Podcasts at Hay Book Festival
Thinking of the way we consume arts and media brings me to the recent week I have spent at the Hay Book Festival.
All the talks were available on a podcast. As the area is Wi-Fi you no longer need to sit in a stuffy tent on a plastic chair when you can sit back in your deckchair in the sunshine and hear it on a podcast.
So I did both. Those talks which were impossible to get tickets for I downloaded. But it raises an interesting question: unless there are visuals or something other than two talking heads (the author and the interviewer).
do you really need to see them in the flesh?
Only one event I attended did I feel that the physical presence of the author was essential and that was with the South African photographer Austin Stevens (“the snake man”).
He made his talk interactive: he produced a python and a boa constrictor for people to touch.
And yes folk lined up in orderly queues for the pleasure/horror of touching live snakes.
Now you cant get that on a podcast!
What is the role of curators in the future?
I ask this question in view of the changing way we consume new media and the arts today.
At present curators act as gatekeepers, they decide who shall be artists, who will be given exhibitions and who will be recognised in the canons of art as artists.
But the world is changing.
I have just returned from Wales and tired unsuccessfully to get an exhibition of my archival photographs in two art centres which both claim to represent the community and are heavily funded for this purpose.
The first approach was to the exhibition organiser at the Dylan Thomas Arts Centre in Swansea . He did not reply for 3 weeks to my e-mail . After several phone calls I eventually tracked him down. No, he had not looked at my proposal , anyway they had a 2 year waiting list…
As for the exhibition organiser at the Pontadawe Arts centre I was told she was “too busy” ( though I could see her sitting in her office reading) and the message was relayed to me via a foot soldier i.e. man on the reception desk there is a 2 year waiting list.
Instead I look for an alternative space and find a genuine community venue. I explain the project and without hesitation I am offered an exhibition space for September.
So I am tying this in with an online photographic exhibition thus combining the old ( physical space within the heart of the community ) with the new (web based).
As one of my tutors at Glasgow School of Art used to say:”Regard each problem as a challenge. Look for new solutions.”
He would approve of my decision.
