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)
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.
After I read this article, I was thinking can I expand the demand for artworks by creating a concept? I guess the home decoration market is good to start.
A lot of people will not consider buying art as decoration when they are decorating their homes. Or, some may choose to buy a printed or mass-produced work of art rather than an original work.
Can I expand the demand for original art by 1）creating a concept： using original artwork to decorate your home is essential. 2) providing a reference for those who don’t know how to choose artworks. (such as hanging children illustrations in the kids’ room, modern abstract paintings in the living room, landscape paintings in the old person room).
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.
I made a draft brochure as my early intervention. The content of this booklet comes from an interview with the first dragon. I also found some articles on the Internet that provide guidance on how to operate a business social account, those guidance is general and not aimed at art graduates. But some of the tips inside can also be used for reference. I plan to combine the valuable information online with the information obtained from my own interviews as the content of my brochure.
In addition, I will sent this brochure to some key audiences (Those art students who are currently operating or plan to earn income by operating business social accounts ) and seek some feedbacks.
