- We’re Not Doing This Anymore: So we love libraries but we’re going to them less. Perhaps it’s because we have “library anxiety” (yes, that’s a thing)? When finding things online is as easy as a click, navigating the clunky physical infrastructure of the real world can be frustrating at best, intimidating and off-putting at worst. Though many of us regard the live in-person experience as superior, it’s useful to remember that the ease of online experience can make some feel like in-person is more of a hassle than it’s worth. Speaking of which: it’s great that more and more people want to see the world’s great art, but have you been to the Louvre lately? The world’s great museums are mobbed and unpleasant. Seeing the Great Works has become a chore, and how is anyone supposed to appreciate them as art among the jostle of selfie-taking hordes?
- The Internet Changes Everything? In some ways there’s no question, as we chronicle week after week on these pages. But it’s useful to remember that not everything is transformed. One writer returns home to his childhood home in the expanse of North Dakota and sees that the more things stay the same… An when it does change our habits – like algorithms choosing our playlists for us – perhaps we lose something important. “Isn’t the thing that’s being lost you and your efforts to figure out what you like and you respond to?” On another front, NPR wonders why audio doesn’t go viral like video does [watch a decade worth of viral dance here]. So NPR conducted an experiment.
- Democracy And Diversity – Do They Mean Anything? Two animating issues in today’s arts world. But a study in the UK reports that decades of attempting to democratize the arts have not been successful. As as for diversity? Like all buzzwords, “diversity” might have become an overused, essentially meaningless term. “Are race, poverty, and Asian-Americanhood equally diverse? What about language spoken, religion, age, sexual orientation, income, and appearance? A danger exists that diversity loses all meaning as it balloons; the term becomes so lax that everything and anything signifies diversity.”
- Pissing Off Our Most Valuable Audience: Why don’t donors continue giving to organizations they have supported? Turns out the reasons are pretty simple, and now we have data: “Not being thanked for a previous gift, not being asked to donate again, and lack of communication about the impact of one’s donation all represent massive communication fails. Advances in relationship management technologies are supposed to make communication fails increasingly rare – but, the data suggest that many of us remain our own worst enemies when it comes to retaining donors.”
- Building An Audience: On the surface, Vancouver’s decision to allow amateur artists to use underused city arts spaces looks like a practical idea to fill a surplus. But it could be so much more. Most of our theatres and concert halls are unused most of the time. Empty theatre plazas and lobbies look depressing from the street. The more that arts homes are used, the more appealing they become – vibrant spaces that people want to be in.
“Advances in relationship management technologies…” When phrases like that are used, and especially without even the least trace of irony, we see how clueless we have become. Fortunately, there is now a software to help donors deal with arts institutions called “Seven Ways To Spot Phony Friends.”
Why clueless? Do you use a pen? Paper? How would you suggest keeping track of large numbers of people? There isn’t a company operating today in any business that doesn’t use contact relationship software of some kind. That said, it’s pretty amazing that simple thankyous and appreciation seem to be overlooked apparently in a substantial number of these. Sorry you think all arts organizations are apparently “phony friends.”
Well, in my view the general nature of the American arts funding system, which is unique and isolated in the world, is a neo-feudalistic system that is essentially a form of cultural plutocracy. As just about any European would suggest, there is something ridiculous in the idea that the arts should be funded by the wealthy and not by the people through their government. This absurdity includes “Relationship Management Technology,” — the idea that human relationships are programmed. These organizations don’t really want a relationship by any normal meaning of the term. They just want money. So they program their so-called relationships.
On the other hand, with the canned metronomic music of Gangman and most pop music, why not also define human relationships as something canned. I’m sure the relationship management software even produces canned thank you notes. It’s the modern world. An audience of 2.5 billion YouTube clicks, for example, has to have something mechanical and artificial about it — as do the large donor bases of big cultural institutions..
It is interesting how in the 90s people were aware of the implications of this cybernetic world and how its human and social engineering was something ominous. Now we just take our canned artificiality for granted. The machines won and will continue to win.
Check out how the Met offers its donors a graduated set of perks based on how much money they give:
https://secure.metmuseum.org/secure/membership/member
In the Social Democracy’s of Europe, classism in the arts this extreme is seen as social injustice. There is an irony that Relationship Management Software literally programs the Orwellian rules and techniques of this sort of classism.
I confess I’m disappointed. No free paintings or a car service? Most of these perks seem like opportunities to meet other members, staff and director or invitations to events that have something to do with the museum. And it’s not like the Met doesn’t have plenty of public programs that try for similar opportunities. I’m interested in orchestras. When I get a chance to hang out with musicians or other people who have a similar interest I like it. What’s wrong with my orchestra creating opportunities for this to happen? And I’m more likely to contribute money – buying tickets, a donation – if I’m spending time with you. There are plenty of ways I can get my music today. Why should I go hear or support my local orchestra when I can hear the world’s best orchestras? Because the local orchestra offers me a reason – whether it’s different programming, proximity, or an ongoing relationship. For those Met visitors who are real core art lovers, The Met offers plenty of ways to engage with it. For those who help support it financially, the Met offers ways to engage with it and other people who support it. What’s wrong with that?
You ask some really great questions. I wish I had time to give them justice.
I think it is harmful to stress social hierarchies in our arts institutions, especially when based on wealth. It sends so many bad messages about a lack of inclusivity, about who the arts are for, and the position the arts have in our society. It also reinforces with overt vulgarity our racially informed class system.
The top donors at the Met are given priority ticketing services, which means that most of the best seats never enter the open market. The donation threshold for priority ticketing is very high, which means that the actual cost for the best seats is enormous. The Met’s better tickets often cost $350, and to even get a chance of buying one, you have to donate thousands of dollars.
In Europe, by contrast, where I have lived for the last 36 years, I can usually attend even the most popular operas, like Boheme, with front row seats for about $80. And tickets are usually available with a little advance planning. There are nine full time opera houses within two hours of where I live in Germany. There are not that many genuinely functional opera houses in all of the USA.
The European system, with its affordable tickets, the absence of social hierarchies, and the local availability of the arts, creates a sense that the arts belong to everyone equally.
This is a big contrast to the Met’s extreme social hierarchies which are distasteful and tacky. I think one could also argue that such classism in the arts is also fundamentally immoral. And yet we are to believe, that only the wealthy are “core art lovers.”
I think there is also a basic erosion of integrity when artists allow themselves to be bought for the purpose of socializing with the wealthy. Practices like that denigrate both art and artists. As a general rule, high art must live for ideals independent of the marketplace. That’s a long way from selling personal favors for a price. Friendship isn’t bought.
These practices have reinforced patterns in the American arts world where expediency means more than honesty. The harm is obvious.
And about NPR’s idea that audio doesn’t go viral. PSY – Gangnam Style has had 2.5 billion hits on YouTube. Without audio it would be nothing. (Actually, both the video and audio on that creation seem like nothing to me, which surely must show how clueless I am.)
Um – if you look at what kinds of posts/stories/whatever rack up massive audience, audio-only is almost never among them. We’re a visual culture, and visual gets shared (it takes a flash of a second to register the image). But audio is time-based and you have to accord it more time and pay more active attention to it. Hence it doesn’t get the massive numbers visual (particularly video) does. Of course Gangnam has audio. That isn’t the point. NPR is trying to figure out something interesting – whether non-image-based content can compete in popularity.
I would suggest that we are much more than a “visual culture.” We are a visual species. Audio will never engage humans as easily as the visual. Is that really a revelation?
NPR should accept what audio is, such as how we can more easily listen while doing other things like driving or cooking or house keeping, but we can’t do too much else while watching. Radio has its place and there is no point in trying to capture the masses the way film and video do.