complete work and leave it at that.

What did the audience leave with last week? How did they represent the effect they experienced from the concerto? How did that experience influence them socially, if at all? If culture is defined by ideas and experiences, rather than objects, what is the role of monuments? How does that define the role of the sculpture we are building for the park? The tangible, the intangible, and the role of the artist’s hand — and consequentially the audience’s touch or lack thereof — is where the project rests right now. It’s a lot to think about.

Yeah, so I wrote about our work. Dammit. I thought I’d write about anything but, but… I couldn’t help myself.
Later,

Bordo

(*) REVISION: Since hearing Battles for the first time two days ago, it seems there’s no way in hell this will happen.

Dear Clogger (thought I’d create a hybrid term for us),

Music is the perfect place to start. Experience and preference regarding the medium are not only intensely personal but also largely intangible. You can tell so much about someone by how they regard their music collection. And if they don’t have one…God help them.

When you write of the concert you attended, it is completely understandable. And not in the “I understand what you mean” way but in the “I understand it” way. We’ve always talked about art’s ability to affect an audience as being located in the intensity and focus put into the art and not in the content. That’s why if someone makes art about a grand, sweeping idea like Love, for example, it’s easy to get lost and remain unattached to the potential of that subject matter. Too vague. If someone makes art about a particular idea like love of angora sweaters (as Ed Wood did), then we, the audience, have a much better shot of relating to it. It’s the obsession, the intensity that binds us (whether you like angora or not). So, you saw a performance of a classical piece. To someone who doesn’t like such music or just isn’t familiar with it, that may sound like a snooze. But the emotional response, that’s where that person comes in. When you mention the aggression and the intricacy that was conveyed, I immediately think of the Testament show I caught a few months back. For those not in the know, Testament is an 80s Bay area thrash band. Aggressive and intricate it certainly was. Classical…less. So the content is not as essential as is the passion to convey and connect. And it’s at this point of connection that the idea of residue begins.

Yes, there can be much documentation or proof that something occurred. But residue? That is trickier. With Team Building, we are seeing through a gesture that began with our desire to connect with and affect people. We want people to experience something and have that experience lead somewhere. Where? We don’t know. That’s up to the person doing the experiencing. There doesn’t need to be a physical or tangible manifestation of the experience. In fact, there can’t be. So the residue from the project will be unquantifiable. We know there is the potential for it but cannot, or will not, try to control it. The people involved will hold on to it in whatever way they want. Some may not hold on to anything. If any residue exists, it will seep into people’s minds and, perhaps, into their lives.

We, as artists and performers, will give to the audience. We will get back whatever energy they give and whatever experience they afford. It’s a bit of a dance. The effects of it are sent out to influence in any way that it might. Can culture be affected? Yes. Will it? That’s not the point. Or at least our point. Our goals are to create an experience not determine an outcome unless that outcome is to create a desire to experience more.

Therein lies the connection with music and live performances. We put on a show. The audience comes to see us. We give and get. They give and get. When it’s over, it’s over. Until the next concert.

You can, however, buy a t-shirt on the way out.

AA