All the way from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Associate Professor at the School of Media and Communication, David Carlin talked to us about a collaborative project between the university and Circus Oz – the Living Archive.
Arts organisations are, to a growing extent, becoming digital media producers so there's a growing need to have somewhere to store – and indeed show-off – past work. It's fairly simple to guess from the name that the Living Archive is a place for Circus Oz to house their videos, photos and memories (the public can add comments which the site labels 'stories', which is a nice touch) of past performances.
It's a great idea – though I'm not convinced by some of the execution. The user interface and navigation seem clunky, and the site's not responsive, making it very awkward to use on a mobile, which is a shame. (I can't help but think like a designer!)
I'm also unsure if the videos being hosted on the site itself, rather than somewhere a bit more public like YouTube or Vimeo, is ideal. This surely restricts the number of people who'll randomly and happily stumble-upon the films?
Still; the fact this stuff is publicly available at all, rather than sat in storage getting dusty and forgotten, is a good thing.
What I actually found more interesting/useful than the project itself, however, were the prompts about the project process on David's slides:
Let yourself ask "What if …?"
I guess this involves allowing a bit of time within a project to be playful and think creatively. Don't start with barriers; those will invariably come later!
Build the team to make, and to think
As a collaboration between a university and an arts organisation, the project team was comprised of people with a great breadth of skills; from information design to cultural heritage, performance studies to computer science. Everyone in the team had a clearly defined role, which is important – when folks lose sight of their purpose, there's a very real danger of a project stalling, over-running and/or being watered-down.
It's a process, not a product
Yes! The Living Archive is by its nature a work-in-progress. It's ever-growing and changing. It's not set-in-stone. 'Process not product' is something I think people are starting to their heads around when it comes to online stuff; the ability to continuously – almost seamlessly – develop something is a great strength and a major opportunity.
Build buy-in from the inside out
Another reference to the importance of internal communication, which is often thought of as secondary … if it's thought about at all. It's vital that an organisation's people are considered and consulted, and that they understand what a project – or indeed an organisation – is all about. (As mentioned in the final paragraph of my other circus-related AMA Conference post.)
The Living Archive has been built to be easy for Circus Oz to add-to, and also easy to alter the look of – they're currently working on a 'vanilla' version to license-out to other organisations.
It remains to be seen whether it will work for others – my feeling is it'd certainly need some user interface design work, and be made mobile-friendly, before it's an appealing enough product – but, for Circus Oz at least, its Living Archive is a big asset … which just keeps getting bigger!
