Online communication

Yesterday the movers and shakers and grey old men of the arts industry met at State of the Arts, a conference ‘to debate issues around resilience, audience and the value of arts and culture.’ It was (of course) completely sold out, but this year more than ever you could have been part of the discourse too.

Along with official channels (#SOTA11 and @ace_national, @thersaorg, http://www.facebook.com/thersaorg) Andy Field, Laura McDermott and Hannah Nicklin set up the State of the Arts Flash Conference, under the following manifesto ‘This Flash Conference was driven out of an urge to level the playing field when it comes to discourse around the arts.’ Via Twitter (#SOTAflash) and their website (www.flashconference.co.uk) they were able to represent the views of anyone with a voice who could not be there. A comprehensive audio, image and text archive of the day is up on this site now. In March when the conclusions of State of the Arts are published, this forum will spread these findings like wildfire getting specific information out to a tailor-made audience.
 
Because we now have the freedom to curate our own news. Time was, an entire industry was at the promotional behest of a select few, now with instant communication and networks – which span not only area codes but countries – we can find out what’s going on anywhere in the world almost instantly.
 
In a talk at last year’s Shift Happens, Nicklin hit the nail on the head: ‘Social media…allows us to bypass the big media machine and to pull from the media universe things that we are interested in.’
 
Shift Happens programmer (and Arts Funding ning organiser) Marcus Romer’s yearly conference hosts a myriad of voices spearheading a growing movement to fully develop new online platforms to both produce and experience work.
 
The opportunities are endless with even a luddite like myself experiencing first hand the benefits to be had from this burgeoning online community. Two weeks ago at Devoted and Disgruntled Tom Martin posed the question of ‘Affecting or Effecting; how can D&D get the results of their work across after the event?’
 
Twitter seemed the big online solution (although any other suggestions welcome). The inclusion of Twitter in this years build up proved a great success hinting at a perfect marriage of online and In Real Life soulmates. Both allow for a great democratisation of communication, with status and location proving no barrier to discourse. Hashtags such as #DandD6, #DandD and #DandD0 (specifically for speaking about resultant projects) are enabling people from around the country to continue conversations and programmes they started in those two days in East London, and for people who couldn’t be there to contribute.
 
Another actioning session saw the creation of a Facebook site dedicated to resource sharing between theatre companies across the country. The sharing of resources has never been more necessary. D&D provides a great space for artists to meet face to face, but for some their online networks provide a regular community that they wouldn’t otherwise have.
 
A few nights ago I tweeted the following question ‘How has the online communication revolution helped theatre IRL?’ Within 2 minutes prolific tweeter and theatre artist Aliki Chapple responded passionately ‘All the blogs, & cross-linking. I’m quite isolated, few in my area interested in the same work, I’d have no-one to talk to’. Twitter, Facebook, nings, blogs, forums, podcasts, they all combine into an instantly accessible community of voices, an open space for collective expression and a limitless sharing of ideas. Viva la revolution.