{"id":971,"date":"2006-11-07T08:16:42","date_gmt":"2006-11-07T16:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2006\/11\/encouraging_coauthorship\/"},"modified":"2006-11-07T08:16:42","modified_gmt":"2006-11-07T16:16:42","slug":"encouraging_coauthorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/encouraging_coauthorship.php","title":{"rendered":"Encouraging co-authorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, what’s an arts manager to do if the premise of yesterday’s post<\/a> is true (which it seems to be) — that the history of audience interaction with art has been more active than passive, and that the current emphasis on sitting quietly and receiving art is an anomaly? What, especially, are you to do if your cultural facility was conceived and constructed during that anomalous moment in history? Are we even built<\/i> for the kind of audience connection and collaboration our past suggests is the norm?<\/p>\n

According to Lynne Conner and others at our recent conference, the answer is a challenge. We have certainly tried to build ”engagement” through pre-show and post-show discussions — although even many of these have been lectures or one-way conversations about what audiences should know about the work. And the art moment, itself, remains a sacred moment for many that shouldn’t be altered or invaded with chatter (unless that’s part of the moment).<\/p>\n

Conner suggests that the solution lies in encouraging co-authorship — inviting, supporting, and encouraging audiences to recognize and celebrate their active part in making meaning. She describes the requirement of that strategy:<\/p>\n


\nThis, then, is the practical, bottom line definition of co-authorship in the twenty-first century; a critical mass of surrounding arts experiences that converge in and around an arts event in order to provide useful information, opportunities to process that information through talk and other forms of personal expression, and finally, some kind of follow-through experience that allows for synthesis, analysis, debate and (at least some of the time) consensus on the meaning of the arts event itself.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For many artists and arts organizations, this is already their core value and purpose. For others, the idea might feel awkward and populist — ”we must meet great art where it stands, there’s no meeting in the middle” they might say. But perhaps its the ”middle” where the art exists in the first place. Not with the artist. Not with the audience. But in the electric space between them.<\/p>\n

Just a thought. More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, what’s an arts manager to do if the premise of yesterday’s post is true (which it seems to be) — that the history of audience interaction with art has been more active than passive, and that the current emphasis on sitting quietly and receiving art is an anomaly? What, especially, are you to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}