In order to identify good art, you would first need to know what actually makes a good art. Will the amount of rehearsal hours ensure good art? Will the type of actors or musicians or dancers or artists hired, ensure that the piece of art is a good art? Can the kind of directors, scriptwriters, choreographers roped into the project guarantee that the piece of work can be considered as good art? How about the kind of backstage crew; they are the backbones of any production—will hiring good backstage crew ensure that good art is produced? Will the type of paints or that certain brand of wood ensure that good art is made?
Next, imagine that you are an audience, and as you walk into the gallery or the theatre, what are some of the things that will catch your eyes? Is it the cute guy who tears your ticket at the entrance? How about the comfortable seats in the theatre itself? Will you be distracted in an art gallery should there be some smell of food, or if someone were to wear a strong-scented perfume? What if the lights used in the art gallery is too glaring or too harsh in its colour? I mean we all know what happens when one is to take a photo under a white fluorescent light. In the words of Mariah Carey, nothing is more cruel than being asked to have your flaws magnified and highlighted by the fluorescent bulbs. If the audience space were to be situated two or three floors above the lobby area, and you end up having to climb the steps because no lifts or escalators are built in; how will that affect your mood, prior to the start of the performance
Speaking of pre-show expectations, imagine you have just paid, maybe about $50 for a ticket to watch a performance or maybe a gallery showing, what will you expect to get out of the performance or the gallery showing? Also, if the purchasing of the tickets were to be complicated, requiring you to travel somewhere inconvenient to collect the tickets, days before the event date, do you think your expectations towards the creative work will change? What about the additional charges that will ultimately push the costs of the tickets itself, you know things like service charge, taxes imposed, printing of tickets charges… how will that change your evaluation of a performance, or a gallery showing?
The reasons as to why I would even ask these questions is for us to reflect on our own experiences; as much as we want to acknowledge or deny the facts, arts is indeed subjective and your evaluation of a piece of work will be affected by the different factors I have raised above. In fact a study have shown that tickets pricing and the convenience of getting the tickets will affect the expectations an audience has towards a piece of work; and this makes sense if were to apply the input and output theory, whereby if you put in a lot of effort into getting something, then you’d expect the payoff to be just as good, if not better. Otherwise, you’d feel like you have been cheated, and that is when you’d have terms like daylight robbery being used to describe a certain ticket sold for a certain concert/ performance/ gallery showing.
As such, many show promoters/ organisers go to great length to ensure the convenience of their targeted audience to get their tickets and to get to the location where the event is held; not that they didn’t believe in the quality of the art work being worthwhile, but everyone wants to be evaluated on equal ground without any external factor affecting the evaluation by the audience. To match this, many ticketing companies have stepped up by promising added-on services such as ticket delivery or mailing of digital tickets to the patrons’ individual emails to ensure that the art patrons no longer have to go through the hassle of putting aside a date to collect their tickets.
So how does one ensure that the audience will recorgnise their piece of work as good art? Ensure convenience and affordability for the patrons. That is step #1.
Note: This the first part of a three part series. Follow us to read all three parts.
0 comments:
Post a Comment