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Mason Bates
What do you think of when you hear the word – symphony?
I am sure these are a few that may come to mind:
Classical
Full
Concert
Beethoven
Crowd management
What?
Try hiding your surprise without choking on an artichoke heart in a ballroom filled with hundreds of Grantmakers with arched eyebrows.
Yet, crowd management shared space with other words such as
acoustic
perfect
string quartet
- and of course, it took the American composer of symphonic music, Mason Bates, to make musical sense of it all. And it took the San Francisco based Del Sol String Quartet to bring everything to life.
We lucky Grantmakers were serenaded by Del Sol who performed Mason’s ”Bagatelles”, a piece for strings and electronica.
“The string quartet,” Mason stepped up to the podium wearing a black leather jacket and a boyish smile. ”is a perfect acoustic creation.”
I love that.
Mason spoke about the challenge of putting a string quartet in new spaces. The difficulties in acoustics, outreach, managing audience engagement and expectations. And at the same time, there is the intriguing possibilities in creating a “hybrid musical event” such as his Mercury Sol.
Picture this, or rather, listen to this:
Consider a traditional musical group, such as the Chicago Symphony or the San Francisco Symphony, who work on artistic programs and invest in large marketing campaigns to prepare audiences for what they are going to hear and shape their expectations.
Now consider a newer musical group such as Mercury Sol, who work with stagecraft, lighting and technology to create immersive experiences for audiences and project program notes and somehow make the artist part of the audience. The sounds of a string quartet playing slowly drifts into a new space, gradually there is a change in perception, a light projection draws everyone to a point of focus.
There you have it. Crowd Management in the key of C.
About the Author: Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer writes about how to be a nimble nonprofit, make life creative and make a difference at www.hoongyee.com.
She is also the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. Hoong Yee can be found surfing in the Rockaways whenever there are waves.
Do you want to know the fears, visions of perfect worlds and world changing advice of your peers and keynote speakers?
I have a special bonus post for you of interviews I conducted with people during the conference. Just leave me a comment with your email or better still, subscribe at www.hoongyee.com and get my interview post and new style notes for people who change the world delivered to your inbox.
Alyce Myatt
They say the fastest growing population of video game players are women over 60.
“Oh my God I’ll never be get there!” a woman in the back of the room was clearly overwhelmed by the though of disappointing her demographic.
“Well, that’s because you aren’t 60 yet,” Marian Godfrey, one of the organizers of “Don’t Get Pwnd! A Video -Gaming Salon For Grantmakers” held at the Grantmakers In The Arts 2011 Conference, smiled soothingly as we all collegially chuckled, relieved that we all had a little more time to spend with our Playstations. ”We’ll throw you a party in an arcade.
“My goal, as a game designer, is to create a mind expanding experience for people with rich inner lives.”
Such a game would not be a time eating/time filling activity. It would include:
- A system of rules
- Simulation
- A tiny toy version of our universe
- What if?
- A recreated new history of the world
Interesting objective for someone who gained financial success from Braid, his video game about manipulating time. Jonathan Blow, an independent video game designer, describes it as an engaged exploration of ethics and consequences.
Jonathan Blow
Even more interesting.
Jon began making small independent art games around 1996, riding the video wave. Several years ago, he founded the Indie Fund, a source of funding with the goals of supporting people who want to make art games and to move the field forward. This fund is intentional user friendly, awarding grant amounts ranging from 10k to 200k with an open submission process and a simple application asking for:
A short description of the game describing what the game is and how you interact with it
A YouTube video of a playable prototype
He looks for skill in making games and something he calls the “quality standard gene” which he says is, “very important and rare to find.”
Of five funded projects, two came from the open process. The rest were people he knew from the field.
There is a low acceptance rate, 1% to a third of 1%.
What is a video game?
Definition: mainstream video games are screen visuals that react with viewers’ input. In coin-op games, a player receives a fun experience in exchange for coins. A skinner box that runs slot machines gives rewards in unknown amounts at unknown times to a player which sets off triggers that can become addictive. Is this ethically bankrupt?
Definitely intriguing: the action that happens between frames of a comic book
Alyce Myatt, director, Media Arts, NEA, shook her head and said with a sigh, “The cycle is the same. Independent films experienced a similar shift.”
The NEA now funds:
- games
- mobile apps
- satellite delivered content
- electronic art delivery
About 360 proposals were received with requests ranging from 15k to 200k. ”The process got people thinking” said Alyce. She was delighted to see applications come from across disciplines demonstrating how media is embedded in artmaking and in growing audiences.
“Philanthropic dollars are the only risk capital in this country.”
There are several challenges:
- Production and development – attending game development conferences are expensive, admission ranging between 2k to 4k. Alyce stressed how important it is for grantmakers to be at these gatherings. Is there funding for travel to conferences such as SXSW and Indie K?
- Distribution – a marketing plan takes time and intense effort. A game faces the challenge of bottlenecks when trying to get to the market. Alyce suggested exploring the possibility of getting a graduate student with marketing skills. Is there funding for marketing fellowships?
- Open video movement – this helps to get games out to larger audiences. Grantmakers should be funding these initiatives.
Questions from the bewildered:
How deeply can we understand the artistic process and value of making games when making funding decisions? How can we learn from this?
Jon:
Play games. Don’t get hung up in the “tooliness” of the tools. It is better to allow someone to explore, broaden an experience, knowledge, context and be immersed in it.
Alyce:
We need an independent nonprofit game community and public media for the stability and the benefit of society.
Ron:
Think of games as novels that ask big questions of humanity and the way we see each other
About the Author: Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer writes about how to be a nimble nonprofit, make life creative and make a difference at www.hoongyee.com.
She is also the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. Hoong Yee can be found surfing in the Rockaways whenever there are waves.
Do you want to know the fears, visions of perfect worlds and world changing advice of your peers and keynote speakers?
I have a special bonus post for you of interviews I conducted with people during the conference. Just leave me a comment with your email or better still, subscribe at www.hoongyee.com and get my interview post and new style notes for people who change the world delivered to your inbox.
Christian Greer
We are tech heads, not lab rats.
Well, there you have it.
That is what kids felt about themselves as they entered the space Christian Greer of the Chicago Community Trust created for youth to explore games, music DJ-ing and app development.
In New York, the New York Community Trust learning network, HIVE, developed a project with the NY Hall of Science that helped kids become citizen activists. They travelled throughout Flushing, New York armed with smartphones with probes designed to measure CO2 content, air quality, collect data and report back on their findings. They developed a public relations program about the risk of idling vehicles on the streets and they became lobbyists who pestered the CEO of NYSCI to move buses off the street.
Be careful what you wish for.
Kerry McCarthy
In a session presented by Kerry McCarthy of the New York Community Trust, Christian Greer and Stephanie Schipper of The Mozilla Foundation talked about the opportunities and the challenges of how kids can use digital media constructively and how funders can work in a networked philanthropic landscape.
In 2011 and 2012, the New York Community Trust made grants to middle and high schools that linked youth, art, science, museums, libraries and new partners with the intent to gain insight to the community, extend into the five boroughs and to serve the most disadvantaged kids. Was it possible to create an innovative process where learning happened anytime, anywhere that could scale? And could this happen on their preferred devices where they become creators?
A project involving the New York Public Library and Global Kids involved kids in a social media scavenger hung by using QR codes on iPads. This initiative, piloted in the Bronx, challenged kids to build a game to find and discover things such as, where did Edgar Allen Poe live?
The enduring question is how to replicate such projects in other branches and in other boroughs.
Stephanie Schipper
Stephanie, just a few days into her new position at Mozilla as the VP of Web Strategy, said that the goal of Mozilla is to leverage open networks of people to create things. In 2003, Internet Explorer had 97% of the market share. The Mozilla browser was created to safeguard the open web. The Firefox open source browser is open for participation. This open source philosophy can be applied to learning. As a platform of created opportunities, scaffolding and shared mission, Mozilla engages large networks to amplify impact. The Mozilla Foundation’s goal is to support the next generation of web makers.
Here’s a cool idea: X Ray Goggles
With X Ray Goggles, you can look at the actual structure of the web and remix it in real time. For example, you can go to the Google home page and replace the Google logo. The goal of this program is to encourage people to think of the web as something they can make changes to and to create things out of and to facilitate the use of co-creating products such as Hackasaurus.
Here’s what is highly encouraged:
early fail often models
bringing learners to co-create products
de-scarifying the process
About the Author: Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer writes about how to be a nimble nonprofit, make life creative and make a difference at www.hoongyee.com.
She is also the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. Hoong Yee can be found surfing in the Rockaways whenever there are waves.
Do you want to know the fears, visions of perfect worlds and world changing advice of your peers and keynote speakers?
I have a special bonus post for you of interviews I conducted with people during the conference. Just leave me a comment with your email or better still, subscribe at www.hoongyee.com and get my interview post and new style notes for people who change the world delivered to your inbox.
F. Javier Torres, Tim Dorsey and Roberto Bedoya
Have you ever sat at the edge of the pool with a bunch of friends waiting to see who would jump in first?
“Is this the gayest chandelier you ever saw?”
Tim had everyone in the Pavilion Room looking up at a verpitzt lighting fixture hovering heavily above us.
Welcome to Grantmaking with a Racial Equity Lens, a salon session organized by Justin Laing of the Heinz Foundation.
No question, racial equity is a highly charged topic that brings people together with complex emotions simmering beneath their conference badges. No question, we work in a dominant society that is managing our system of race and culture. It is structured racialism, poverty and colonization, all the time.
“We must commit to rootwork. To constantly question powerbrokering.” said Tim. I like that word rootwork. In my mind I imagine deep questioning and determined fistfuls of newer ideas.
Lynn Stern of Surdna described her foundation’s working challenges in supporting “artistic training for young artists, building a training pipeline through college and investing in art colleges committed to outreach and scholarships to targeted populations. There is currently no conversation where a racial equity lens is used. Another question is how to fund small community based organizations. Surdna’s grantmaking mechanism with a budget of $7.5 million has 3 staff members. How can we become familiar with the field? Should we be working with intermediaries?”
Justin Laing
Justin spoke of a racial framework of “your people and you”. This is why culture doesn’t work. He sent a survey that explored whiteness to colleagues and family. There was no response. OK, so I am thinking that whiteness, another highly charged and potentially polarizing topic, cannot be something you ask people to examine without setting up a little context. Blacks have had way more time discussing racial identity.
As Gary Vaynerchuk of VaynerMedia says, “Content is king. Marketing is queen and she rules the house. But context is the heir apparent.”
Clearly we all know the current context and challenges racial equity and social justice pose in our field. Michelle Coffey of the Lambent Foundation suggests “working with critical research partners to help us in our challenge facing race.” She says, “Our concept of race is still dated. We need stronger partners. We are flawed.”
Justin describes a capacity building initiative that identifies young leaders of color by asking the following questions:
- Who are they and what are they doing?
- What is the logic model, the scorecard, the projected impact?
- What resources do they need?
- What about people with disabilities?
- What is their branding, messaging, communications plan?
- Is there a dashboard with quarterly benchmarks for assessment?
- Do they have a strong board?
- What is their fundraising plan?
Huong Vo of Boeing raised the question of individual strategy.
“Don’t you get tired of being the one who has to be indignant about racism just because you are the person of color on staff?”
There is always the spectre of consequences and repercussions – financial, emotional, psychological – when you challenge an unacceptable statement or action, when we summon up personal courage to own our actions.
Perhaps there are other ways to work with colleagues and board members such as challenging imagery that portray white people as donors and privileged, and people of color as receivers and less fortunate.
We need to speak as a group more often, more knowledgeably.
So come on in, the water’s fine.
About the Author: Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer writes about how to be a nimble nonprofit, make life creative and make a difference at www.hoongyee.com.
She is also the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. Hoong Yee can be found surfing in the Rockaways whenever there are waves.
Do you want to know the fears, visions of perfect worlds and world changing advice of your peers and keynote speakers?
I have a special bonus post for you of interviews I conducted with people during the conference. Just leave me a comment with your email or better still, subscribe at www.hoongyee.com and get my interview post and new style notes for people who change the world delivered to your inbox.
Is There More To Life Than Donuts And Bingo?
Tim Carpenter
Tim Carpenter does.
Tim, the radio host of Experience Talks and the 2011 Winner of the James Irvine Leadership Award, also believes there must be more for people than bingo and donuts in their later years. He tells the story, of course he does – he comes from an Irish Catholic family where storytelling was a competitive sport. The older people told better stories so he sat at that end of the dinner table.
“Retirement is like college. It is a launching period. Free time. Time to ask yourself, ‘OK, what do I do now?‘”
Tim grinned at his co conversationalist, Mark Freedman, the author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters In The Second Half Of Life at a session organized by Rohit Burman entitled The Big Shift: The Velocity Of Change In America’s Aging Society.
Rohit Burman
“An acre of time.” I love that phrase.
What would you put in this acre of time?
They spoke about developing buildings around programs that get people out doing stuff. Including college level programs and workforce development for artists, building an artist colony. Asking the question – what if you could live here among artists?
Marc Freedman
“Age is a time to bloom, a time of great fertility. A time to celebrate their best work when they are ‘over the hill’. People think genius happens early in life but actually many artists were late bloomers such as Cezanne. Priorities are affected by the sense of mortality which people experience as a compression of time, a heightened sense of time left to live. Relationships deepen, spirituality attracts. ” said Marc. ”It is the trifecta of mortality, longevity and urgency.”
“The process of becoming something is more interesting.” Tim said. ”Suzanne, a woman in her mid 60′s, single mom with 2 kids, was ‘old before her time‘. She attended my writing class and wrote a 12 page screenplay about the challenges and needs of aging called Bandida. I remember thinking to myself ‘please don’t stink’. But it was good. And we made it into a film that was eventually shown by Ira Glass on This American Life.
This answers the question ‘Where does funding have impact?’ Suzanne is a new person, a mentor and teacher to others. This is why we need optimism, something Marc often speaks of.”
Marc shook his head. ”I worry that we feed the notion of magical reinvention, that there is a genius inside waiting to pop out. What is a more realistic vision for us? Perhaps a reintegration of preexisting goals and ideas, more an extension of what you already are.”
“There is a need for arts in the schools to build these skills early, to get art experiences and to connect older artists with kids,” said Tim.
“What about that gap year we have at 18 and 19? What if we had a disruptive creative period of time in our 50′s. It could be a period of renewal focused on the arts. Could we build in a leap year, a gap year. In the UK, 200,00 people are grey gappers.” Marc smiled. ”You could have an encore career, a second career after 50.”
“How do you get one of those?” asked Tim.
Marc said, “We need the arts to give a realistic vision to this new phase of life. There is a lack of focus on this time. There is a second group between midlife and elderly old age with no arts avenue. Their challenge is to reimagine the shape of living.”
They closed with this:
“60 is the new 60. Live your legacy.”
About the Author: Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer writes about how to be a nimble nonprofit, make life creative and make a difference at www.hoongyee.com.
She is also the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. Hoong Yee can be found surfing in the Rockaways whenever there are waves.
Do you want to know the fears, visions of perfect worlds and world changing advice of your peers and keynote speakers?
I have a special bonus post for you of interviews I conducted with people during the conference. Just leave me a comment with your email or better still, subscribe at www.hoongyee.com and get my interview post and new style notes for people who change the world delivered to your inbox.
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