Everybody's talking about podcasting, and as we prepare to push out Walker's Art on Call files as a subscription, several of our sister institutions have beaten us to the punch. Last week MoMA was #23 (today #45) in the iTunes most subscribed podcast directory, and I'm told that SFMOMA is close to releasing a tour of their Richard Tuttle exhibition. While these are official audio guides, the media has been attentive to the unauthorized tours produced by the writers of Slate Magazine for the Met's modern gallery, and Art Mobs, a podcasting project at Marymount Manhattan College where students did tours of MoMA for a class in communications arts.
This week's On the Media did a segment on podcast alternative audio guides. Here's some of what I heard:
- Conversations about art--as opposed to monologues--can be more interesting for some museums visitors.
- The Daily Show's piece on Christo's Gates was inspiration for at least one of the Art Mobs students.
- Alternative audio commentary is not intended to undermine or replace the art historian but laymen should be able to find a way to engage with art that's not intimidating.
- MoMA's deputy director of education reports that usage of their audio guides is up. About 33% of MoMA's visitors are using the audio guides since July 1st when they started offering them for free (well, that's after you pay the $20 admission fee). Prior to that it was about 5%.
- MoMA let's you download the same files through their website or iTunes.
- MoMA is “intrigued” by Art Mobs and sees the educational possibilities for a younger population.
- Fun is good when embedded with real pieces of information.
- MoMA doesn't think alternative audio commentaries eclipse the scholarly perspective of the work. Instead, it enhances the possibilities for people's engagement.
So, my question is "Are people really downloading this material and bringing it into the museum on their mp3 players?" Unlike most podcasts, these programs--whether produced by the museum or an involved public--have limited appeal divorced of the work. Walker will be riding this wave (bubble) and making our audio commentary available as a podcast ... but we're really hedging our bets on the cell phone.
My big question regarding the MoMA’s deputy director of education report of audio guide usage is how this information was gathered. Podcast ‘usage’ in this sense can only really be properly gathered if the download station itself is in house (meaning the person comes in with their iPod and downloads the audio to it while at a docking station of sorts). I love downloading interesting looking podcasts, but after downloading, does that mean I actually listen to it in its entirety. Probably not.
On your question, I would be willing to download the pod casts and bring them into the gallery/museum to use, but many times, that one extra step proves to be too much — especially if you’re rushing out the door. A local on-site download location should be required.
Comment by David Chien — 9/5/2005 @ 11:56 pm
It would be nifty if high speed bluetooth was a reality (and it was on enough devices) and we could just request an audio pack locally for our audio player, for instance. Even an ipod dock and a mini-usb connector that merely dumps files onto whatever is plugged in may be useful (but risky, as corruputing devices is possible if people just unplug before its loaded, etc). I didn’t even know about art-on-call before I visited, so I’m guessing theres no chance I would know about an audio pack or podcast. I just ended up using my phone with a bluetooth headset, which arguably isn’t all that much better or worse than using an audio device.
Comment by Scott Dier — 9/13/2005 @ 10:43 pm
Seems like it’s all starting to come together. With the release of Motorola’s ROKR MP3/Podcast enabled phone (http://direct.motorola.com/hellomoto/rokr/) the two technologies are definitely moving toward seemless integration. It will likely be a while before most cellular networks have the bandwidth to support fast wireless downloads of audio files or phone conversations in 16bit stereo.
In the mean time, we will have more options for carrying just one hybrid device to access preloaded content/Podcasts or to dial-in to dynamically integrated information resources like the Walker’s Art on Call program. “Options” seems to be the name of the game.
Comment by Scott — 9/19/2005 @ 8:15 am
Scott D.
How did you find out about Art On Call? Did you happen to spot it on a work label or did you find an insert explaining it?
Comment by eric — 9/20/2005 @ 8:40 am
I am starting a similar initiative, in French, for the Louvre. An erotic visit of the Museum.
http://lunettesrouges.blog.lemonde.fr/lunettesrouges/audioguides_visite_de_muse/index.html
Thanks for your suggestions.
Comment by Lunettes Rouges — 9/20/2005 @ 2:11 pm
This is slightly unrelated, but are any of aware of any podcasts or online radio about contemporary art that aren’t tied to a particular institution or collection?
Obviously there’s the occasional NPR feature etc. But has anything come along to fill the gap after G.H. Hovagimyan’s ART DIRT died off in the late 90’s?
P.S. I just noticed all the new content on Walker Channel that looks really great.
Comment by Justin Braem — 9/27/2005 @ 12:08 pm
Well not a podcast exactly but there is the Culture TV project that started up recently. It looks like they just redesigned teir site. I remember being horrified at the compression they used on video before. It’s not as bad now but the playback through their Java player seems choppy.
There are a lot of podcasts in the iTunes music store but I don’t have a specific non-institutional podcast in mind. I’m sure there is one…
Comment by eric — 9/28/2005 @ 7:47 am
You may be interested in these podcasts on works of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art — -we are using these in our online courses.
http://www.smarthistory.blogspot.com
Beth Harris
Steven Zucker
Comment by Beth Harris — 10/14/2005 @ 8:01 pm
While it’s not for museums specifically, another company, Sounds for Sights, is making downloadable audio walking tours for New York City. You do need to plan ahead and load them to your player but after that you’re all set to go as you wish. And while 5 bucks is more than nothing, they’re a nice change from group walking tours or tour books / pamphlets.
http://www.soundsforsights.com
Comment by djd — 11/16/2005 @ 4:59 pm
I’m doing a new podcast Art Dirt Redux. http://spaghetti.nujus.net/artDirt. The rss feed is http://spaghetti.nujus.net/artDirt/index.xml. This is much more than a straight audio show. I’m now using mash-up techinques as well as surround sound and multilayered audio. Art Dirt Redux is more sound art although I still doing straight interviews and yes you can get it through iTunes and iPod.
I’m also doing an ongoing video performance piece called RANTAPOD. http://spaghetti.nujus.net/rantapod. This piece is asmuch about using digital tools and databasing as it is about performance. The iTunes feed is http://nujus.net/gh/rantapod/podcast.xml and the rss feed is http://spaghetti.nujus.net/rantapod/index.xml
I’ve also left my entire artistic oeuvre, both the physical objects and the digital files to the Walker Art center in my last will and testament. Since I don’t think anyone reads this; Let’s see how long it takes before anyone notices this statement.
Comment by G.H. Hovagimyan — 6/4/2006 @ 8:04 am
Post Script. One of the most successful Art Dirt Redux podcasts was the Whitney Biennial mash-up part 1 and part 2 . http://spaghetti.nujus.net/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=10&search=whitney
Yes it’s an unauthorized tour of the 2006 Whitney Bienial. It includes artists statments that I recorded striaght from the audio tour. I think artists need drama and public speaking coaching before they are allowed to talk about their work. Oh and a ghost writer to put what they say into a type of English that people can understand would help as well.
Comment by G.H. Hovagimyan — 6/4/2006 @ 8:09 am
Sorry G.H. the comment got caught in our spam filter for a little while, I just spotted it.
Comment by eric — 6/16/2006 @ 10:00 am
I saw G.H.’s post script on the 4th, listened to the Whitney mash-up, and wished we could get you to do something for the Walker. I missed the change in your last will and testament but should make a great addition to the Art Dirt archives already in Gallery 9
http://gallery9.walkerart.org/bookmark.html?id=2682&type=archive&bookmark=1
Comment by Robin — 6/16/2006 @ 10:32 am
Over the last few years we’ve done several projects like this with different approaches… a museum, a neighborhood, an event, a small city. Instead of expecting people to download podcasts, in many cases we simply broadcast the results of almost real-time edited input. You could listen to remarks and conversations in the museum cafe, or in a public park every evening, someplace people congregate, adding musical segments to the programming to make it less relentlessly verbal. We got much better results in terms of involvement and discussion from this approach than from the material put on-line. The on-line stuff serves above all as documentation.
You can see and hear five projects here:
http://www.undo.net/stevepiccolo/index.cgi?action=view&idramo=1151705766
Comment by Steve Piccolo — 2/18/2007 @ 5:09 am
@Steve P - Thanks for the note, that’s some good stuff on your site… I especially like the idea of the “Secret Room” for recording feedback - we’ve got a feedback / annotation feature on Art On Call, but are experiencing similar timidity from users in the galleries. A room like that might be the perfect answer…
Comment by Nate Schroeder — 2/20/2007 @ 1:04 pm