off-stage right

On February 24, 2009, Ben Cameron spoke to the Illinois Arts Alliance.  The speech is worth watching (link here) or reading (link here). Here is an excerpt about addressing and activating change within the arts field.  The world will go on without us, so it is time to make ourselves relevant.

In this moment of change, I take to heart the words of two very different thinkers: Abraham Lincoln, who in an inaugural address said, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new, so must we think anew, and act anew”—a quote that similarly has inspired our new President as evidenced by his own inaugural address.

And Wayne Gretzky (and when was the last time you heard Abe Lincoln and Wayne Gretzkey juxtaposed back to back?) explained his greatness as a hockey player by saying, “I skate to where the puck will be.” Regardless of the financial stress of the present, how do we in the arts skate to where the puck will be? We must begin by asking, “Why must we continue to exist today?” Because we have a building is not good enough. Because we have a history is not enough. Because we have a staff and a season and a history of awards is not enough. What is it in the world—in the external world—than mandates the flourishing of the arts in our communities and in the world today?

Every arts organization must be able to answer four questions:

• What is the value of the arts for my community?
• What is the value the arts alone bring or bring better than anyone else? In this economy especially, second rate or duplicated value is unlikely to survive long.
• How would my community be damaged if my organization were to close its doors tomorrow?
• And how can my organization be optimally structured and positioned to be my community’s best
  conduit to the arts—a question that invites us not to jettison all we do, but to keep what is most central and viable, to expand to embrace the new possibilities we may not have seen before, and to discard past behaviors that do not and will not serve us in the future, regardless of how they may have served us in the past.

Indeed, fantastic possibilities for the future exist everywhere around us. Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail, sees in technology the unleashing of a veritable tsunami of creative energy. With the invention and now affordability of cell phones, mini cams, computer softwares and more, he notes, the means of artistic production have been democratized for the first time in human history. In the 1930’s, people who wished to make a movie had to work for Warner Brothers or RKO, for who could afford 5 cameras, lighting equipment, editing equipment and more? Now who among us does not know a 14 year old hard at work on her second, third or fourth film?

Furthermore, the means of artistic distribution have been democratized. Again, in the 30’s, the major
studios played that role; now download your film, post it on YouTube or Facebook, and you have instant world-wide distribution with the click of a button.

This double impact is occasioning a massive redefinition of authorship and the cultural market. Today
everyone is a potential author. We are seeing the emergence of a class of amateurs doing work at a
professional level—a group dubbed elsewhere as the Pro-Ams—a group whose work populated YouTube, Film festivals, dance competitions and more. They are expanding our aesthetic vocabulary even as they assault our traditional notions of cultural authority and arts organizations. In thinking about the future, how do we think, not only about presentation, but about engagement—about interacting with this growing tsunami of creative energy that typically exists beyond the purview of our classrooms, our buildings and our performing arts centers? How do we begin to embrace the real potential of technology—technology not solely as broadcaster (the dominant value for those of a TV generation) but technology as social networker, technology as open source co-creator? How do we engage audiences in the creation of work? How do we expand our vision to be the orchestrators of social interaction—interaction in which a performance is a piece but only a piece of what we are called to do?

Changes in what we do, who we engage and how we engage them, who is empowered to act, who leads the way.

The groups that are most likely to survive are those committed to essentializing—to becoming rigorously clear about their values, rigorously committed to absolute pursuit of mission and absolute irreverence in examining past behavior. Every organizational assumption that guides them will be challenged—from ticket pricing structure to rehearsal policy to programming and more, and they will optimize their assets based on successes—whatever that word means to you (and I certainly would not limit it to financial), making conscious choices about what they will give up in order to free up space, time and money for the experimentation and search for new solutions in which they must engage for the future.

The groups likely to survive will at least entertain the idea of the counter-intuitive, heeding the words of Michael Kaiser of the Kennedy Center whose advice—which I personally believe is far from universally applicable– urges groups caught in a downturn to expand their investments in artists and programming (which he describes as the source of audience allegiance) and in marketing, noting “You cannot save your way to health.”

Many will embrace a higher risk tolerance —-risk, not irresponsibility but pushing past our comfort zones, armed with our best instincts, our best data, the counsel of others more expert than we–knowing as we do that a business that does not risk does not grow, a relationship with husband wife or partner that does not risk does not grow, the artist who does not risk–however capable–is doomed merely to technical excellence but never achieved the true artistic moment for which we all live and work.

If we can do this—individually and collectively–we will remember these times, not as an ordeal for survival, but as a renaissance–a time in which we renegotiated old ideas to reach a new consensual reality—a time of rebirth, yes, but rebirth requiring enormous change.

Like it or not, change is the ever accelerating constant that guides our lives today, and like the famous line in Alice in Wonderland, we must run as fast as we can to stay in the game—and if we want to get anywhere, we must run twice as fast as that. Nimbleness, flexibility, responsiveness, creative opportunism—all will be valued as never before.

Related posts:

1. Is Michael Kaisers ARTS IN CRISIS 50 State romp nothing more than a book tour?
2. The arts should be ruling new media platforms.