A journalist friend asked me recently how the culture sector is adapting, and whether I was seeing exciting examples of digital innovation already emerging from the crisis.

To which I answered yes. And, no. And not yet. Here’s why. 

Why I said ‘yes’

Yes, some cultural experiences are rapidly moving online. Like the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra streaming live performances on YouTube mere hours after announcements that performing arts venues in Victoria would close. 

In the past few weeks we've seen some incredible offerings emerge. In fact, there were a lot of cultural offerings already online, some of them crying out for a larger audience to find them. From the treasure troves of Europeana (the online collections of over 3,500 European museums, libraries and archives) to innovative contemporary performance experiences like AudioPlay (an interactive audio theatre game for kids), there are some impressive options to choose from.

But it's important to state that many of these digital experiences have been years in the making, required significant investment and deep thinking by teams of highly-trained people.

Which brings me to the ‘no’ part of my answer.

Why I said ‘no’

There are a lot of artists (and large cultural organisations) out there who are still in crisis mode, who overnight lost their income and their potential to earn one for the forseeable future. The events and experiences they have worked on for months or years are (in the short term at least) now redundant.

For those professionals (who FYI were already in one of the most highly educated yet underpaid professions in our country) it's critical that they get the support they need to survive. Only with the benefit of food, shelter and security, for themselves and their families, can they even contemplate making new work for a new world, or ‘adapting’ works for online consumption.

Which brings me to the task of digital adaptation itself, and why my final answer is 'not yet'.

Why I said ‘not yet’

Having previously been Research Manager for technology innovation program the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts in England, I know that the digital environment brings its own opportunities and challenges. I've seen many tech innovation projects fall short of their goals because creating engaging experiences online is not straightforward.

Yes, the world's online population is now your potential audience (and it’s spending more time online than ever before), but you’re also competing with the world's artists, institutions, influencers and broadcasters.

Adapting a gig designed for the physical world and expecting equivalent digital attendance is not a given. Adapting an exhibition designed for the physical world and expecting an equivalent experience is not a given. Adapting a product designed for the physical world and expecting equivalent sales is definitely not a given.

Digital cultural experiences are different. Not better, or worse, but definitely different.

Producing great quality digital experiences requires in-depth knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of digital platforms, and the attitudes and behaviours of digital audiences (#attentionspans!).

For instance, online, you can lose that visceral feeling of ‘live’-ness, but you can gain new forms of access, with cameras able to provide close ups of actors you would never see in a theatre (NT Live was one of the first to master this for cinema audiences).

With mobile technology like apps, there’s no captive audience waiting for the show to start, but you can reach people anywhere. And there's more potential for interactivity, and personalised experiences, like Karen, an experimental mobile theatre experience by Blast Theory that psychologically profiles you as you play, adapting the performance to you.

One of the big elephant-sized questions in the room is the extent to which audiences are willing to pay for digital experiences, and the relative cost of developing high quality offerings online. I Lost My Gig has calculated that more than $325 million has been lost from the performing arts industry since the pandemic began, and only time will tell what proportion can be 'recovered' online in the coming months and years.

I answered 'not yet' because mastering the art of adaptation is going to take time. And money (there is more to this than live-streaming events on YouTube). If we're serious about quality (in the arts is there any other way?) it's going to require new innovation programs, accelerators, training and capacity building. New techniques, new platforms, new business models. New partnerships and collaborations between cultural organisations and technology firms, artists and software programmers, musicians and graphic designers, producers and UX experts.

My team will be working on providing insight to artists and cultural organisations about audience demand, tastes, preferences, behaviour and spending, and how the situation is changing. We'll be releasing new data sets, running webinars, facilitating digital focus groups and testing products.

Collectively, we're going to have to do a lot of failing before we see gold. But if that journalist asks me again in a year's time, I know I'll be sharing examples of products and experiences that we simply can't comprehend today.

Ultimately, it will be artists who show us the art of what's possible online, assuming they get the investment and support they need. There is literally no-one better placed to blow our virtual socks off. But not yet. Patience!

This article was first published on LinkedIn

Image credit: David Collins for Audio Play

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About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Tandi is Founder and Managing Director of Patternmakers. She’s an arts research specialist and leader of the agency’s research projects.

 
 

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