Project Type: Digital and Online

Two producers in a booth sit with multiple computer screens in front of them on a desk. On a green screen stage in front of them are 5 performers. 2 are standing, one is in a wheelchair and another two appear to be listening as they sit on the ground.

How is art/ tech work reaching the public?

Collusion asked Flow Associates to undertake research into the current context of practice, commissioning and accessing art/tech works, and make this short report available for others to use. Flow spoke with venues, commissioners and artists to get a sense of the state of play and where and how R&D support is working or throwing up barriers for a thriving area of practice.

Read the report here

What do we mean by art/tech? Artwork, any artform, where technology is used in a practice led way to create experiences for the public. We are interested in physical work that the public needs to engage with in a particular location. We are excluding purely digital work that is experienced on the internet only. Artworks in this field can take a wide variety of forms, lengths and locations: from traditional venues to outdoor works and festivals, 10 minutes to an hour or more, using technology subtly or more substantially.

The pipeline for making practice-led art/tech work is broken, if indeed it ever existed. Alongside access to a range of expertise and resources, the cost of living crisis and subsequent hypercompetition for funding has led us to a situation where creativity, innovation and production is stifled by the lack of access to funding, whether application led or venue commissioned.

Further, where traditional commissioning is taking place for art/tech work, the ‘deliver this as a finished piece by X’ is failing to account for the iterative nature of art/tech work that requires more R&D and audience testing over a longer period of time to reach a truly finished state. As an emerging sector, when compared with a traditional sector such as dance or visual arts, there also appears not to be a strong shared understanding of who the key players and networks are in this field, with an apparent lack of connection and collaboration.

Look Again

An arts and heritage trail championing Milton Keynes’ design history has arrived in the city centre.

Milton Keynes is known as a model ‘new planned city’ around the world. Central Milton Keynes is on the verge of another reinvention which will see a boom in residential development. The city suffers from negative preconceptions about its authenticity and environment which the council, developers and local businesses were looking to change. Look Again tells the story of the new city’s people and places and highlights its standout modern heritage, art, architecture, and design.

The 24-stop free trail runs from Fred Roche Gardens to Lloyds Court and includes artworks in and around Centre:MK.

Scanning a QR code on any of the trail signs takes you to www.lookagainmk.city where you can learn more about that specific piece of art, building or green space, giving a fresh view of the cityscape.

Flow Associates worked alongside Milton Keynes City Council, with funding from developers, to carry out an assessment of the existing offer which consisted of an app and website. We proposed a new web-first approach to create a responsive website which brought the cities art, design and stories to life.

Working closely with the city’s heritage, highways and marketing teams, as well as archives and business partners, Look Again brought together a vision of the city as an evolving showcase for a unique period of British history, modern architecture and urban design. Flow partnered with City Discovery Archive Milton Keynes and Living Archive Milton Keynes, to use archive materials and media from their collections in interpreting the city centre and encouraging locals, workers and visitors to “look again” to rediscover the urbanity around them. “Look Again” is a sideways look at Milton Keynes’ often misunderstood urban landscape to revel in the utopian ideals which built the UK’s youngest city and encourage people to see it as a playground for modernist ideals around civic participation, quality design, and the role of public art in identity and placemaking.

To ensure that Look Again reached the audiences who would be the drivers of Milton Keynes’ future, Flow produced an Audience Development Strategy which built on consultation at public events and audience insights from businesses and cultural partners. From this, we produced a two-year marketing plan across channels to target and reach them through press, events and social media.

 

 

The branding, website and layout of Look Again was by Spy Studios who used the typography and colourways of the city to create a vibrant design identity which resonates with the city’s era of creation.

This first-phase from 2023-24 is a pilot covering Central Milton Keynes. Look Again will look to be developed with partners over the coming years to include more locations alongside the creation of the new MK City Archives which will bring together the collections held across the city.

 

Creator: David Iliff Copyright: David Iliff

Virtual Classrooms

We were commissioned to create a robust evaluation of the Virtual Classrooms project supported by the Respond and Reimagine Grant from the Art Fund. The project set out to reach schools and young people during the COVID-19 pandemic and inform learning practice and programming going into an uncertain and increasingly digital future.

The evaluation followed the delivery of a pilot programme of Virtual Classroom sessions by History of Science Museum and Bodleian Library during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through consultation with staff and schools we mapped how it reached new audiences, increased access for under-represented groups, developed the digital capabilities of the staff and institutions and its reception in schools and colleges.

A report and presentation with a series of recommendations was delivered in order to report to the funder and to guide future iterations and delivery of remote learning sessions.

Scarborough Museums Trust: Digital Learning Review

We carried out a review of Scarborough Museum Trust’s capacity to develop a digital learning programme to extend their reach, open access to their collections, support cross-department collaboration on digital projects and create programmes that are relevant and inspiring for their audiences and local communities.

The review was framed by extensive consultation with local Primary and Secondary schools as well as colleges and SEND academies. An online survey was distributed and interviews with teachers about how SMT could support the delivery of their curriculum informed a series of recommendations to support the development of online content. A full audit of digital content and resources was carried out, identifying where existing materials could be reused and support was given to the Learning team in testing new digital platforms and modes of engagement.

We provided consultancy in advising on the brief for the redesign of the website in technical and usability requirements and led a presentation and workshop session to embed the insights into their future thinking.

National Museums Online Learning Project

Working for a consortium of nine national museums led by the V&A we delivered a summative evaluation of the £1.2 million NMOLP project, including development recommendations for this digital access and education project, and considering the impact on the organisations as well as end users. The cornerstone client for this project, the V&A, has since involved us in four more projects involving evaluation and digital learning strategy. These include evaluating the V&A’s Resident designers in their work with schools, and evaluating their resources on African collections.