Response to RESPONSE @ World Stage Design 2013
Opening day at World Stage Design 2013 #WSD13 was like full immersion into a shark tank for someone like Jacques Cousteau. I didn’t know him personally but he impressed me as a man who, when faced with a deep blue sea full of the promise for adventure, learning, new pathways, excitement and maybe some danger, would dive right in. Jacques and I have a lot in common.
The place was swarming with life: alive with the sights, sounds and smells of exhibitors and visitors from around the globe, and with the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama #RWCMD fleet, time-pieces synched, all on deck and ready for whatever came their way in the name of duty.
Being tasked with a response to Response – an arts criticism digital workshop which was embedded into World Stage Design 2013 #WSD13 was rewarding, but it was not easy. I was a Third Age student in a New Age workshop, and while I’m very much at ease with my Third Age status and knew I had a lot to learn, I was stung by stigmatism, and was faced with having not only to respond to Response but to a dose of ageism as well.
I was hyper-fuelled after the weekend – my mind on information overload; my body in can’t- stop-must-stop mode, and it took me a few days to decompress. Call me old-fashioned but the urgency to respond then and there irked me. Mostly because it was a bit too competitive and the young people were well in the lead and were being given a big thumbs up for it. Give me a chance, as is a critic's want and prerogative, to come up for air, gain some perspective and then respond.
The digital workshop, led by anthropologist Tom Beardshaw of NativeHQ (www.nativehq.com), was the second part of the 2-day Response symposium coordinated by Guy O’Donnell, Arts and Community Development Officer for Bridgend Council, in partnership with Jake Orr, Director of A Younger Theatre, (www.ayoungertheatre.com) to 'give people interested in the arts a platform to have a conversation about arts criticism in Wales' (www.wsd2013.com/blog-category/share-your-response-on-arts-issues). Day One was a group discussion at the very-civilised Wales Millennium Centre’s Victor Salvi Room (www.wmc.org.uk/VenueHireandServices/OurFacilities/VictorSalviRoom). The plan for the second day’s workshop was 'to explore social and digital media, and to think about how arts criticism could evolve to take advantage of the new potentials offered by digital publishing and networks'.
What really irked me was having to grapple with the contrast between the label being foisted upon me (old – which implied out of touch, can’t keep up) and who I really am (progressive, open, receptive). Well aware of how rapidly our world is changing, I was there for a reason: Tom B had prepped us on the Saturday and had more than piqued my interest, so I was prepared to buy and tap into his perspectives, insights and knowledge: ‘The world of media is being utterly reformed. We are noticing how the medium shapes the whole way arts criticism is conceived, and now there is an endless succession of platforms and possibilities. Text, video, audio images, all mixed up in the same space, plus comments and conversation….It’s the collapse of media forms into one meta-media platform.’
Yes, sure, fine, but the more the conventional methods of response were dismissed as archaic, overused and over rated, and I was compelled to defend them, I felt as though I’d fallen into a trap: I became the older person who carried the weight of a big bag of chips on her traditional shoulders. Call me old-fashioned, but as much as I love visuals, I love words more, and I found myself slightly begrudging what I'd come to wholeheartedly embrace. As journalist and critic, octogenarian Barbara Michaels put it: ‘Rather than a Revolution, I see the new technology as a revolutionary development. Words have a critical place; what has come before needs to be respected and understood, and mustn’t be discarded.’
So, one of my biggest hurdles on the day was resisting my instinct to respond in the conventional way. It was my knee-jerk devil's advocate response at play: the more words and the sentences, subsequent paragraphs and pages they build were given short shrift in favour of more visual forms new media demands and prefers, I clung even more tightly to my pen in one hand (whilst keeping a steady hand on my iphone 5 camera shooting visuals for my team with the other).
It’s not that I wasn't capable of embracing what technology had to offer; I always have and always will. I’ve probably used up my word quota for this response but, as a dancer in the 70s, I was heavily influenced by the progressive Pilobolus troupe www.pilobolus.com/home.jsp#pilobolus/6/1. And as a young assistant editor in the early 80s, I worked with cutting edge print media technology, when the internet was in its infancy. It does sound ancient now, but as the Vyadec operator for Working Woman magazine, New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor), I set all the copy with HTML coding and participated in the pioneering electronic copy transfer. This kind of exposure has shaped my mind set to always be open and responsive to advancements in all and every field. (And as Tom talked -- he is inspirational, and is imparting very exciting ideas -- I just wished I had my Special Day© invention inserted to capture it all in an instant ….Special Day©, the invention I dreamed up over twenty years ago, which was science fiction then, and is now within the realm of reality…).
Once I let go of my stubborn urge to respond that way anyway and got over some techno-electronic humps it actually got easier. I chose to write this piece. And yes I still have a long way to go before I can embed videos into my blog with ease (Sorry, Guy, it's easy when you know how, and I know I will figure it out. I got some great footage, but just couldn't crack it solo! See Jacqui's YouTube response, camera work by yours truly, edited by Ms Onions! :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhcBDS3NR_w&feature=youtu.be
My overall verdict: without diminishing it's aesthetic value, (and nice work btw, Charlie) it’s far easier to post a mood board on Pinterest (www.pinterest.com/CharlieMHammond/world-stage-design-2013/) or to shoot a few videos, upload them and call it a critical response. Call me old fashioned, label me a Third Ager if you like, please! It hasn’t taken me all week to consider and come to the conclusion that I will continue to speak my mind, be forthright and constructive in manner, and refuse to be left behind -- be a fully paid up member of the 21st Century and chant the collective mantra according to Tom Beardshaw: the radical changes that technology has presented us with are to be embraced and will maximise what we say and how we say it. But it has taken me a bit longer to find the appropriate words and shape them into a decent piece of writing.
LRHJ
15.09.2103
Photo Credit: Leslie Herman Jones
Views: 271
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Comment by Leslie Herman Jones on October 14, 2013 at 15:44
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On and on and on we go....Thanks, Tom. Your considered response here is appreciated, and more food for thought.
(I must know whether you applied 'stream of consciousness' for this response or whether you spent some time thinking and collecting your thoughts before writing? I also must let you know that your use of the phrase 'cypher for meaning' caused me to stir, reach for the dictionary, and wrestle with its meaning, and ultimately what you are inferring. I do love that about words!)
For sure, I would say that both approaches have a valued place in criticism. As do visuals. And your closing comments wrap it up nicely - It's not so much whether words are used or not, as words supply all forms and, ultimately, shape meaning and intention.
As for the age dimension, I think you may have missed my point. My feathers were not ruffled by the content of the workshop but by its context. It was in the air on the day, Tom, unintentionally perhaps, but I felt it -- an atmosphere imposed upon the event by you who was running it, and perhaps by your certainty that, to quote you here '... the flexibility of younger people to adapt to novelty' better than older people.
No hard feelings, honestly. I'm over it! And hoping to keep up and stay on top!
Cheers.
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Comment by Tom Beardshaw on September 23, 2013 at 22:49
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Thanks for your really useful response Leslie. It's interesting to think about how The Word, which is of such value to you, operates as a cypher for meaning, and how that can be conveyed in multiple forms using new technologies, for example, using audio or video recordings of people expressing their thought (in words), and in that sense, are not lost, merely configured within a different process. The written word, on a computer, is endlessly editably before publishing, whereas a live recording, while editable through a more complex process, is more immediate, more 'stream of consciousness'. Meaning can certainly be conveyed through images, but it is more impressionistic, and I think we're yet to discover whether this can wok for arts criticism, or if we need to have a defined, locked down set of meanings - the kind that words are more (although not completely) able to deliver.
The variety of forms that words take can take in online publishing is not really changing beyond that which existed in the TV and Radio eras, but the accessibility of publishing technologies has changed what is possible for arts critics who do not have major media institutions behind them. I don't see any age dimension to this - beyond perhaps the flexibility of younger people to adapt to novelty - anyone, of any age has access to these technologies (and the older perhaps have more resources to obtain them). As I said in the workshop, there is much to learn from what has gone before, but there are many new possibilities now, and the imperative is to experiment and explore what is possible, as that is the only way to find out what works.
I find the accusation of ageism amusing, as someone well into my middle age who was deep into my mid twenties before the world wide web was conceived. I don't see the attitude within myself, and wonder if that is a projection of your own reaction to new technologies - there is certainly nothing in the technology itself that leans towards one cohort over another... I was talking possibilities that are new, not people who are young.
So what really matters? Is it words? Is it the written word? Is it digital or handwritten words? Spoken words? Visual languages? Or is it really the meanings and intentions of the critics? If the latter, then what are the new possibilities in how they can be conveyed? And to what purposes?
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Comment by Barbara Joan Michaels on September 16, 2013 at 6:20
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Leslie - a great summing up plus your own take on it all. Really mega! Loved it! Barbara M
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Barbara Michaels' Response to Response:
Theatre critics are often perceived as an elitist bunch of know-alls, so how great to have this perception deconstructed. Getting together with other critics in discussion, as we did on the first day of the two-day event, was an eye-opener in that it made us all realise how many different ways there are of working. We learned from one another – for the younger members, particularly those starting out, it was heartening to realise that they were not working on their own and it gave us, the more senior writers, an insight into the techno world of social media in which it is becoming more and more necessary to be involved.
The workshop at the RWCMD on the second day was intensive, after a brilliant introductory presentation by Tom Beardshaw from Native HQ. The accent was on the immense change that has taken place in media presentation, and learning to make the fullest use of the modern technology that has taken over. It became evident that there is a need for this to be taught, as some of us (notably myself) found this difficult.
Following this, we were let loose in groups to prowl the World Stage Design Exhibition and – in my own case and that of my two fellow participants – even make our own contribution in the form of a cart in the market place. Doing that – the brainchild of my co-worker Leslie Herman – was a wonderful way of actually integrating ourselves with the Exhibition and interacting with those taking part. It was exciting, and of huge value to the critic, to talk with those involved with the arts from other countries and to hear their take the varied kaleidoscope of skills embraced by the performing arts.
Through more understanding of what we see, the thematic content and the purpose, the cross-cultural element and identity, and by the use of online resources being able to interact with those responding to the critic’s comments – which was virtually impossible under previous methods of publishing in a newspaper or magazine – the critic’s role in the 21st century gains both in value and status.
Barbara Michaels
(3rd Age Critic)
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Cheers, Guy :)
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Comment by Guy O'Donnell on September 15, 2013 at 10:06
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Thanks for your blog Leslie its given me lots to think on with Young Critics/3rd Age Critics.
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