Big thanks to Disorda for meeting today with Urbis blogs and letting us know about the ups and downs of running a Homegrown business in the UK hip hop scene (which neatly ties in with long tail theory rather nicely for the trajectory of this blog at present).
Thanks to Suspect Packages expect to hear some of the earliest pure UK mixtapes, the rarest tracks and the most influential moments from the history of UK hip hop in Octobers exhibition.
If you just can’t wait or can’t make it to Urbis be sure to head over to the Suspect Packages online radio show now for true UK hip hop at its most upfront and best.
The online travel magazine Europe a la carte will be visiting Manchester later this month as part of their summer blogging tour of the UK. On 27 July they’ll be sampling some Urbis City Tours. They’ve kindly mentioned Urbis in their blog and it’s only right to return the favour. We look forward to reading the posts as the trip begins.
Good to see the BBC teaming up with Tim Berners-Lee on an open source documentary project about the Digital Revolution.
Not so good to see their lacklustre approach to capturing his keynote speech at their Web at 20 event, especially on the sound.
Nevertheless, the idea of the death of the channel and the implicit “structures of trust” (see 12.33-15.14 ) ring true with the future of the cultural institutions I’ve been considering here recently.
Enjoying Charlie Brooker’s take on the Fourth Plinth over a coffee this morning.
Summing up the One & Other project as “Big Brother: The Tate Modern Edition” Brooker hits on an important point facing all institutions wanting to open their doors to one and all; even if we have people wanting to create and comment on culture, sometimes they just aren’t good enough to fill an hour.
Surely it’s the job of established arts figures and institutions to encourage and develop their ideas and talents not to provide an open forum alone.
oh… there’s currently a woman having a teddybear’s picnic atop the plinth and asking their advice on what postcard she should send her mum…perhaps Gormley will cast one of them in lead.
Star Wars Uncut is an interesting concept for crowdsourcing from the fan remake community (I think one exists).
The entire film is split into 15 second clips. Each participant then acts, shoots and edits a remake of the sequence with the final 472 clips all patched together for a remake by 472 different people.
Can’t be any worse than some recent Hollywood remakes of old classics.
Good post from Nina Simon on Museum 2.0 about Museums collecting comments and info from visitors but not doing anything with it or making it into a usable form.
Seems a lot of institutions are liking the sound of open access and social networking but struggling to adjust to the new world of communicating ideas and acting on user focussed thinking.
Neil Macgregor’s comment quoted in the Guardian yesterday made me take renewed interest in the goings on at the British Museum:
“The future has to be, without question, the museum as a publisher and broadcaster”
Following Vaughan’s comments about the BBC leading the way in We Think thinking (not necessarily referring to Scott Mills the Musical here) I’m keen to grasp how Urbis can prepare itself to redress the “imperfect communication between visitors and curators”.
Having given it some thought the thing the BBC are doing really well that we are failing to do is making their archive available online…and most importantly then being able to understand what people watch, when and where.
I agree with Macgregor’s point that the future lies online and keen to point out that an important layer of possibilities is not being addressed directly – the ability of the museum properly using 2.0 software and technology to better understand their visitors understanding, preferences and learning patterns to develop and deliver a meaningful, lasting impact from their collections and exhibitions- not necessarily going down the route of creative Crowdsourcing that seemed to dominate proceedings at the Cornerhouse seminar.
Just like the BBC we need to be listening to our audience, like we always have done, but we also now have the opportunity to learn from their patterns of engagement without having to rely on dull as dishwater surveys or pseudo market research focus groups under a range of different guises. Looking at the BBC it becomes clear that while the Crowdsourced material is hugely popular – Reality TV, Talent Shows (which I’d argue only give the impression of audience control and involvement while the institution actually shapes the experience and orchestrates it entirely – remember the John Sargeant debacle?) they’re not giving up on high quality professionally produced material.
We need to keep up the production of targeted, effective experiences but learn how to deliver them in a more targeted and strategic way as a complete, malleable package. Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” has really being a crucial influence in my thinking behind this, both in form and content.
As a sector we’re seriously behind the game and the necessary update can only happen with serious investment in tech infrastructure to get museums and cultural institutions up to speed with their commercial counterparts…anyone got a big chequebook?
Edit: I should add that that investment also needs backing up with built in ongoing support and business models that allow proper maintenance and back office staff to keep the resources created as workable and useful tools. Open Source does not mean free.
The MEN ran an article today abou our RECLAIM boys, Matthew Caine Mckenzie and Isaac Adegbola, making a rousing speech in front of the great and the good at the Association of Chief Police Officers’ annual conference.
All good news, however, GMP do not run reclaim Urbis do.
Big respect to Matthew and Isaac for getting up there!
