Hello Everyone,
This is going to be a bit of mishmash of things today! Last week was a good week all round for developing ideas. I developed an idea which I posted at the beginning of last week about using Facebook statueses to construct a year long narrative. This was a really good excerise to undertake, it is really interesting to recall events that have played out in recent months, it is equally as fasincating to look at how one reported these events through a medium which encourages you to share private feelings, thoughts in a public sphere. Before I started the exercise I recalled events that have happened over the last year or so (not to make my life sound at all interesting because it isn't!!) I finished University (Undergraduate), Graduated, entered the Graduate job market (briefly) and started my Masters Degree. Knowing what happened in these events made it even more interesting to see how I reported these events on Facebook, being able to see how these events unfolded over the months and over the year was fasincating to look at. It was a really good excerise in seeing for myself how I could try and tell a narrative in an unconventional manner but still keep to the essence of time and plot. Time was very important in the construction of the narrative, I copied every status with its time and its date so whilst reading it you can see the time continually changing.
I also did some more academic research and readings into Transmedia story telling / cinema and the city and art + Technology. More practical ideas need to be tried out this week for sure to keep the creativity moving.
Very sorry its been brief and a bit of mashup. Hope your are all keeping well and those of you who have been reapplying to the Arts Council for funding I hope it went well!
Take care,
Marcus
Monday, 31 January 2011
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Transmedia Storytelling, Evaluation in the Arts and Work in Progress
Hello all,
Apologies for lack of blogging activity over recent weeks, as I said in my previous post I wasn't going to do any blogging as such over the Christmas and New Year period, due to the fact that I was at home (sunny Wiltshire!!) and that not to be rude I wanted to have a bit of a break!!
Although as with many things after a week or so I was yurning to be back doing creative stuff, but overall it was a nice break. I was in Bath for NYE with my girlfriend, I saw Tron in 3D in Bristol (Daft Punk were AWESOME!!!!!) and played Lazerquest for the first time and despite being constantly being ganged up on by little children and parents I had a great time!.
I got back to Uni last week and its been full on since, I was in Manchester for a few days last week, had to hand in a 5,000 word essay (sympathy please....no really have pity for me!) and a portfolio which included an Arts Council Application. It was a bit full on but now its nice just to get back into the groove and doing things at my own pace. The placement I am doing is with the Performing Arts Development and Network Agency (PANDA - http://www.panda-arts.org.uk/) based in Contact Theatre in Manchester. PANDA provide network opportunities, support and advice to a variety of performing arts companies and individuals in the North West of England. It is a fantastic company to work with, I have attended a few 'Spotlight on Events' run by PANDA in Lancaster and Chester over the last year or so and I have always been very impressed by the dedication and professionalism of the company and how considerate and engaging they are. The nature of my placement is to conduct research into how we evaluate arts and theatre. As a sector it is very hard to evaluate the experience of seeing arts events because it engages our emotions and emotions are hard to analyse. Efforts have been made to try and find a more productive method of evaluation which does not focus on written evaluation forms and instead tries to get to the heart of the experience for the audience member. The arts are a sector which in my opinion is unparalleled in offering experiences which takes people out of their ordinary lives and gives them a truly one off and unique experience. It is this we should savour, as a sector which prides itself on offering something unique why do we evaluate what we do in formats which are highly conventional? Is it because we just stick to proven forms of evaluation in other sectors and we are afraid of trying to conduct some form of evaluation based on the human experience because unlike stats and numbers it is very hard to make into easily digestible figures. Evaluation in the arts sector is vital, not only to gauge audience experience but also to use as a method of acknowledging what we have done artistically and use this information to inform our future artistic choices. Evaluating what has gone before but thinking forward at the same time. The second phase of my placement with PANDA is going to be in a few months allowing me to conduct more research and undertake samples and studies with PANDA members when I return.
The main highlight of the next few months will be the work in progress showing next month. In which all of the MA students have an opportunity to show something to the rest of us. I am really excited to see what everyone has been working on and have a chance to really understand the artistic directions people are taking. Now that I have done the first phase of my placement I am really looking forward to getting stuck in to trying lots of different ideas between now and the work in progress.
Over the Christmas holidays I did a considerable amount of thinking as to what was the area of artistic investigation I was going down. I know I am really interested in New Media Art, technology, social media, mobile technology design and I also know that I am really interested in the Urban space. This to me seems incredibly vague and just for my own state of my mind really I was looking for something that brought some of it together under one term.
I was reading an article in Wired Magazine about Transmedia (http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/08/features/what-is-transmedia) and began to realise that this was probably one of the closest terms that could come to describe my work. Transmedia in essence is a term which came from Academic study and is now being transferred over to entertainment circles as term which seeks to find new ways of producing entertainment. The term has proved divisive among critics, academics and the entertainment industry. The term in essence is about developing a narrative or story over many platforms. For example starting off in a Film or Television series and then allowing one of the characters to share thoughts on a blog, or share their music interests on Spotify etc. It is multi - platform storytelling. It acknowledges that people's habits of consuming entertainment products are rapidly changing and that the days of the passive audience member have gone. Multi - platform storytelling allows for greater interaction between the audience and the product. A much more exciting and engaging experience for the audience.
Transmedia storytelling as a concept is really exciting for me and is something which I will be working on for my work progress. It is something which brings together ideas which I have been working on before Christmas and allows for even greater investigations and more freedom and creativity. I am looking at how we narrate our lives through various technologies.
For example I have done a small album on IDEASTAP of how we narrate our experiences of going to Nightclubs (http://www.ideastap.com/people/marcuslilley/standard-portfolio/b37293e5-f98b-465b-a596-9e7500d782ae/) and I am going to be collecting my Facebook statues over a year long period and seeing what sort of narrative emerges by looking back over the statues and seeing how they report the events over the year. These are just a couple of examples of looking at how we can bring different mediums together in order to tell a narrative or story to make more enjoyable and a much more involving experience for the audience.
Will report back at the end of the week!
Take Care,
Marcus
Apologies for lack of blogging activity over recent weeks, as I said in my previous post I wasn't going to do any blogging as such over the Christmas and New Year period, due to the fact that I was at home (sunny Wiltshire!!) and that not to be rude I wanted to have a bit of a break!!
Although as with many things after a week or so I was yurning to be back doing creative stuff, but overall it was a nice break. I was in Bath for NYE with my girlfriend, I saw Tron in 3D in Bristol (Daft Punk were AWESOME!!!!!) and played Lazerquest for the first time and despite being constantly being ganged up on by little children and parents I had a great time!.
I got back to Uni last week and its been full on since, I was in Manchester for a few days last week, had to hand in a 5,000 word essay (sympathy please....no really have pity for me!) and a portfolio which included an Arts Council Application. It was a bit full on but now its nice just to get back into the groove and doing things at my own pace. The placement I am doing is with the Performing Arts Development and Network Agency (PANDA - http://www.panda-arts.org.uk/) based in Contact Theatre in Manchester. PANDA provide network opportunities, support and advice to a variety of performing arts companies and individuals in the North West of England. It is a fantastic company to work with, I have attended a few 'Spotlight on Events' run by PANDA in Lancaster and Chester over the last year or so and I have always been very impressed by the dedication and professionalism of the company and how considerate and engaging they are. The nature of my placement is to conduct research into how we evaluate arts and theatre. As a sector it is very hard to evaluate the experience of seeing arts events because it engages our emotions and emotions are hard to analyse. Efforts have been made to try and find a more productive method of evaluation which does not focus on written evaluation forms and instead tries to get to the heart of the experience for the audience member. The arts are a sector which in my opinion is unparalleled in offering experiences which takes people out of their ordinary lives and gives them a truly one off and unique experience. It is this we should savour, as a sector which prides itself on offering something unique why do we evaluate what we do in formats which are highly conventional? Is it because we just stick to proven forms of evaluation in other sectors and we are afraid of trying to conduct some form of evaluation based on the human experience because unlike stats and numbers it is very hard to make into easily digestible figures. Evaluation in the arts sector is vital, not only to gauge audience experience but also to use as a method of acknowledging what we have done artistically and use this information to inform our future artistic choices. Evaluating what has gone before but thinking forward at the same time. The second phase of my placement with PANDA is going to be in a few months allowing me to conduct more research and undertake samples and studies with PANDA members when I return.
The main highlight of the next few months will be the work in progress showing next month. In which all of the MA students have an opportunity to show something to the rest of us. I am really excited to see what everyone has been working on and have a chance to really understand the artistic directions people are taking. Now that I have done the first phase of my placement I am really looking forward to getting stuck in to trying lots of different ideas between now and the work in progress.
Over the Christmas holidays I did a considerable amount of thinking as to what was the area of artistic investigation I was going down. I know I am really interested in New Media Art, technology, social media, mobile technology design and I also know that I am really interested in the Urban space. This to me seems incredibly vague and just for my own state of my mind really I was looking for something that brought some of it together under one term.
I was reading an article in Wired Magazine about Transmedia (http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/08/features/what-is-transmedia) and began to realise that this was probably one of the closest terms that could come to describe my work. Transmedia in essence is a term which came from Academic study and is now being transferred over to entertainment circles as term which seeks to find new ways of producing entertainment. The term has proved divisive among critics, academics and the entertainment industry. The term in essence is about developing a narrative or story over many platforms. For example starting off in a Film or Television series and then allowing one of the characters to share thoughts on a blog, or share their music interests on Spotify etc. It is multi - platform storytelling. It acknowledges that people's habits of consuming entertainment products are rapidly changing and that the days of the passive audience member have gone. Multi - platform storytelling allows for greater interaction between the audience and the product. A much more exciting and engaging experience for the audience.
Transmedia storytelling as a concept is really exciting for me and is something which I will be working on for my work progress. It is something which brings together ideas which I have been working on before Christmas and allows for even greater investigations and more freedom and creativity. I am looking at how we narrate our lives through various technologies.
For example I have done a small album on IDEASTAP of how we narrate our experiences of going to Nightclubs (http://www.ideastap.com/people/marcuslilley/standard-portfolio/b37293e5-f98b-465b-a596-9e7500d782ae/) and I am going to be collecting my Facebook statues over a year long period and seeing what sort of narrative emerges by looking back over the statues and seeing how they report the events over the year. These are just a couple of examples of looking at how we can bring different mediums together in order to tell a narrative or story to make more enjoyable and a much more involving experience for the audience.
Will report back at the end of the week!
Take Care,
Marcus
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