Time is tight, it seems. A few months ago I thought might be in wind down mode by now, before leaving the Arts Council, which just goes to prove how stupid I really am. The next few weeks may be a bit quiet on Arts Counselling as I have a lot of work to do, a lot of travelling to meet people to talk about resilience, and a lot of writing to do. I'll try and share some of that thinking as I go, but the blog is already feeling the squeeze.
Anyway, very briefly, I want to point you at two really interesting papers about innovation and research, bth of which are co-written by NESTA's Hasan Bakhshi.
The first, which was published a few weeks ago is Not Rocket Science. As MMM put it The authors’ proposals challenge two entrenched prejudices, which block arts and cultural organisations from playing their full role in society and economy:
- arts and culture are largely excluded from R&D by definitions based on its Science and Technology (S&T) origins
- the arts and cultural sector relies on a conception of creativity that mystifies too much of its work, preventing it from accessing valuable public resources.
The second is an interim report on Innovation in Arts and Cultural Organisations, co-written David Throsby. This includes descriptions of two case studies with TATE and the National Theatre, exploring the use of digital technology. (In the National's case the broadcasting of a show into cinemas around the country.) This makes the link between this kind of innovation of the actual business models of the organisations.
Both well worth your time, even if you don't have the time!
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Any appetite for a naked lunch?
I join the dots between things and look for patterns. I probably over-do it at times, but it’s how my brain works. Here’s my latest set of dots.
Firstly a phrase echoing from the IFACCA Summit, Shelagh Wrights’s diagnosis that the arts suffer from ‘dodgy advocacy’, ran through my thinking – actually more worrying – about some themes from the IPPR/RSA event about the future of the public sector in the North East I mentioned last week. Themes like the need to acknowledge the unworkability of current ways before innovation kicks in.
Then that connected up to an essay I found via Matthew Taylor blogging about ‘policy-based evidence making’ with the rather wonderful title of ‘On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research’. In it, Dr Eleonora Belfiore uses research around evidence for ‘the impact of the arts’, as a case study in bullshit, that mode of discourse which puts persuasion above accuracy, what she describes as an ‘indifference to how things really are’. (Just for the record I think she’s right in general, but rather harsh on the arts, coming across at times as the kind of academic who’d be happier just having cultural policy and no actual messy culture.)
I then wondered if the current collective mindset of the publicly-funded arts and cultural sector is open and self-critical enough often enough to imagine all possible futures. (I include in that the funders involved, including government.) Have we become too accustomed to growth? Do we still believe that someone somewhere will have a pot of money they need to use at just the right moment –? For all our needs? What might we have to give up to respond to climate change? There is strong evidence for the impact of the arts, more than Belfiore can admit for her argument I would suggest, but if we only look for the answers that are useful to us, do we make ourselves overly-reliant on those we’re making the case to? Don’t we have to strive for the moment William Burroughs called the naked lunch - 'a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork' – so we can start to move beyond it?
The final dot (never end on Burroughsian apocalyptic paranoia!) was catching up on the new series of The Thick of It, which is a lesson in the way political discourse has been perverted by language. It’s somehow missing something the first series and the specials had, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. (Maybe the loosened grip on power makes Malcolm something of an underdog, albeit one with horrible bark and bite?) It is still very funny though, especially if, like me, you think swearing can be grown up and funny.
Firstly a phrase echoing from the IFACCA Summit, Shelagh Wrights’s diagnosis that the arts suffer from ‘dodgy advocacy’, ran through my thinking – actually more worrying – about some themes from the IPPR/RSA event about the future of the public sector in the North East I mentioned last week. Themes like the need to acknowledge the unworkability of current ways before innovation kicks in.
Then that connected up to an essay I found via Matthew Taylor blogging about ‘policy-based evidence making’ with the rather wonderful title of ‘On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research’. In it, Dr Eleonora Belfiore uses research around evidence for ‘the impact of the arts’, as a case study in bullshit, that mode of discourse which puts persuasion above accuracy, what she describes as an ‘indifference to how things really are’. (Just for the record I think she’s right in general, but rather harsh on the arts, coming across at times as the kind of academic who’d be happier just having cultural policy and no actual messy culture.)
I then wondered if the current collective mindset of the publicly-funded arts and cultural sector is open and self-critical enough often enough to imagine all possible futures. (I include in that the funders involved, including government.) Have we become too accustomed to growth? Do we still believe that someone somewhere will have a pot of money they need to use at just the right moment –? For all our needs? What might we have to give up to respond to climate change? There is strong evidence for the impact of the arts, more than Belfiore can admit for her argument I would suggest, but if we only look for the answers that are useful to us, do we make ourselves overly-reliant on those we’re making the case to? Don’t we have to strive for the moment William Burroughs called the naked lunch - 'a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork' – so we can start to move beyond it?
The final dot (never end on Burroughsian apocalyptic paranoia!) was catching up on the new series of The Thick of It, which is a lesson in the way political discourse has been perverted by language. It’s somehow missing something the first series and the specials had, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. (Maybe the loosened grip on power makes Malcolm something of an underdog, albeit one with horrible bark and bite?) It is still very funny though, especially if, like me, you think swearing can be grown up and funny.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Self-employment in the visual arts
AIR – Artists Interaction and Representation – have had research done by a-n on employment patterns for visual and applied artists. This was in the context of the Future Jobs Fund and the work done by New Deal of the Mind that I talked about a short while ago. I commented then that the focus on employment by employers, and the exclusion of self-employment, was problematic. The summary of the findings appears to back that up. I quote…
Whilst previous research by a-n, ACE and others over the last ten years suggested at least half of all practising visual and applied artists were self-employed, the new AIR survey reveals that has substantially increased.
72% of artists are self-employed
25% are a mixture of self-employed and employed
2% are unemployed
1% is employed
In terms of status by career stage:
88% of established artists are self-employed
73% of mid career artists are self-employed
67% of emerging artists are self-employed
Significantly, the overall level of self-employment amongst artists is considerably higher than for the creative industries as a whole, where it stands at 41%.
They also note that self-employment is currently excluded by the Office of Statistics when analysing the efficacy of art and design courses in creating employment, which seems perverse, given the career trajectories of those graduates.
Whilst this pattern will not be replicated right across the artforms, it is important that it is taken into full consideration by government and policy makers looking to ‘create jobs’ within the creative industries.
Whilst previous research by a-n, ACE and others over the last ten years suggested at least half of all practising visual and applied artists were self-employed, the new AIR survey reveals that has substantially increased.
72% of artists are self-employed
25% are a mixture of self-employed and employed
2% are unemployed
1% is employed
In terms of status by career stage:
88% of established artists are self-employed
73% of mid career artists are self-employed
67% of emerging artists are self-employed
Significantly, the overall level of self-employment amongst artists is considerably higher than for the creative industries as a whole, where it stands at 41%.
They also note that self-employment is currently excluded by the Office of Statistics when analysing the efficacy of art and design courses in creating employment, which seems perverse, given the career trajectories of those graduates.
Whilst this pattern will not be replicated right across the artforms, it is important that it is taken into full consideration by government and policy makers looking to ‘create jobs’ within the creative industries.
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
How do you measure the intrinsic value of the arts?
I meet lots of people who say you can’t measure the intrinsic value of the arts – only extrinsic or instrumental side effects. I meet a fair few people who say that even trying, or measuring the instrumental benefits as well, is actually damaging to the art. Most of both sets still feel that public and private money is well-spent on the arts though – ‘for its own sake’, as the saying goes.
This often feels like a reductive and circular discussion to get into. If we can’t talk about the value of the arts in some kind of way that allows that value to be compared to the value of other things – tanks, traffic lights, speed-bumps, care for people with Alzheimer's, doctors, nurses, education, MPs' salaries, whatever – we are forever beholden to ‘supporters of the arts’. Whether we like it or not politicians have to do that invidious job of comparing apples and oranges and bricks. We need to help them, not ask for an exemption.
Mission Money Models have just published an interesting paper by Hasan Bakhshi, Alan Freeman and Graham Hitchen, entitled, simply, Measuring Intrinsic Value. This argues for greater use of cultural economics to explore the value of the arts and help with that difficult comparison. Two metholodologies are suggested as key to this: ‘contingent value’ (roughly speaking, defining the value the public put on things they may or may not actually use themselves) and ‘willingness to pay’ (measuring how much we'd be prepared to pay for things - though I think this can often be overstated, or not align with our voting patterns.) Measuring public estimates of these, the authors argue, can free ‘the value of the arts’ from the advocacy mode instrinsic value often sits, or the reductive mode of direct economic measurement or instrumentalism, and allow a new statement of the case for the arts.
It’s a challenging and useful paper – and, being far from an economist, I may not have grasped it all and may have simplified the key concepts horribly. My main challenge to it would be this. If the problem is, as the authors argue, that the arts are damaged not by economics per se but by bad economics, what confidence can we have it’s possible to shift to good economics – given that to the untrained eye there seems to be a dearth of good economists in positions of power?
Or perhaps I’ve misunderstood the last year or so completely…
This often feels like a reductive and circular discussion to get into. If we can’t talk about the value of the arts in some kind of way that allows that value to be compared to the value of other things – tanks, traffic lights, speed-bumps, care for people with Alzheimer's, doctors, nurses, education, MPs' salaries, whatever – we are forever beholden to ‘supporters of the arts’. Whether we like it or not politicians have to do that invidious job of comparing apples and oranges and bricks. We need to help them, not ask for an exemption.
Mission Money Models have just published an interesting paper by Hasan Bakhshi, Alan Freeman and Graham Hitchen, entitled, simply, Measuring Intrinsic Value. This argues for greater use of cultural economics to explore the value of the arts and help with that difficult comparison. Two metholodologies are suggested as key to this: ‘contingent value’ (roughly speaking, defining the value the public put on things they may or may not actually use themselves) and ‘willingness to pay’ (measuring how much we'd be prepared to pay for things - though I think this can often be overstated, or not align with our voting patterns.) Measuring public estimates of these, the authors argue, can free ‘the value of the arts’ from the advocacy mode instrinsic value often sits, or the reductive mode of direct economic measurement or instrumentalism, and allow a new statement of the case for the arts.
It’s a challenging and useful paper – and, being far from an economist, I may not have grasped it all and may have simplified the key concepts horribly. My main challenge to it would be this. If the problem is, as the authors argue, that the arts are damaged not by economics per se but by bad economics, what confidence can we have it’s possible to shift to good economics – given that to the untrained eye there seems to be a dearth of good economists in positions of power?
Or perhaps I’ve misunderstood the last year or so completely…
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Could we persuade a nurse to fund the arts?
I mentioned recently the debate that's been taking place in the States about additional funding to the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the stimulus package. (I've already had emails using the phrase shovel-ready, by the way.) It seems this has been in, then out as a Senator tried to make it illegal to fund theatres and 'that sort of thing' through such a bill (I paraphrase broadly), then finally back in. Good news, but indicative of the issue. It's set out really well by Greg Sandow in the Wall Street Journal here.
I think he's right in many ways. Precision in our arguments is going to be important. We need to be positive as well as protective - the arts have a role in job creation as well as economic stimulus. We need to draw on every bit of evidence we have, look more closely at what we do and what it actually involves, and avoid special pleading. The kind of data Arts Council collects could be better used, I'm sure, and colleagues are working on it. The work done by Arts and Business and CCSkills is also helpful for local arguments. As a sector, it sometimes seems there's an instinctive nervousness about numbers part in telling a story, but they can very powerful.
We should, for instance, remind ourselves and politicians that jobs in the arts are proper jobs. Perhaps not well-paid at times, perhaps not standard, but real jobs. But many people who work 'in the arts' are not the obvious 'artytypes' but cleaners, administrators, craftsmen, accountants and so on. You can't make major public art works without major construction skills and building companies. When, say, local authorities are making choices it's worth reminding them of that. But everyone, even the luvviest of luvvies or most unusually bespectacled of installation artists, pays their taxes and spends their wages. Unfortunately (or so it feels to me, as I think it was at least partly what got us in this mess in the first place) that consumption-driven view is what's driving thinking around economic stimulus, so we have to make the case in a way it will be heard.
I think he's right in many ways. Precision in our arguments is going to be important. We need to be positive as well as protective - the arts have a role in job creation as well as economic stimulus. We need to draw on every bit of evidence we have, look more closely at what we do and what it actually involves, and avoid special pleading. The kind of data Arts Council collects could be better used, I'm sure, and colleagues are working on it. The work done by Arts and Business and CCSkills is also helpful for local arguments. As a sector, it sometimes seems there's an instinctive nervousness about numbers part in telling a story, but they can very powerful.
We should, for instance, remind ourselves and politicians that jobs in the arts are proper jobs. Perhaps not well-paid at times, perhaps not standard, but real jobs. But many people who work 'in the arts' are not the obvious 'artytypes' but cleaners, administrators, craftsmen, accountants and so on. You can't make major public art works without major construction skills and building companies. When, say, local authorities are making choices it's worth reminding them of that. But everyone, even the luvviest of luvvies or most unusually bespectacled of installation artists, pays their taxes and spends their wages. Unfortunately (or so it feels to me, as I think it was at least partly what got us in this mess in the first place) that consumption-driven view is what's driving thinking around economic stimulus, so we have to make the case in a way it will be heard.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Identity and aesthetics = chicken and egg?
The Sustained Theatre project, which has launched a website and a number of provocative documents, is a rich example of what can happen when a funder – in this case Arts Council England – opens up projects to leadership by artists. The Whose Theatre report into black theatre led to Sustained Theatre which led to a number of papers, including the one by Professor Gus John and Doctor Samina Zahir, Speaking Truth to Power, which aims to shake up the national debate on ethnicity, identity and the arts.
The paper, which is the first epistolary strategic report I’ve ever seen, demonstrates, perhaps inadvertently, how bloody hard our job is, at times. How do we change the way the arts reflect society, and ensure proper openness for people who are not white and middle class, without putting people in boxes, limiting identity and aesthetics and encouraging those in power to simply tick boxes? I’ve never been keen on the term ‘the sector’ which the artist steering group wished to use for the black theatre sector – to avoid the ethnic determinant – and it is clear that neither are many artists, some of whom prefer the term ‘black theatre movement’.
John and Zahir don’t agree with each other on this, or indeed, on much at all – or so it sometimes seems. Their debates are reflective of genuine difficulties, and the paper opens up a debate about aesthetics and identity I find really interesting. I think my aesthetics have played a large part in shaping - changing - my own identity, for instance, in that it was books and literature, not 'background', that led me into education and then employment in the arts. I rarely see my own background reflected well on stage or in galleries, and will swing for the next person who equates the white working class with Shameless-style fecklessness. (Okay, I won’t literally swing for them, as I’m now part of the middle class diaspora of my original ‘ethnic’ group, but they’ll feel the full force of a well-made point, don’t you worry. Then I'll go home to watch A Kind of Loving.)
I also put a tick against this quote: ‘We really must stop fashioning the world on the basis of the peculiarities of London.’ But that’s a whole other post…
The paper, which is the first epistolary strategic report I’ve ever seen, demonstrates, perhaps inadvertently, how bloody hard our job is, at times. How do we change the way the arts reflect society, and ensure proper openness for people who are not white and middle class, without putting people in boxes, limiting identity and aesthetics and encouraging those in power to simply tick boxes? I’ve never been keen on the term ‘the sector’ which the artist steering group wished to use for the black theatre sector – to avoid the ethnic determinant – and it is clear that neither are many artists, some of whom prefer the term ‘black theatre movement’.
John and Zahir don’t agree with each other on this, or indeed, on much at all – or so it sometimes seems. Their debates are reflective of genuine difficulties, and the paper opens up a debate about aesthetics and identity I find really interesting. I think my aesthetics have played a large part in shaping - changing - my own identity, for instance, in that it was books and literature, not 'background', that led me into education and then employment in the arts. I rarely see my own background reflected well on stage or in galleries, and will swing for the next person who equates the white working class with Shameless-style fecklessness. (Okay, I won’t literally swing for them, as I’m now part of the middle class diaspora of my original ‘ethnic’ group, but they’ll feel the full force of a well-made point, don’t you worry. Then I'll go home to watch A Kind of Loving.)
I also put a tick against this quote: ‘We really must stop fashioning the world on the basis of the peculiarities of London.’ But that’s a whole other post…
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
How did I end up on stage with an Undertone?
It must be conference season. After the one on social capital I wrote about recently, last week I had the pleasure of chairing ‘Our Creative Talent’, an event organised by three partners: Arts Council England, Voluntary Arts Network and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The event marked the launch of a major piece of research into participation in the arts through voluntary and amateur groups, and through informal learning. You can download it here. There are some pretty impressive statistics about people’s involvement in the voluntary and amateur arts, although as with most ‘groundbreaking’ research, it raises as many further questions as it gives answers. (Or at least that’s what the researchers were trying to persuade me...)
Speakers ranged from Margaret Hodge to Feargal Sharkey, once an Undertone now head of British Music Rights and possibly Britain’s only strategic ex-pop star via Alan Davey and Robin Simpson (whose blogs I heartily recommend: start at Cultural Playing Field.) There were various workshops, then a panel session where I had that almost impossible task of spotting people put their hands up.
There was a really positive atmosphere throughout the day and it is clear that the voluntary arts are seen differently than was the case when I first wielded a long-arm stapler in their cause. There are lots of questions to work through though: can the sector deliver on quality consistently enough? How is the sector changing given the aging population? How do we encourage better connections with the professional and funded sectors (the right, better connections)? How do we cope with the destruction of adult education in this country? For starters.
You can read all about the conference, and listen to some of the sessions on the Voluntary Arts England site. (Follow the Flickr link there enough and you can see me on stage with Feargal Sharkey. I’m not embarrassed to say that gives me a thrill. Click here to see a seasonal Undertones classic. Or here to see him in full pre-smoking ban glory on my favourite Undertones song. )
Speakers ranged from Margaret Hodge to Feargal Sharkey, once an Undertone now head of British Music Rights and possibly Britain’s only strategic ex-pop star via Alan Davey and Robin Simpson (whose blogs I heartily recommend: start at Cultural Playing Field.) There were various workshops, then a panel session where I had that almost impossible task of spotting people put their hands up.
There was a really positive atmosphere throughout the day and it is clear that the voluntary arts are seen differently than was the case when I first wielded a long-arm stapler in their cause. There are lots of questions to work through though: can the sector deliver on quality consistently enough? How is the sector changing given the aging population? How do we encourage better connections with the professional and funded sectors (the right, better connections)? How do we cope with the destruction of adult education in this country? For starters.
You can read all about the conference, and listen to some of the sessions on the Voluntary Arts England site. (Follow the Flickr link there enough and you can see me on stage with Feargal Sharkey. I’m not embarrassed to say that gives me a thrill. Click here to see a seasonal Undertones classic. Or here to see him in full pre-smoking ban glory on my favourite Undertones song. )
Friday, 9 May 2008
Where are you and how did you get there?
Do you work in the arts and cultural sector, for an organisation or as a freelancer? If so, the Cultural Leadership Programme want to know how you got where you are, what helped and what didn’t, and what you think you need to help you get where you want to be in the future. They have on on-line survey you can fill in to provide a picture of the sector, its workers and their backgrounds. It only takes a few minutes and the more people complete it the better the picture. It’s here: http://www.culturalworkplacesurvey.org.uk
I usually describe my career plan as ‘checking the locks to see which doors are open and then seeing if the room looks interesting’. (Cue soundtrack: Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads.) After university I worked as a chef and head chef for 6 years, which I count as major part of my cultural leadership training. (I got probably my best ever review as a chef: ‘World class’: Yorkshire Post. My books have had some good reviews but none that good.) People are often surprised at that: they don’t expect Arts Council staff (or writers actually) to have had such practical professional experience. I’m not sure what that says about people’s images of the arts.
But as I often point out, catering is one of the very few sectors you can leave to take up a job in the arts and your salary goes up and your hours get better…
I usually describe my career plan as ‘checking the locks to see which doors are open and then seeing if the room looks interesting’. (Cue soundtrack: Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads.) After university I worked as a chef and head chef for 6 years, which I count as major part of my cultural leadership training. (I got probably my best ever review as a chef: ‘World class’: Yorkshire Post. My books have had some good reviews but none that good.) People are often surprised at that: they don’t expect Arts Council staff (or writers actually) to have had such practical professional experience. I’m not sure what that says about people’s images of the arts.
But as I often point out, catering is one of the very few sectors you can leave to take up a job in the arts and your salary goes up and your hours get better…
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Can we move from indifference to engagement?
Here’s an interesting juxtaposition of two recently published reports which might shed some light on ‘participation’. The first is from that august body Arts Council England From indifference to enthusiasm: patterns of arts attendance in England. The research team have drafted in some top notch sociologists to help think through the barriers and blockages in a (at least slightly) new way. They divide people into four groups – voracious users (just 4%), the enthusiastic (12%) now and then attenders (27%) and ‘little if anything’ (57%). The biggest determinant is what they call social status: ‘arts attendance is driven by some concept of identity: who we think we are, the type of people we perceive as our social status equals and the kind of lifestyle we deem appropriate’.
Now that’s roughly what I mean when I talk about class, but I’m no sociologist. It is as much psychological as economic and changes in slower, more complicated ways than simply the job you do or how much you earn. It’s as much about your parents as your children, where you’re from as well as where you’re at…
So this report does open up new avenues for approaching building participation – but contains at least two big challenges as well as those disappointing numbers. Firstly: are ‘free weeks’ and so on going to make much difference on their own? And secondly: do we need to revisit our definitions of arts and cultural participation. The only night of the week my local is packed is karaoke night – people enjoying singing and listening. That doesn’t currently count: maybe it should.
The second report is about another kind of participation: in politics in the UK. The Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement 5 feels like a shadow cast by the ACE report (though it’s probably the other way round). Only 13% of people are very interested in politics, whilst 55% know nothing or not very much about politics. Only 12% are at all politically active – mainly through signing petitions and not buying certain products, 48% of people have not done anything remotely political and an amazing 59% have not discussed politics or political events with family or friends in last 2 or 3 years. It’s an interesting though slightly depressing read.
The common factor appears to be ownership and a sense (or lack of it) of influence. The phrase ‘people like me’ crops up in both. The question is: what do people like us do about it?
Now that’s roughly what I mean when I talk about class, but I’m no sociologist. It is as much psychological as economic and changes in slower, more complicated ways than simply the job you do or how much you earn. It’s as much about your parents as your children, where you’re from as well as where you’re at…
So this report does open up new avenues for approaching building participation – but contains at least two big challenges as well as those disappointing numbers. Firstly: are ‘free weeks’ and so on going to make much difference on their own? And secondly: do we need to revisit our definitions of arts and cultural participation. The only night of the week my local is packed is karaoke night – people enjoying singing and listening. That doesn’t currently count: maybe it should.
The second report is about another kind of participation: in politics in the UK. The Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement 5 feels like a shadow cast by the ACE report (though it’s probably the other way round). Only 13% of people are very interested in politics, whilst 55% know nothing or not very much about politics. Only 12% are at all politically active – mainly through signing petitions and not buying certain products, 48% of people have not done anything remotely political and an amazing 59% have not discussed politics or political events with family or friends in last 2 or 3 years. It’s an interesting though slightly depressing read.
The common factor appears to be ownership and a sense (or lack of it) of influence. The phrase ‘people like me’ crops up in both. The question is: what do people like us do about it?
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Here Comes more of Everybody?
Anyone interested in finding out more about Clay Shirky’s thinking can now listen to a recording of his recent talk at the RSA. Stemming from his book it focuses on how, as he puts it, the digital realm is now ‘technologically boring enough to be socially interesting.’ He talks about Flash mobs and political protest, Facebook protest groups (though not the one called ‘The Arts Council needs a f***** slap’, strangely enough) - and how ‘organisation’ is changed, changed utterly. He’s an engaging speaker and admits to being a lapsed cyber-utopian, aware of the innocence or naivete of much of what’s said about the new networked, distributed world.
A number of reviews of HCE have linked it to Charles Leadbetter’s We Think. This seems to me much more guilty of idealistic enthusiasm, judging by the chapters I read when Charles made it available in draft. (I suspect Shirky would say he's still thinking about the technology a little too much.) Wikipedia is an interesting model of all sorts of things, but I couldn’t help muttering ‘but how do you make a living in this world?’ at a number of points. Anyway, his site has lots of interesting material - shared, for free - so have a look around.
Interestingly given my previous post, you can, for example, see Charles' notes for a talk about The Web and the Avant Garde. He doesn’t mention Joyce, but what the notes say about Guy Debord and Facebook make me think he may be a little too easily pleased. I can’t see that the fun loving Situationist would really have been busy collecting ‘friends’ and thinking it was a great advance in democratising the spectactle…
A number of reviews of HCE have linked it to Charles Leadbetter’s We Think. This seems to me much more guilty of idealistic enthusiasm, judging by the chapters I read when Charles made it available in draft. (I suspect Shirky would say he's still thinking about the technology a little too much.) Wikipedia is an interesting model of all sorts of things, but I couldn’t help muttering ‘but how do you make a living in this world?’ at a number of points. Anyway, his site has lots of interesting material - shared, for free - so have a look around.
Interestingly given my previous post, you can, for example, see Charles' notes for a talk about The Web and the Avant Garde. He doesn’t mention Joyce, but what the notes say about Guy Debord and Facebook make me think he may be a little too easily pleased. I can’t see that the fun loving Situationist would really have been busy collecting ‘friends’ and thinking it was a great advance in democratising the spectactle…
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Would James Joyce be on Facebook?
One of my harmless habits is taking a bit of management speak I hear in a meeting or at a seminar and slipping it into a poem – sometimes there is something about odd bits of language that can spark a new thought. (This kind of thing sits well with my sampling approach, too.)
Yesterday I saw a book whose title at least reverses that sampling process. Clay Shirky’s new book ‘Here Comes Everybody’ is a look at 'the power of organising without organisations' in the new networked age. It sounds interesting in itself, but I was more drawn by the way his title is just the latest echo of an avant-garde. Here Comes Everybody (henceforth HCE) is a phrase from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, a recurring phrase related to the hero of this most difficult book. I have a battered paperback of Anthony Burgess’s book on Joyce, also called HCE. It was published the year after I was born. I also have, somewhere, a tape of The Wake’s 2nd album, HCE, which came out in late 1985, around the time I was puzzling though Finnegan’s Wake as a student in Paris. (The book is an interesting ‘textural’ experience, page by page, but I’ll admit to not really thinking I’ve ‘read’ it. The Wake’s New Order homages have not aged well according to the things I found on You Tube.) There’s also a great website of ‘writers on writing’ called HCE. There are no doubt other echoes.
My point is? The avant-garde and the business section may be more connected than we think. And artists have been predicting the present for a long time.
Friday, 14 March 2008
Do you feel Olympian?
The London 2012 Cultural Olympiad moved another hop, skip and a jump closer this week with the ‘opening for business’ to artists and arts organisations. You can read about the different ways to get involved here. Obviously there’s a considerable amount of lottery funding going into the Olympics and many people have made their views clear about that. Whatever the rights and wrongs, 2012 is a-coming and is now an opportunity to do some creative and fantastic things. I see no sense in the resentful scorn I’ve heard from some people. I think we could really do something to showcase the talent of young people, for instance, that might dislodge forever (ok, a generation…) this damaging myth that young people are, somehow, Trouble about which ‘something must be done’. I think it’s also a great chance for the arts in London to demonstrate the benefits to the whole of the UK of having a global cultural capital here.
At the IFACCA World Summit on Arts and Culture, organised by Arts Council in the North East in 2006 we had a session on cultural Olympiads, with two great speakers, Craig Hassall and Beatriz Garcia. Craig’s presentation emphasised the need to involve artists, which the team are striving to do. Beatriz’s website has lots of links of interest to those interested in the legacies of such events.
At the IFACCA World Summit on Arts and Culture, organised by Arts Council in the North East in 2006 we had a session on cultural Olympiads, with two great speakers, Craig Hassall and Beatriz Garcia. Craig’s presentation emphasised the need to involve artists, which the team are striving to do. Beatriz’s website has lots of links of interest to those interested in the legacies of such events.
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