I won't go into all the details but the main draw for me was a talk by Sebastian Chan and Angelina Russo on Planning Social Media in Museums (blogs, wikis, digital stories...). How to use it, when to use it and how important it is that museums and galleries become part of this online world, and online communities. In fact the word “community” was a major factor in the presentation.
The idea that there are ready-made communities of users that you can tap into or give a voice to online is fascinating. We concentrate so often on the physical visitor, the idea of building a community online or a group of communities seems something that is worth considering as it bypasses any problems physical sites have in regard to location (the internet is everywhere), access (most people are online in some form or another, disabilities can perhaps more easily be provided for than on an onsite location) and speed of growth (an online community can grow incredibly fast by word of mouth internationally). In turn this online community ma become onsite visitors, or may still experience the institution online in a rewarding way.
Just my thought for the evening. Love to know what you think?
image: www.digitalmediagalaxy.com/ category/podcasts/feed
6 comments:
Well institutions such as the New Museum of Modern Art, Tate, and the Andy Warhol Museum have already discovered the vast potentials of the participatory web, establishing spaces in social network sites such as MySpace. It is not so much a matter of ready made audiences as it is a matter of collaboratively creating a community in partnership with the wider populace. The trends in social media after all point towards a far greater mass creativity and expressivity than would normally be 'recognized' by traditional bastions of the so-called creative industries.
Well institutions such as the New Museum of Modern Art, Tate, and the Andy Warhol Museum have already discovered the vast potentials of the participatory web, establishing spaces in social network sites such as MySpace. It is not so much a matter of ready made audiences as it is a matter of collaboratively creating a community in partnership with the wider populace. The trends in social media after all point towards a far greater mass creativity and expressivity than would normally be 'recognized' by traditional bastions of the so-called creative industries.
Thanks for the comment pareidoliac. Great to get a response. I should clarify that what i meant by "Ready made audiences" is that there is already an online art community out there that we can work with and create a relationship with. The Brookly Museum are doing great things with their community and the Walker Art Centre are doing great things with teens and youth with their Wactac programme. I think that museums and galleries have been a bit slow on the up take because of the idea of releasing control to a community and accepting different points of view, i hope thaat here at the Auckland Art Gallery we can try and change this and i think the staff here are very interesting in exploring this more in the future. Watch this space :)
That's exciting... It is great that you are offering this collaborative and conversational space through 'Outpost' and I do hope to see further forays into the social media arena!
As a rule municipal art institutions are way behind dealer galleries when it comes to exploiting online media. I'm not talking about forums but (more importantly in my view) about the use of photography to show the attractiveness of exhibition installations - in order to drag in more visitors. Amazingly, such an obviously shrewd strategy seems to have very few adherents.
Hi John,
Thanks for the comment, we are in fact in the process of redevloping the website to enable us to have better visuals of exhibitions etc. With the speed with which the web has developed the website needs to catch up and we are definitely intending to produce something to herald "image is king" more than we are currently able to do with our current template. Any other thoughts on the website and ways to improve the service we offer is gratefully received.
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