October 8, 2007
what’s on? (part 2)
Given a nudge by Pete’s link I’ve been looking at the last post and wondering what to make of it all.
My original thoughts were basically a sheet of A4 covered in lists and bullet points that I’d originally thought I might be able to write up into a decent response to these discussions on CiB. Inevitably though, I never seemed to manage to mould them into any sort of coherent argument and it never happened. [so, as to accusations of making heads hurt, I reply “you started it!”]
Yesterday I rediscovered the sheet of notes and decided there was nothing linear to try and latch onto. So I tried mapping it out to see what shape it did have.
In doing so I roughly grouped what I wanted from events listings into 3 different aspects: going to see stuff (consuming/whatever you want to call it); knowing about stuff (for general background awareness or specific research); and me showing stuff (a sort of producer role). Wow, look how point-heavy the showing stuff area of the diagram is (top right-hand corner).
I’m not going to pretend I’m constantly putting on exhibitions or organising events, but on the occasions that I have done so so far, this has been a real sticking point. Idally I suppose I need to see about a month into the future.
Anyway, leaving that particular can of worms for now…
So, I now have some sort of checklist of the sort of information and resources the three of me want to be able to tap into. I also made a quick list of the places I tend to use most to try and get these. It was clear that no one source provided everything I want… and quite possibly that’s the way it should be.
What I’ve done today is thought about 4 of the places I listed and looked at what aspects of my wish-list they provide for. I opted for a really quick, intuitive approach because it’s a bit of an apples and oranges situation and I’m not really sure how you’d start to make a rigorous comparison. What follows is probably more useful if you regard the 4 as different models rather than as specific instances. As ever this post comes with the warning that I’m just writing as things occur to me because this site is basically my sketchbook. Don’t anyone else get too bogged-down by the details either.
It seems fair to look at Created in Birmingham first:
Pretty much got the community aspect of it nailed I’d say. Pete’s posts cover a wide range of things and there’s usually some discussion on hand to add more details and/or opinions. Probably should have highlighted the “knowledge in” point there too.
I don’t really know who these people are, but I get the feeling that the people who comment are often “industry specific” if I can call it that. At this stage I don’t know how to define that industry/community (creative practitioners? bloggers? people interested in Birmingham?). Whatever. Just that it feels like a well-defined undefined community and that’s a) why it works and b) why the “normal people” point didn’t get marked up.
Great for knowing what’s happening now in a breaking news kind of way; not the sort of thing you can use to plan ahead (just ‘cos it’s simply not that sort of thing).
Next comes Midwest: the other Midlands-centric resource.
Another resource with a strong community aspect. Events calendar, articles, message board, profile pages for the members and an active programme of events in the real world. I knew a core group of regular contributors and a fair few of the people who added occasional posts. There was a time when loads of stuff was being posted to the calendar, ranging from independent events to exhibitions from larger organisations. This was the first place I’d come to if I was organizing stuff: both for the planning and the marketing stages.
Past tense not because it doesn’t exist any more (it does, at least for a few more months) but because activity on the message board and calendar has gradually dropped off to the point where it’s no longer as useful as it was. The diagram above is marked up for my perception of the Midwest site from about a year ago.
Again, I think this is another closed community type affair. Probably communities bearing in mind the nature of the Birmingham art scene(s). Bonus marks for encompassing a wide range of art people, and I don’t feel that the non-marking-up of the normal people point is a negative thing. (There’s another can of worms about whether all art activity should be directed at, or inclusive of, a non-art audience. Moving swiftly on…)
What else do I want to say about the Midwest model? Nice range of local, regional and international stuff but a nightmare to try and search for stuff not near the top of the pile. Some useful implementations of syndication feeds for a few things, but not all.
Next ArtRabbit.
Ostensibly a UK-wide listings site, but I eventually had to unsubscribe to the rss because each morning I’d have at least 20 listings for galleries in London I had no chance of getting to. There’s patchy representation for stuff in the Midlands, so I’m not sure how much use a region-specific rss feed would be right now but I did email them and request it as a feature. For me, it’s probably more use to use as a sort of magazine to browse through before a trip down to the capital.
The front page does some filtering based on date and popularity. There’s commenting and favouriting going on which is useful, but I’m too distanced to properly regard this as a community because I’m not part of it. There’s quite a few gaps in the showing stuff area of the diagram, but I accept this is probably in part due to my own ignorance.
Searching looks good on the diagram, but I actually find this aspect of the site quite frustrating. Doesn’t quite work for me and that’s a problem because I need to filter stuff to find what’s relevant to me.
How would this model work if it was region specific outside of London. Would there be enough events and community to support it? Would this strengthen the community that used it?
Last, but by no means least Tokyo Art Beat.
I love this site but it’s on the wrong damn continent.
Here’s how they introduce themselves:
TAB is Tokyo’s bilingual art & design events guide.
Offering event listings, reviews and creative jobs, the site is updated daily and lists more than 350 current & upcoming art events, at any moment.
Easy to use for all type of users, neophytes, casual art-goers or art professionals.
Smart data organisation with events sorted by media, schedules, and location, as well as event lists like Closing soon, Most popular, Open late, and Free.
Available via any PC or mobile phone.
User-generated reviews and recommendations and much more
If I was charged with having to build a listings site, this is the model I’d look at first. So far I’ve only scratched the surface of what it can offer, but look how many of my wish-list points it’s hitting.
I’d love to go into lots more detail, but if you’ve read this far I’ll assume you’re interested enough to have a poke around and have a look for yourself.
Some general points to take away though…
Look at the staff list. There must be some sort of revenue being generated here – there’s no Arts Council in Japan.
Kansai Art Beat has appeared at some stage over the last year. Someone else must think this model works and now they’re applying it to the Kansai region.
The only gripe I have so far with TAB is that I sometimes find the classification for art forms a bit limiting. Maybe that’s just because the sort of stuff I’m into isn’t very mainstream in Japan though. I’m not sure if a sculptor would come up with the same problem. Maybe a tagging system for keywords would help?
On the other hand, look at the range of syndication feeds you can choose from. Perhaps pigeonhole-ing has its benefits.
A nice blend of functional listings, community and hugely customizable so I can tailor it to my own needs. You can also easily hop from one listing to others that are related by medium or location and it goes without saying that each entry is fully linked-up to the relevant websites and maps. Priceless.
Posting an event seems to involve first emailing the organisers. I don’t know if there are hoops to jump through after that or what percentage of submissions are accepted. Does some sort of relationship develop between venues and TAB over time? Can you set up an account or something so you can be responsible for your own listings later? Is moderation a good thing or are there hidden agendas at work? Who knows – maybe I’ll find out for myself one day.
So, there you go. 4 different approaches and and introduction to what aspects of them work for me.
What can we learn from this?
update: In the absence of comments here, Pete’s offered a space for discussion over on CiB.
what’s on?
What I want:
What I have:
(in no particular order)
- Word of Mouth
- Midwest
- Created in Birmingham
- Contents May Vary
- Tokyo Art Beat
- Art Rabbit
- Assorted (e)mailing lists
- What’s On magazine
- mac listings leaflets
suspended
Didn’t catch the title, but it was quite an effect if you come in off the tower stairs not expecting it.
(And make sure you do spend some time in the tower room.)
muirhead tower
I was on the University of Birmingham campus yesterday for some stuff relating to Day Science/ Night Science. I’ve been onto campus quite a few times over the last month or two, but this time was in daylight and over in the North section.
Heading back to the station I had a good view of the Muirhead Tower one year into its massive refurbishment programme.
It took me a while to realise what was different (seriously – the building’s already been under scaffolding for at least the 10 years since I first arrived in Brum!)
I remember being crammed into the staircases with hundreds of other students waiting to go into their exams: trying to disregard the signs everywhere insistently telling us that for our own safety we should keep moving.
There’s a small part of me that would like to give it a go now.
In writing this post I had a look around and came across the Associated Architect’s blurb about the project.
I’m not so sure about the text running up the side of the building (apparently named after the first philosophy professor of the University) but I’m really glad to see that the new designs feature the Allardyce Nicol(l?) studio theatre because up until now it’s been secretively hidden away in the bottom of the tower accessed from the outside by a dingy back door type affair.
I’ve basically been lurking around these parts for a decade and never so much as seen anything advertised for here. I don’t know if they put on performances that are open to the public… but I can’t help but feel it would be quite nice if they did.
time for a change
(Again.)
Prompted by several things (not least of which was the opportunity of being able to observe someone else using it on someone else’s equipment – there’s nothing like seeing your shortcomings projected onto a large screen!) this site is due for another overhaul.
Significant chunks of the last few weekends have been spent re-coding the page templates from the ground up and then, whaddyaknow, WordPress announces another release due for tomorrow! Hey ho.
I’ve mostly finished the new site, however that means I’m now up against The 10% Wall. You know the one: where the last 10% of the work manages to take up 90% of the total time. Sigh. Perhaps time to back off a bit and then come back to it with fresh eyes later…
What I thought I’d do in the meantime was to put some thoughts down here just as a way of keeping the juices going.
Here’s a quick teaser-screenshot of the forthcoming Genzaichi Edition:
As you can see I’ve gone back to the light background and white-space of previous incarnations. Also a return to the sort of flat graphic style that I seem to gravitate naturally towards. In fact, there’s really not a lot of obvious decoration in this one at all. Probably why I’m having to spend so much time tweeking the little details…
The other big change is more functional: I’ve decided to give commenting another go.
After bad experiences with spam on the weatherproject site, over the past few years I have avoided giving other people the ability to leave comments on posts. The tide is changing though. I’m assuming WordPress now has better inbuilt protection against spam, but I also see the people around me becoming more au fait with blogs and the idea of commenting on other people’s sites.
Add to this the recent announcement of the upcoming closure of Midwest (strange how the fora have just sort of died off), and really positive experiences of utilising blog commenting to help drive collaborative projects, I’ve decided to give it another go. If it all goes to pot I can always disable the function, but I hope it won’t come to that.
Of course, the other thing to consider is that there might just be a horrible silence…
What else can I say? JavaScript libraries, sIFR and IE are nearly playing together nicely. All I’ve really got to do is wait for some blind monks to get back to me…
[I’ve run out of steam now. Can you tell? Perhaps I should just go back and have another look at the line heights…]
the pictures are better on radio
Still working my way through the backlog – this time another attempt at documentation that doesn’t involve sticking a video camera or a telephoto lens in anyone’s face. Including mine. urgh.
Here I walked with a voice recorder in the side pocket of my rucksack and a camera on interval timer just held in my hand as I walked. The result is some fairly snap, crackle and pop audio and some blurry photos…
…I think it works quite well!
The images [portrait format, distorted horizontally to fit the video’s dimensions – apologies to the woman in the brown dress] appear at minute intervals so there’s a long gap in between them where you only have the audio. Initially I was planning to have the images on screen for longer, thinking that visual = interesting. What I actually found was the images became something of a distraction. Ideally I’d just plug myself into my headphones and settle back with my eyes closed, but here I have to stay mindful of the screen and a minute is a really long time…
Instead we have flashes of imagery to act as sort of orientation for the sounds, but not until you’ve had a while between photos to imagine up your own images to accompany the noises. In this way I think I regard the white as a blank canvas to paint your own pictures onto. Maybe not being able to understand what the people are saying is another aspect to this too?
There comes a point when you just have to back off and leave space for people to make their own meaning.
The full walk lasts for over 1 hour and is not for the faint-hearted, so here is a 10 minute extract. I really recommend headphones; whether you keep your eyes open or not is up to you.
Oh, and I was also hooked up to a galvanic skin response sensor at the same time, but that’s another story.
blast redux
If only I could describe to you what it smelled like.