failure – Sidi's Journey

Intervention 7 – A workshop – feedback, reflection and model iteration

Conclusion: In this intervention, I found and verified the difference/gap between art practitioners and students. People have better interpersonal skills, cooperation skills, and independent thinking skills after work. In addition, because of the specificity of students’ identities (innocence, ego mentality, not having experienced the cruelty of society), it isn’t easy to make them realize the importance of other abilities in the development model. It’s hard to change them (this is also where this intervention failed.) But this failure made me think about this model’s place, before graduation, after graduation or after work. I failed in changing the student participants, but this model gave two other (art practitioners) more thought about their ability development, which I did not expect. In addition, the sample size of this workshop is relatively small, which cannot fully explain the problem. This needs to be further studied by enlarging the sample size. At the same time, I found a new ability that I could consider adding to my model: endurance/tolerance.

Introduction: I designed a series of multiple task based on my career model. Each question has one correct choice which represents one ability. I plan to ask participants these questions and ask them to answer them and explain why. Also observe how they answer the questions to find out the differences between them. And try to make student participants aware of the differences between themselves and art practitioners and think about those differences.

Audience: I invited two art practitioners who has fine art background and one fine art background student who study in Italy right now.

My goal: 1) to verify the difference between art practitioners and students. 2) to change student’s thought about develop other abilities in a all around way. 3) to discover other abilities that I didn’t notice before and develop my career model.

Record:

Participant’s answers:

1. Organization ability

Please give your answer after carefully considering the logic and possible consequences.Imagine you are painting at home and the following things happen at the same time. In what order would you tackle them?

1)The doorbell rings.

2)Two cats next to you suddenly fight, and it is hard to separate.

3)The phone rings.

4)The bathtub is about to overflow.

5)You’ve spilled your paint and it’s about to spill on the floor.

correct answer: 2-5-4-1-3

Sirui: 5-1-4-3-2, I am not a organized people.

Yuchen: : 5-3-1-2-4, I think I am more organized at work than in life.

Muzi: 5-4-1-2-5, I’m an impulsive person.

2. Interpersonal skills/communication ability

Suppose you commission a gallery/institution to sell your work and they tell you that five copies were sold last week, you will…..

A. Feel happy and keep working on it.

B. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers.

C. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers, and try to contact them when appropriate.

correct answer: C

Sirui: A

Yuchen: C

Muzi: C

3. Cooperative ability

Suppose you need to select a project. One is to complete a painting project independently, the other is to work as a team. These two projects require the same amount of time and energy for you. Which one would you prefer?

A. Independent project, reason…

B. Team project, reason…

Correct answer:B

Sirui: A, I don’t like to socialize. I just want to do my thing.

Yuchen: A, I don’t want to spend time and energy communicating with others, and I want to minimize unnecessary misunderstandings.

Muzi: A/B, I can’t decide. On the one hand, I don’t like to communicate with others. On the other hand, I think team work can expand my network and help me in my future work.

4. Independent thinking

You are drawing a painting to be marked at the end of the term. Your teacher, whom you like and admire very much, gives you some suggestions, but you are not sure whether the teacher’s suggestions are right. What will you do?

A. Continue to work on your original idea

B.Try to revise it as the teacher suggested

C.Seek other people’s suggestions and revise them after comprehensive consideration

Correct answer: C

Sirui: B, If I have no idea, I will certainly listen to the teacher, after all, I don’t want to fail.

Yuchen: B, If the revision is not too complicated, I will follow the teacher’s advice.

Muzi: C, When I was a student, I chose A, but now I choose C.

5. A Commitment to Curiosity

Imagine that your friend has created a new piece of work to share with you, this is the style that you don’t like. How would you respond?

A.Give a false compliment.

B. Directly express that you don’t like the work.

C. Although I don’t like this style, I still try to see the advantages of others and give affirmation.

Correct answer: C

Sirui: A, As long as it is my good friend, no matter how he draws, I will praise him.

Yuchen: C, I think there must be something I can learn, like composition, color, whatever.

Muzi: A, I’m going to go for A.

Q：What do you think has changed the most between your student years and now?

Muzi: I think my tolerance has gotten better. I used to be more intuitive and impulsive. But now I’m more patient.

Yuchen: I work in a game company, and I think I’ve also improved my tolerance, as well as my ability to cooperate and communicate

Q：I have just interpreted my model, and you can also see the difference between you and the other two participants in the process of the workshop. Would you consider developing more of your other abilities now?

Sirui: I’m not going to develop anything else right now. I think I’m still focus on myself.

Q: For example, you and the other two participants gave different answers to the second question about the gallery helping you sell your paintings. Will you still choose A without contacting the buyers?

Sirui: Yes, I was afraid of offending the gallery, and there was no point contacting the buyer. The gallery is in charge of selling, they are more professional,I think it’s enough that I just paint.

Try to contact the Blogger – Sophia

I found a Blogger who interviewed 100 artists and share her story and insights on social media. Then I tried to contact her and ask some advice. Alought she refused my request for an interview online, I still found some information valuable in her blog.

One point she mentioned make sense:

A lot of artists are shy and not good at talking about money, thinking that focus on creation is more pure. But every artist has the right to know where his work has gone and who has collected it. You should not be afraid to communicate with collectors, and ask galleries and partner institutions for the list of collections. It’s not necessary but it shouldn’t be avoided. Both galleries and artists are mobile and two-way. Both parties should cooperate professionally and protect yourselves.
Sophia said

What she said inspired me to design the test about communication ability. I design the quiz like this:

Q: Suppose you commission a gallery/institution to sell your work and they tell you that five copies were sold last week, you will…..

A. Feel happy and keep working on it.

B. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers.

C. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers, and try to contact them when appropriate.

correct answer: C

So, if they chose C, which means they have good communication abilities, and vice versa.

Reflective Journal – first failure intervention

In my first intervention, I try to create a brochure about how to create a business account by interviewing successful people. I successfully interviewed three people (my previous classmates who did very well), while other famous artists who didn’t know me didn’t reply to my email.

Then I realised that it was a failed intervention. Because I didn’t change anything and successful people won’t tell you their secret.
From this experience, I learned that what is real intervention. Interviewing could be background research or secondary research because it only knows something from others rather than your own experience.
Why it happened? firstly, I think I didn’t understand the meaning of intervention. But it was a good failure, at least I learned what intervention is. Secondly, I think I lack some life or work experiences. I even didn’t notice that successful people won’t share their secrets. I need to be more thoughtful and have more logical thinking. Next time, if I want to know some ‘secrets’ from others, think about why they would like to tell me, what I can offer them, and what profit they can acquire from me.

Intervention 4 – Add melody based on different color-music theory – Feedbacks

1. Please use 3 keywords to describe how you feel after seeing this painting.

A：Hot; Planet; Confused

B：Retro; Psychedelic; Serious

C：Mysterious; Chaotic; Unbalanced

D：Moon; Universe; Touch

E：Space; Remote; Hot

2. Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to this painting from 1 to 5?

3. Please use 3 keywords to describe how you feel after watching the video?

A: Industrial pollution; Steam siren; Noise

B: Serious; Sci-fi; Future

C: Scary; Profound; Supernatural

D: Sad; Countdown; Destination

E: No feelings

4. Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to this painting from 1 to 5?

5. How do you feel about music?

A: Busy port.

B: Serious; it feels like a prelude to a major event.

C: I think it’s mysterious and detached from reality.

D: Sad.

E: Feel like mining.

Comparing the two scoring charts, three people felt that the connection became stronger, and one even felt that the addition of music made him feel less connection.

Comparing the two keywords, I found that after adding music, the audience’s understanding did not change much. Some words are the same (orange part); some words are guided by sound, such as the sound of siren and countdown ( The blue part); some people even think that adding sound will make it feel-less.

There are many researches on the relationship of sound and color, and their theories will be influenced by the author’s own background, cultural environment, time and other factors. Therefore, to a certain extent, what music represents and what color is a subjective personal point of view, and it is not universal.

Sound and images are different media that can give different sensory stimuli. For the next step, I want to test if I use these two media to express the same emotion, even if there is no corresponding relationship between the two, will it enhance the transmission of information?

Intervention 3 – Invite audience to create sound by themselves – Action and feedbacks

Q1: Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to this painting?

Q2: Please use this website to create sounds for this painting. http://www.moodil.com

blackbird+rain(dense)

leaf+white noise

rain(gutter)+wind(steady)+fire(calm)+frog(cricket)+meadow+footfall(snow)

rain(dripping)+water(clam)+forest(eerie)

Q3: Please describe the degree again.

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.

The feedback and reflection of intervention 1

I chose to start with ‘tips’ because I found some students want to build their personal branding by creating an art-business account, but they don’t know how to start it. I also found that some tips provided online are quite general and are not only for art students. So I thought maybe interview the successful person and provide tips could help them.
After I talk it with my tutor, I noticed that successful people wouldn’t share their secrets. (I guess that’s why I sent lots of emails but nobody reply, and I didn’t realize it before.) In addition, the tips I’m offering are not what I or my audience can be successful if we follow it, so this way is useless. And this is not an intervention because it didn’t make the change.