Putting into Practice

It has been a quiet time on the blog front for me recently. Apart from not feeling the urge to log on and blog, it is getting near the Christmas deadlines on my course. The pressure barometer has been cranked up a notch which after 5 years out of study, is quite enjoyable. Really!

I have started my course placement module. I am working on a digital evaluation of the WE PLAY programme. For those who don’t know, WE PLAY is ‘the North West cultural legacy programme for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.’

The three strands of We Play consist of three festivals – Abandon Normal Devices (this years Liverpool edition was excellent), Lakes Alive and Blaze. in 2012 WE PLAY will be holding numerous events as well so it will be a four tier programme. Of course, these festivals are autonomous but during the course of next year, all will be contributing to the national Cultural Olympiad.

One element that I want to draw on is the development and work of Citizen Journalists during past few Olympic games. What has opened my eyes this year, thankfully just in time, is that the Olympics Games is truly a global event with many wide reaching cultural elements. Why couldn’t you know this I hear you say? Well I thought I did, but I have been looking in depth at the impact of the Olympics for the first time. Citizen Journalists is just one example, but perhaps one of the most purest.

#Media2012 is a scheme that aims to articulate a proposal for the London 2012 Games, to assemble the social media people of the world and to create an open media environment, where culture, sport and local stories can be told across international zones. The proposal aspires to create an Underground Media Zone, which will link the United Kingdom in physical and virtual space. #Media2012 is aiming to train and equip volunteers with the skills that will enable them to tell a different story of the Olympics whether it be positive or negative.

I went to a meeting of #Media2012 volunteer Citizen Journalists late last week. The volunteers ranged from gentlemen in their 60s to young mothers. The training, which is taking place right up to the games, is to enable volunteers to use new technology and blogging to tell these stories. This could involve training to use flip cameras, Twitter and smart phones to upload content.

Professor Andy Miah is positioning London 2012 as the first social media Olympic Summer Games. Due to the explosion of technology and social media even since 2008, London 2012 will be the first Games able to harness audience as content producers. A ban on photography, filming during the events will be near impossible to enforce. This has resulted in the IOC adapting its policies in line to not prevent this activity but try to manage it. A dedicated Flickr page for you to post your images exists. Be warned that the IOC still control the Olympic brand ruthlessly when it comes to image rights. Legal letters for uploaded Facebook pictures are not uncommon.

It is clear that during the summer of 2012 we will see a significant marker in content generation by normal users. The Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 saw the first explosion of the potential of this digital age with a global event. The role of promoting activism through Citizen Journalism during 2010 was particularly prominent, drawing attention to housing situation and homelessness amplified by the Winter Games. London 2012 will dwarf Vancouver in every sense. When I said I am just starting to understand the significance of the Games from a cultural perspective, this is just a fraction of what I meant. There will be many cultural, social and sporting stories next year. We have never been better placed to access them and produce our own.

For a video of Vancouver activism and Citizen Journalism, please copy and follow this link. I can’t ever seem to embed video on here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YubH5GqhnM

Since I was accepted on my Arts Management MA back in May, I have been explaining to people, when asked, what my course entails. Being in a studio at the time and in regular contact with fellow artists, I had an interesting array of responses to my course.

I would like to elaborate further, but not in the same manner that I planned to last week.

Let’s start with the course. The background experience of my fellow class mates ranges from economists, English Literature students, experienced arts administrators to name a few. Personally, I think this range of scope and differing interests is absolutely fantastic. Being in an eclectic cooking pot of experiences has meant that your perspectives are challenged and widened. However, it was a discussion in a Manchester pub with a few of my classmates late last week that really put this blog post in context.

Back to the responses. During the last six months, the range of emotions that my news generated from my artist peers when I divulged my plans have included;

‘You’re going over to the dark side?’

‘Why?’

‘So you’re stopping being an artist?’

‘HA!’

‘Sounds exciting!’

Needless to say, I have received lots of support which I am naturally grateful for. However it was the negativity and even suspicion that intrigued me the most. These responses prompted a trail of thought and I have wondered what has been said when I am not around. So why have a few artists been uncomfortable with the prospect of an artist studying a non practice based arts course?

Hans Haacke has written extensively on the relationship between arts managers and artists. His analysis of a new breed of American arts manager is worth noting;

Trained by prestigious business schools, they are convinced that art can and should be sold like the production and marketing of other goods. They make no apologies and have few romantic hang ups.’

Haacke in the same rhetoric attacked the Harvard arts management courses for churning out cold professionals that lack any emotional engagement with the arts. The discussion also filters down to an attack on British Institutions ‘adopting half baked American notions of management.’

Nonetheless, I feel that we could have arrived at the position where we could identify a less than perfect relationship between the two positions. It is the pub conversation that opened it up for me.

Over a beer with fellow classmates, I discussed how they found working with artists. The general consensus among the handful from my course who were present, was that my classmates found artists equally difficult to grasp. The attitude was one of how to engage artists outside of the course and future career? It dawned on me that, while distrust is an incorrect term, a cautiousness was present in their reception towards artists.

While I half expected to encounter this from artists, the flip side has taken me a back slightly. Fascinating. I am going to be exploring this in this blog over the next couple of months.

One final thought. Sometimes I feel like a spy in each camp (a bit like a rather less exciting Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.) I go to private views, art fairs, exhibitions and go home and draw. Other days I go for meetings at the Arts Council offices and then to Cultural Policy lectures and then go home and write. Going to leave it at that today.