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Advancing the Arts: How Arts and Cultural Organisations Innovate
Do the arts act as a beacon for innovation? The notion of innovation and the arts is a difficult one: newness (and sometimes innovation) is achieved when a piece of art is produced, but arts funders are asking organisations themselves to be more innovative and it is often unclear what this means.
Am live-ish blogging my thoughts at the launch of Hasan Bakhshi and David Throsby's Cultural Innovation research paper at NESTA. Working with National Theatre (on NT Live which broadcasts theatre live into cinemas) and Tate (on Colour Chart which had a significant online presence), the research explores the ways cultural organisations innovate in audience reach, artistic frontiers and the creation of value, looking particularly at new technologies as a vehicle of innovation.
I should start by saying that I think NESTA do some very useful and important research in the cultural and innovation space and i haven't yet read the whole of this report, however the "executive executive" summary presented didn't offer any massive surprises; it is obviously an in-depth and rigorous study but I rather think International Future Forum's Producing the Future offers some less conventional insights (but then I would). Both NT Live and Colour Chart showed an increase in audiences, identified new opportunities to create revenue and new ways to explore cultural value. One interesting finding was that the projects attracted greater audiences from lower income groups than the organisations usual attendance levels.
Some observations Nicholas Hytner on NT Live: "This research reinforces that we were right to ignore ancient prejudice"
- NT live audiences reported greater personal connection with what they were viewing
- NT live audiences are more likely (rather than less) to go back to 'real' theatre
- the liveness is less important to audiences than they may have thought
- NT Live is not technically or creatively very adventurous, it is about new distribution opportunities
Someone asked during the panel session whether it is the responsibility of national organisations to be on the bleeding edge, which would have been interesting to explore more. And about risk. Organisations like Tate and NT are well resourced and I think they have a responsibility to take risks and share learning in ways that smaller organisations can't.
The event was standing room only with the great and good of the arts world in attendance. Funders, policy makers and organisations alike are clearly looking for guidance and inspiration in this area but it was a bit light on game-changing examples. Julian Bird from Tate said "Innovative art needs innovative business models". I think we may need some more innovative case studies. And maybe some diversity (in organisation size, region, gender, ethnicity) would help.