The general gap that I identified is the gap between art graduates and mature, self-supporting artists. Art graduates usually face employment difficulties after graduation, while some successful artists develop their careers all-around way. But no ‘rope’ can guide art graduates and tell them how to plan their careers and what abilities they need.
However, I do not identify this gap at the beginning. At the very first of this project, the observation that I placed is about the problematic employment of Art graduates. I try to help art students sell their artworks better, from operating commercial social accounts to generate purchase behaviour to let the audience better understand the work when viewing the painting. Throughout the whole process, I verified and evaluated my research question. Finally, after independent study, I clarified the observation I identified as the ‘rope’ I mentioned before.
During the independent study period, my research question is how can I increase the audience’s experience when visiting the exhibition to better understand and connect with the artwork? Especially for some abstract paintings, the incomprehension is a big reason for the lack of connection and resonance. And I want to strengthen this connection to narrow the distance between Art and the public, thereby increasing the audience of Art and potential customers who buy Art. In the long run, this is also helping to solve the problem of employment difficulties for art students.
I tried to use multi-sensory experiences to help the audience resonate and understand the artwork more. Therefore, in my secondary research section, I check the related theories and relative works in this area to determine whether I can do something different. For example, from the book ‘Seven Days in The Art World’, I started to think about the distance, connection, and resonance between Art and the public. Then, when defining resonance, I described resonance as arousing the audience’s thoughts and memories after reading an article named ‘Art reaches within aesthetic experience, the self and the default mode network’. Besides, I researched Bauhaus Color Theory, Kandinsky’s work and Newton’s Musical Color Wheel, which inspired me to conduct my intervention.
In addition, I visited some exhibitions and talk with my stakeholders as my primary research to acquire relative information from my angle. For instance, I visited Catrin Huber’s exhibition and found the Tate Sensorium exhibition online. Both of these two exhibitions have a multi-sensory part for the audience. But I think Catrin’s use of multimedia technology is to display works more comprehensively than to strengthen the resonance of the audience. Similarly, as a commercial exhibition, the Tate Sensorium exhibition has made some attempts with multiple senses, but I think their gimmick is more than trying to assist the delivery of the content of the work and assist the audience’s understanding.
Moreover, I use interventions to verify my questions and use questionnaires to collect feedback. I have experienced four interventions, and my audiences are those who like Art and have a hobby of watching exhibitions. At first, I created background sound based on the content of an abstract painting to test whether it can give audiences more imagination and generate purchase behaviour. But in this way, it is hard to tell whether the audience buys the artwork itself or the whole experience.
So next, I invited audiences to create sound by themselves. The feedback shows that they have more resonance, but they have no desire to buy it. Through the feedback, I noticed that there is no direct connection between the resonance and the generation of buying behaviour. After that, I am no longer taking buying behaviour as the only goal but turning to the multi-sensory experience and better understanding. I combined Newton’s and Kandinsky’s theories, created a piece of melody based on a painting. This time, the results show that the melody cannot help them have more connection, and it will affect the original meaning of the painting.
Lately, I experimented with an actual exhibition hall through a friend’s pop up exhibition. This time I use sound to express the same emotions as the picture, instead of converting the contents into the corresponding instrument or sound as before. I put a QR code on the wall to acquire feedback, and it shows that some viewers think that the sound made more sense in the painting, and it complements the images. The questionnaire data shows that 60% of people think the voice is constructive, 40% think it helps to some extent, and 6.67% think it is not helpful. I think this feedback is more objective than the previous interventions. Because it is placed in an actual exhibition hall, and the feedback comes from people who visited the exhibition hall.
Overall, my strength is certain logical thinking skills and planning ability, from planning to implementation to collecting feedback. At the same time, I also have self-management skills and practical communication skills. During the independent study, I attended every tutorial and clearly express my process and thoughts with my tutor. However, I also have many shortcomings. For example, my self-reflection and summary ability and critical thinking need to be strengthened. Both in this MA course and after graduation, these two abilities are crucial. Equally, I have learned a lot about the project so far. First of all, I have a deeper understanding of the methodology of this MA course and the meaning of my project. It’s a spiral process that keeps asking questions, practicing, and then evolving through feedback. This process requires the ability of self-reflection and review as well. Secondly, it helps me better understand this industry and my career after I graduate. In the journey of unit two, through interventions from different angles and methods, I gradually found a direction to make my project more meaningful, which is to create a ‘rope’ for art graduates, instead of only from the perspective of the exhibition. Thirdly, I learned some new knowledge that I didn’t know before, such as Art market, Synesthesia, Colour-emotion associations, and Colour- sound associations and so on. Fourth, technically I learned how to use sound editing software.
