Q4: Now, please use this website to choose an instrument’s sound that comes to your mind when you see this painting.
https://outsidetheorchestra.org/bingo/
Q5: Please write down a song/melody that comes to your mind.
1. The swan (instrumental song by Camille saint-saens)
2. Hair Flowin, Snow Falling – Jay Chou
3. Daytime nighttime – Tristesse Contemporaine
4. Calabash Brothers – Chinese nursery rhymes
Q6: Please write down a smell that comes to your mind.
1. Smell of rain/drizzles
2. Smell of grass
3. Smell of museum, cold
4. Dry ice smell
Q7: Please describe the degree again.
Q8: Will you buy this painting
All of the answers are ‘NO’.
Comparison three results:
Inviting the audience to create sound by themselves is a good way to strengthen the connection and resonance. But that doesn’t inspire them to buy art, which is the failure point of this intervention. And this failure made me realize that there is no direct relationship between resonance and purchase behaviour.
After intervention 2, two points need to consider.
When I add sounds to artwork, it becomes a new artwork. Will the audience pay for the artwork itself or the experience?
Will the artists be happy if I recreate their works?
For intervention3, I will invite the audience to join the process of creating sounds for artworks.
In addition, after I read some articles about Bauhaus colour theory and Wassily Kandinsky’s research, I want to test whether audiences can connect one artwork with a specific instrument. I find a website that is about the different sound of different instalment, and I will ask my audiences to choose one. https://outsidetheorchestra.org/bingo/
Steps:
Show an abstract painting and ask them to which degree (from 1-5)they feel resonance with this painting.
Ask them to create sounds for this painting.
Ask degree again. (The gold of this step is to test whether they can have more resonance if they create sounds by themselves.)
Invite them to choose one instrument for this painting. (This step is to see if there is any connection between the sound and the picture.)
Use a questionnaire to collect answers and ask two more questions. (Melody and smell)
Smith, K., 2021. Bauhaus Color Theory. [online] Sensational Color. Available at: <https://www.sensationalcolor.com/bauhaus-color/> [Accessed 23 June 2021].
Miller, R.B. (2014). Wassily Kandinsky’s Symphony of Colors | Denver Art Museum. [online] www.denverartmuseum.org. Available at: https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/blog/wassily-kandinskys-symphony-colors [Accessed 20 Jun. 2021].
Listening In (2019). What’s the Sound of Colour? Kandinsky and Music. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xDnxkzQtdI&feature=emb_imp_woyt [Accessed 23 Jul. 2021].
One of the most enduring influences, though, is the Bauhaus colour theory that was taught under four prominent artists. The contributions of Johannes Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Josef Albers undergird much of what we currently understand and believe about colour, and an examination of the teachings of these four artists helps us understand not only the formation of modern colour theory but indeed how colour theory is developed and transmitted.
Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian painter best known for his bold, geometric abstract works, taught at the Bauhaus from 1922 until it closed in 1933. He considered colour to be an utterly transcendent language of sorts, a way to examine the universal aesthetic. He adopted a synesthetic relationship with colour, associating particular colours with both specific geometric shapes and with musical tones and chords. Yellow, for example, was best expressed as a triangle and was the colour expressed by a middle C played on a brassy trumpet. Circles were blue, and the colour black in musical terms was the colour of closure. The examination of colour in terms of the fullness of its expression is certainly one of Kandinsky’s legacies.
Vessel, E., Starr, G. and Rubin, N., 2013. Art reaches within: aesthetic experience, the self and the default mode network. Frontiers in Neuroscience, [online] 7. Available at: <https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2013.00258/full> [Accessed 8 June 2021].
But our results suggest that the strong effect of certain artworks can be understood in terms of the physiological state they generate and how this state is experienced, or interpreted, by the observer (Vessel, Starr and Rubin, 2013).
But the emphasis on a diversity of artistic styles and topics may have, serendipitously, also increased the chances that a few of the artworks resonate with each observer in a particularly powerful way (Vessel, Starr and Rubin, 2013).
Many individuals consider their artistic test to be an important part of their identity, their sense of who they are. (Vessel, Starr and Rubin, 2013).
I don’t think VR technology can help to strengthen the connection between the audience and the artwork. It was even less realistic, and I lost the sense of understanding the space and feeling the size of the painting. Although I can see the higher resolution picture with more details, sometimes the proper blur is the real thing.
Finding another group of people as new clients:
I made a list of the potential requirements for new clients. This may be a group of people with their own unique taste and attitude, and they will express their taste through their clothes, decoration, collection and so on.
They are people who have worked for 3-5 years, have a certain amount of savings, and are positive about life and pursue the quality of life.
Some research about the multi-sensory of art-viewing.
It’s quite popular with this kind of exhibition in recent years. This kind of research is about knowing how other experts combine different media in art exhibitions and what else I can do/ change.
personally, I think it looks super cool, but most people only use it as a beautiful place to take photos rather than try to understand it, understand what the authors want to express. In addition, it’s not environmentally friendly in some way. It also made me think that does van Gogh like it? does he like his painting to be shown in this way? we have no answers.
1. Some thoughts in the audience selection process
Before I start my experiment, I will first use a few small questions to determine my audience. I hope my audience has at least one condition, that is, they are interested in art works. For example, they often go to art galleries, painting exhibitions and so on. I think at this stage, people who are interested in art may be the potential customers of my project.
Interestingly, of the eight people I found, all of them were art-related majors or regular art gallery goers. Some of them have bought gallery merchandise, but none of them have bought art paintings.
Moreover, when I asked them:’ Under what circumstances would you buy a work of art?’. They all mentioned 1) When i resonate with it 2) When I’m rich enough.
2. The results of the two questionnaires
Q1:Write down a few random words to express how you feel when you see this painting. If you don’t feel anything, you can write ‘No feeling’.
Without sound
With sound
mottled
Depression, fog
cozy，quite
cozy
cloudy day, life, city, street
A woman walking along the street in France,stepping on the sycamore leaves, coughing, good weather.
a little healing in the gloom
No more healing, feeling a little anxious
a little bit blue
delighted
no feeling
A little more realistic, more relaxed
watercolor painting
street, walking, morning
no feeling
a man is smoking outside and throw his rubbish
Q2: 1) Did this painting take your mind away? For example, remind you of some experience, a piece of art you’ve seen before, a movie, a melody, etc.
without sound with sound
2) If yes, what is it? could you describe it briefly?
Without sound
With sound
a big teddy bear on a blue bin
covid 19
a movie called Midnight in Paris
walking in the morning, only myself
Monet, Van Gogh
Walking on the way to school, the sound of cars and walking sound, the scene is also street scenery
a square in Nottingham
when I travel to the beach
Movies
Living in London, Fleabag
Music: The Carousel of Life
a lawn in Nottingham
Q3: Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to the painting. （1 is the smallest and 5 is the largest.）
without sound with sound
3. Analysis
1）The sound can help the audience understand it better
Before I add sound to the painting, I asked the painter what he want to convey. He said he painted scenes or objects on the street that people would easily overlook. He wanted to convey the idea of slowing down and observing life.
Then I added some natural sounds, such as the sound of walking, the sound of birds, the sound of wind blowing, and the sound of passers, to assist the content transmission of the painting.
From the answer of Q2-2, I found that with the help of voice, their understanding and association are closer to the author’s original intention.
2) This painting is too complicated
This picture is composed of many small pictures, and too much content will easily cause confusion to the audience.
I think I can try an abstract or surreal painting for my next intervention, and I can add more sensory experiences.
3) Question: how can I balance the connection and the understanding? how can I acquire evidence that the audience connect with the artwork? (not by questionniare)
My goal is to strengthen the connection between audiences and artworks By adding senses other than vision to the five senses, which is Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch. I mainly focused on Sound for intervention 2.
1.Steps:
1) Choose audience
2) Show the painting to my audiences, and using questionnaire to acquire their feelings
3) Show the painting with sound to them, and using same questionnaire to acquire their feeling
4) Compare two questionnaires
2.The painting without sound:
3.The painting with sound:
4. Questionnaire:
Q1: Write down a few random words to express how you feel when you see this painting. If you don’t feel anything, you can write ‘No feeling’.
Q2: Did this painting take your mind away? For example, remind you of some experience, a piece of art you’ve seen before, a movie, a melody, etc.
Q3: Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to the painting. （1 is the smallest and 5 is the largest.）
5. Record
I showed it to my two roommates first, and I turned off the lights, hoping to make them more immersed in the dim environment.
How can I strengthen the connection between the audience and the artworks so that the audience will have the desire to buy?
I want to define the audience first. For this question, my audiences are those people who are welling to learn art. (For example, they like to go to the museum, gallery, or art exhibitions. ) Not people who have no interest in art at all.
Action research plan:
1. What is the connection between audiences and artworks means?
I define this ‘connection’ as the audience’s feeling of resonance from the art work, in other words, the art work takes away the audience’s thoughts and reminds them of some kind of association, such as their own experience, a certain movie, a certain piece of music, etc.
2. How can I strengthen the connection?
This reminds me of my own experience of visiting art exhibitions. Sometimes I feel that there is no connection with a painting because I can’t understand what the painting wants to express, especially those abstract paintings.
Then my idea is : What if I understand the background of a painting and the contents the author wants to express at first, and then help the audience to feel the content of the painting by adding sounds, smells, touch and so on? In this way, hearing, smell and touch are added to the appreciation process instead of just using vision.
3. Action
1)Prepare an abstract picture. (Landscapes, portraitures, or paintings with strong narratives are not my area of experimentation, because they are not difficult to understand.)
2)Prepare a video where I added the background sound.
3)Show this painting and this video to same group of people, and ask them how they feel, how they understand it.
I have two groups of stakeholders, one is customer group, another is artists group.
why would customer but art?
The normal reasons are: 1)love art 2) great investment 3) inspiration & motivation 4) enriches the environment 5)gifting
Art, 5., 2016. 5 Reasons ‘WHY’ People Buy Art. [online] Mojarto.com. Available at: <https://www.mojarto.com/blogs/5-reasons-why-people-buy-art> [Accessed 2 June 2021].
Then I search randomly on Quora: why would you buy art?
The key words are: personal value, to be inspired, believe in, love etc.
It made me think of what is love?
In what situation, we feel we LOVE an artwork?
I think there are two different types of LOVE.
One is we love an artwork only because the colour, the character, the image, the scene. This point is strongly related to artists’ painting style.
Another is a deeper connection. For example, the story, the emotion or the meaning behind this artwork affect the audiences.
It reminds me of the experiences when I go to the museum and gallery. I can only know the size, the year, the name and the price from the small label next to the artworks. In this situation, I can only ‘love’ the artwork by the first type of love.
How can I make the second type of love happens more?
