Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Manchester : B - Drama
Portfolio title: Audience development and public engagement methodologies: the 'Art of Digital
This portfolio presents practice-based research on the properties and affordances of digital media in providing the means for interactive, ‘gameful’, locational activities which co-produce digital content as a strategy for public engagement with the arts. The research is in several stages:
1. A consultancy report commissioned by Arts Council England, Art and the Digital Ecology in the North West (Gilmore [70%] & McKinley [30%], 2011), surveyed ACE’s regional RFOs (regularly funded arts organisations) in order to assess sectoral capacity for producing, archiving and using digital content, in comparison with non-subsidised creative businesses.
2. This audit was reconsidered critically in a published conference paper (“Not Just CEO’s tweeting”, Gilmore 2011), examining the findings in the broader context of policy for developing digital strategies for the arts.
3. The initial findings also led to further research commissioned by Manchester Camerata (“Manchester Camerata’s Digital Offer”, Ralley & Gilmore, 2012), to help the orchestra understand the opportunities afforded by digital technology in terms of audience development. This report suggests strategies for promoting audience interaction with the orchestra by using social media, integrated with ‘offline’ engagement.
4. Gilmore has subsequently explored this strategic combination of digital media with ‘offline’ activities, materials and media through four further practice-based research initiatives: UnivercityCulture, Mapping Manchester Histories, One Day Like This and Researching the New. Each of these exploit geo-locative technologies to ‘co-locate’ participants with digital content in the places and spaces in which they are engaging, to promote an interactive and personalised experience. The projects developed digital engagement strategies for, respectively: research on the city; a local history festival; Manchester’s music venues; audience journeys around museums. In each instance, audiences and organisations work together to co-produce knowledge which becomes part of a developing digital archive, permitting further testing of new methodologies for digital mapping and data visualisation.
