Social anthropologist and ”chief culture officer” Grant McCracken has some great thoughts bubbling in his recent blog posts. He’s wondering out loud about finding ways to capture and share the narratives and histories of the objects we wear, use, and pass along. His most recent post wonders if attaching such stories would make recycling and reusing things more compelling and even more valued. Says he:
What if objects straight from the factory seemed somehow orphaned,
smaller and less interesting for the fact of their pristine condition.
If we care about recycling, we want objects to be better at absorbing
and recording and reporting their histories. Of course, some objects
will be incapable of telling stories: bottles and newspapers for
instance. But clothing, furniture, technology, these could be storyful.
And they could spared the landfill for one or more cycles of ownership
by the stories they bring us.
The idea brings to mind social experiments that do just this, like Where’s George, that lets you track the travels and experiences of the dollar bill in your wallet (assuming someone logged it in and its various owners continued the story); or like Bookcrossing, which lets you release your favorite books into the wild and track where and with whom they make their impact (which I blogged about way back when).
But now I’m thinking about different bits of physical symbolism in arts and culture, and how we might bring narrative into their life: The physical ticket and the theater seat. When you think about it, a single theater seat is the stage for a growing narrative of the shows experienced, the people sharing that experience, and the thoughts and emotions that found their home there. And yet, when we issue tickets, we print a fresh one that ignores and denies any such history or extended narrative. Who sat in this seat before you? What did they see? How did the experience effect them? How does your experience conflict or resonate with that narrative? What did YOU think when you were sitting there a year, or a decade, or two decades ago?
What if each seat in a theater space had its own story, written by each occupant over time? What if the tenant of that seat could learn about a previous tenant and their experiences, then add their own to the narrative, and pass it along to the next person who happens to sit there? This could be accomplished through a web site, like Where’s George or Bookcrossing. Or it could be attached to the object of a re-envisioned ticket that gets used over and over, and encourages little notes or scraps, or photos (a passport book, perhaps). I’m even guessing there could be “an app for that,” accessible through your mobile device while sitting in the seat.
I’m fond of the bed and breakfast establishments that leave a journal in each room, where occupants can share some portion of their experiences there. Sometimes, the same room is a family tradition, and those narratives can stretch years or decades. The room and the journal become the stewards of those intertwining stories, and the medium through which those stories are shared.
The theater ticket, and the theater seat, seem ripe for similar opportunity.
This is a brilliant idea. I can even imagine a time when particular seats will become more in demand precisely because folks want to contribute to its story.
Perhaps, each ticket could have a unique code which will allow the person who has it for that night to go to a site and write their impressions of the play, the theatre, the experience.
Hell, it might even give useful information about sight lines.
This is just good thinking. Thanks.
#2amt
Terrific idea – and the applications of this idea to areas of business and society are huge. it’s a great way to capture culture, knowledge and history.
For many many years my family has had a subscription at Roundabout Theatre in NYC. We had four seats and whoever was in town and able to go went, on occasion there was some “discussion” as to who would get to see a particular production, but all in all it has been an amazing family and arts experience. As the years went on my grandmother required a wheelchair and they moved reservations to a row with the swing out arm on the aisle seat so that she could transfer from her wheelchair to the seat. We loved “our seats” it was like having a home in the theatre. Since my grandmother’s passing they moved our seats to a different row in the same section to allow someone who needed the access seat to have it. We maintain a family subscription and while I often cannot attend the performances was able to make one in recent months. On this particular occasion they gave us our old seats. The usher showed me to grandma’s seat and I just began to cry. My mother and I share a strange tradition, to always wear something of hers to theatre. That night I wore her coat and sat in her seat. There is no doubt in my mind that seats and tickets have stories and some can be public and interactive as suggested, others are personal, both are worth telling.
I think a storyful ticket would be especially powerful if its use was combined with a tradition of story sharing. To me, this also points to a role that is missing from many arts organizations.
Imagine that each theater performance began with a warm greeting by the organization’s “Chief Storytelling Officer.” The CSO could retell one or two recent stories that audience members had shared via the storyful tickets, or perhaps the history of one particular seat or another relationship-building anecdote. (Think of the impact of relating Beth’s comment about her grandmother’s seat to the whole audience.) Then the CSO could talk about how the production is enriching the community or what exciting things are on the horizon. The CSO could even try to greet every person in the house during intermissions and after the last curtain, learning names and asking questions.
I don’t think Garrison Keillor is being cute or wasting airtime when he reads personal greetings. “This is to George from Nancy. Happy 20th Anniversary, Honey. You’re still the love of my life.” Messages like that build relationships and relationships are what sustain A Prairie Home Companion.
Every time I attend a performance that begins with a pre-recorded “turn off your cell phones” rant and ends with nothing more than the house lights turning on, I say to myself “what a waste!” It’s a needless waste of the relationship-building resources that a CSO could use to transform the audience’s perceptions of the value of what is being offered.
An excellent idea. I endowed a chair in my musician father’s memory at the Peter J Sharp Theater at Juilliard. Whenever I attend a performance there, I try to sit in that seat to feel its embrace. If I do not get that seat, I always go to visit it. A comparable idea is the fact that certain restaurants (Le Grand Vefour in Paris; Il Cambio in Turin, for example) have tables named for famous clients who preferred those seats and tables. The last time I was at Le Grand Vefour I sat at Colette’s table and pictured myself exchanged bons mots with her.