Module 1: main question and responses…

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1. If you were to ask what the definition of art is, the responses you would get would vary in vast degrees. I have traveled to some of the most famous museums across Europe. There are some works that I thought were completely incredible, and others I didn’t understand how it could be called “art.” I distinctly remember one work, it was an enormous canvas just painted a deep red color. I did not take in any emotions from this work, but to the creator of that work, they have many reasons why it is artwork to them. Every culture has a diverse art form, which is amazing. One of my favorite things to do is seek see the art forms in different country’s that represent their culture. But beyond culture, diversity can be based on gender, economics, and age. When you mention the words cultural diversity, I think of the time I performed in military tattoos. My American band played with bands from varying country’s all over the world. We all have different styles of playing, and varying interpretations of the music, but we came together to give an amazing product to our audience. Art is a way of expressing your soul, in a way that words cannot. Some do it through paintings, ceramics, sculpting, and others through dance movements, musical instruments, their words.
   I took away quite a bit with the video “Building participation with the arts.” The statement “There is a strong connection what happens onstage and the individual sitting in the audience,” stuck out to me. Art participation can be almost anything involved in arts. Take musicians for instance. The composer, what or who the composer was influenced by in creating the work, the musicians, the conductor, the person copying the music, the ushers at the venue, the list can go on. All of there “jobs” are needed to give the end result to the listeners attending the concert.
   Transmedia has progressed over the past several years, and more and more people turn to it when advertising, looking for an art venue to attend, or or capturing an audience across the world. Anyone can go online and see what the Polish Philharmonic is performing this season, at any hour of the day. It is an amazing revelation what we can do on the internet now a days when you really take a second to think about it. Recent influx in Social media Sites and you tube videos has given the arts industry a way to get their product out, and the perspective audience a way to see exactly what they are going to attend. Transmedia can really give anything a positive or negative connotation, something I always think. If you read a bad review on an exhibit or play you are interested in seeing, you automatically have thoughts going into it, and might even persuade you not to see it. The opposite can also happen if you read a positive review via transmedia.

2. 1.- What counts as “participation”: curating, collecting, critiquing, teaching, doing, attending, etc.?
   From looking at the module 1 materials, it seems that “participation” is everything except the actual creation, so all of the above actions and many others would apply. This has a lot to do with the professionalization of the arts and how the artist can be affected by these pressures. While this is an unfortunate reality, the importance of participation cannot be overstated. Artists often take on this separate role of the participant and it is through this active support that many organizations continue to thrive and provide opportunity for more art.

   2.- How do we engage with concepts of diversity across practices and backgrounds?
   The artist is almost never an island. Creators have to rely on a variety of people- managers, audience, suppliers, critiques, technicians, etc. This is particularly true in the theatre. All of these individuals and their professional skills and backgrounds factor into the final product. There is also the multicultural definition of diversity, which applies in audience reception and among the people involved in the project.

   3.- How does the concept of transmedia interact with these practices?
   My understanding of transmedia essentially cross-disciplinary/multimedia storytelling. This concept is thus very interwoven with the ideas of participation and diverse practices. Transmedia is often about bridging the gap between artist and audience, whether it’s by creating a strong emotional connection or actively involving the participants. This calls for both participants and a myriad of professional skills. The cultural component thus also factors in with how the final product is received and who is involved in the project. The complex combination of experiences and skills is what ultimately creates transmedia.

3. There can be this assumption that the only real way to “participate” with the arts is to either be an artist or go to a museum or the theater but what the webcast of “A Conversation about the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts” highlighted very nicely was that that is only one way or one aspect of how to participate with art. That there are many different forms of participation just like there are many different forms of art and that there is no one correct method. While institutions that support and produce art has been given more weight throughout the years, that doesn’t invalidate other venues or other artistic forms of expression. I think that with art things shouldn’t be an either/or situation. Art, to me, is about engaging people in a way that isn’t passive but rather an active process. And by an active process I don’t mean turning around and creating art professionally, not that there’s anything wrong with that but by experiencing art in whatever form it’s presented and having some sort of self discovery and connection.
   As a virtual consumer of art worlds, the concept that Nick Rabkin brought up during the webcast of people’s tendencies to think of art as a “noun” and not as “verb” was one of the clearest explanations of the perceived differences that come with transmedia and participation of art that I have ever heard. Often times when thinking about art only something that is physical or tangible comes to mind, the objects that are made or performances that are presented. But art is more than just the final product, it’s the process of how it came to be and it’s the active experience that both the artist and the observer go through. And I think that with art being produced in so many different platforms and having access to works from all over the globe makes the participation easier and less intimidating. With art programs being cut in schools, transmedia and community programs are excellent ways to engage people and give children and young adults creative outlets. Writing workshops, painting classes, community driven performances are just a few of the many ways in which art can become accessible to anyone regardless of their background or economic status and can really allow those involved to feel connected to what they are creating.

4. The participatory practices that constitute all things art are inescapably shaped by the environment in which “art” is created, as well as received. Art is experienced from all those who come in contact with it, regardless of intention.
   For this reason I identified greatly with the Fletcher article. His re-structuring of a Social Practice Art program from the traditional model of the Art Studio program reinforces the fact that art lacks impact when created in a vacuum.
   I completely agree with Alanna that arts participation involves much more than the creator and the audience. Art is woven in to the fabric of society and its effectiveness lies in its ability to influence both directly and indirectly.

5. When it comes to art, art worlds, and experiences, I do not believe “participation” is the best term to use on its own. While there are benefits to using participation as a way to describe these art worlds and experiences, it denotes a physicality to the act of participating. “Participatory” situations may be more common in the performance arts, while “observational” situations may be more common in the visual arts (Thomas Turino’s “Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation” is an interesting reference for participatory vs observational).
   The most important aspect of bringing together art, art worlds, and experiences is the human connection. This was touched upon within the module materials, especially the video “Building Participation in the Arts: Arts WA Arts Participation Leadership Initiative”. Because of its importance, I think that “connection” is a term that is becoming more versatile in art worlds and experiences alongside “participation”. You can connect with art as an audience member, artist, curator, collector, critic, educator, etc. in varying degrees and mediums. In this way, transmedia is no longer simply a way of producing art, but also connecting to it. And with the expansion of how people connect to art and art experiences, the diversity of the backgrounds and disciplines of people who connect with a certain experience increases.
   The use of connection and its many adjectives, such as human or emotional, in conjunction with participation in the arts, art worlds, and experiences allows us to consider the relationship between people and art in a broader sense as transmedia has allowed us to produce and experience art in a broader sense.

6. The art world is an ever vast and ever changing landscape. As a result, the ways in which we, as a society, participate in various art forms is also a fluid and changing concept. Traditionally, we might think that to participate in art one would have to attend a performance or go to a museum, to be a performer or an artist painting a portrait. However, in our ever vast and ever changing technological society, where we are constantly looking for new ways to engage audiences in the arts, the traditional forms are not always the case. Perhaps, a theory of aesthetics can help us to best understand how we might measure participation in the arts. In the chapter “Aesthetics, Aestheticians, and Critics” from Becker’s Art Worlds Becker indicates that a sound aesthetic not only standardizes artistic practice, but helps to maintain values (Becker, 1982). This well-formed aesthetic, according to Becker, then leads art world participants, who are in agreement about it to “act toward it in roughly similar ways. [since] An aesthetic, provid[es] a basis on which people can evaluate things in a reliable and dependable way, [and] makes regular patterns of cooperation possible” (Becker, 1982, p. 134). Therefore, our artistic aesthetic informs our artistic practice. Two friends, for example, might both like the same things, but when it comes to music, one friend might prefer country music and another prefer jazz music. But, by being able to articulate their preferences into a coherent aesthetic they are experiencing a participatory practice in the art world.

   In a world where we attempt to utilize aesthetics to define what is art and what is non art, when a new form of art arises that does not conform to our current aesthetic, it can often be met with opposition. According to Becker, “When new styles of art emerge they compete for available space, in part by proposing new aesthetic standards according to which their work merits display in existing facilities” (Becker, 1982, p. 143). New art works may, as Becker indicates, “manipulate the available conventions, perhaps change them or invent new ones, and so produce works which are not just so-so or ho-hum but, rather, are extraordinary” (Becker, 1982, p. 355). These new and experimental art works deserve just as much credit as a Tragedy that follows Aristotle’s rules of Time, Action, and Place, or a perfectly written Petrarchan Sonnet. As artists, we are in an innovative field, and therefore, when someone looks at the traditional conventions and chooses to transform them in order to create the next Oedipus Rex, or Beethoven’s V, we should embrace it.
   Now, when Sophocles wrote Oedipus the concept of transmedia wasn’t even a thought. Nowadays, we are bombarded with transmedia. As artists, we cannot ignore that we live in a digital age and that that will affect how we engage the arts with today’s society. The National Endowment for the Arts website reports that in 2012, 71% of Americans accessed the arts through electronic mediums (National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), “2012 Survey,” 2013).
   It is now through electronic mediums that our society is choosing to participate in the arts. As a result, it is also transforming how we make and share art. Transmedia is now a common way to share photography (NEA, “2012 Survey,” 2013). Transmedia, engages with a participatory culture and allows us all to become participators in the art world. As a result of this, the transmedia world encourages diversity in artistic practices and backgrounds by transforming our traditional concepts of artistic participation.

7. I believe that all the mentioned activities from critiquing, curating, teaching, and attending count as participation. This participation is responsible for the value of the artwork. For example, critiques and aestheticians establish the theories of art, and that helps the audience decide between the good, great, and exceptional work. These participants, which are considered to be members of the art world, do a cooperative activity that results in creating a reputation for a specific artist, or artwork. These members also create the support needed in the world of art.
   As for diversity in the art world, and the different backgrounds, I’ve always believed that art is an international language that connects the different cultures in the world. That could be supported by what Becker, H. S. mentioned in his chapter about reputation, “music and visual art use language that can, in some meaningful sense, be called international.”
   Transmedia with no doubt has increased the spread of artwork through its different formats and platforms. It also helped in developing new audiences by targeting them through their favorite media channels, asking them to engage with its unique content. Transmedia also promotes an appreciation for diversity in the art world because it exposes people to types of art that they would otherwise be ignorant of. This reminds of the international art-lovers who visited the art gallery which I used to work at in Jerusalem. Thanks to transmedia, these art-lovers were able to discover the Palestinian art, which is still in the growing process, and support it in their own way.

8. What participatory practices constitute ‘art’, art worlds, or art experiences?

   It would be hard to name these. The list is both endless and constantly evolving as technology shifts and advances. Participatory practices can range from participating in a open forum that selects a piece of public art to retweeting a post made by Ai Weiwei. Although we can try to pin down this concept, the definition is constantly being altered and redefined by the myriad members to a variety of art worlds, subworlds within art worlds, and further divisions of subworlds. Though one artworld may have a strong sense of what constitutes art and what constitutes participation, there will invariably be another artworld that contradicts that belief.

   What counts as “participation”: curating, collecting, critiquing, teaching, doing, attending, etc.?

   All of the above count as participation. Participation is any act that engages with art. Some acts of participation are more involved, curating for example, while others are more simple, such as showing up to a performance or exhibit. The level of involvement varies, but the label remains.

   How do we engage with concepts of diversity across practices and backgrounds?

   We give minority voices the space and means necessary to tell their story. We take a step back and listen. We don’t try to interpret someone else’s story by placing through our own lens. I think it’s important to recognize when a concept is better left in the hands of the members of that community, and in those cases to ensure that the resources are available for that community to tell its own story in a way that those members feel accurately represents their identity as a group and their identities as individuals.

   How does the concept of transmedia interact with these practices?

   My understanding of transmedia is that it takes a story or concept and spreads it across many different forms of media. This allows users to participate by creating their own content and adding their own voice to the story through a different platform. Transmedia storytelling is very powerful. It engages users and makes work interactive. This is a great example of participatory art and an indicator of where we are headed as art and technology continue to converge and grow. It’s a format that allows interaction to take place on a flat plane, which differs greatly from the hierarchical structure that the art world has traditionally embodied. It allows for more voices of varied backgrounds to speak and to be heard.

9. The definition of “participation” is often watered down to someone who is a working artist, or someone who is contributing physically to the art world. I believe participation has a much broader meaning in our society. As mentioned in the ArtsWA segment, art has been a part of civilization from the beginning. Therefore, we have always participated in art culture. An individual who is actively working to keep art relevant deserves credit. This could mean a person who is emotionally touched by a theatre performance, someone who takes time to appreciate a visual art piece, or someone who creates something meaningful to him or herself.

   I think collaboration is the best way to engage in diversity across practices and backgrounds. Several of the Module 1 articles and resources mentioned collaboration as a means of understanding, disseminating information, and producing the best possible work. I always found the most success when working with a group of several artists from varying backgrounds to create one meaningful piece. Human connection, as Andrea mentioned, is a vital part of engagement. Being able to connect many artists who in turn reach a larger audience would create a more meaningful community.

   Jordan also mentions the idea of artist and audience, specifically about “bridging the gap” through transmedia. The possibility to connect with the artist, as well as other audience members who share the same interest as you, is endless. Most commonly, you will find sites on the Internet for fans to hold discussions, share works, or have direct conversation with the artist. Transmedia allows the most connection between artist, fan, and fellow audience members.

10. While my definition of art may be very different than one found in the dictionary, I truly believe that art is the very expression of the human spirit manifested through either a medium (clay, wood, acrylic), the body (dance, theater, signing), or both. To “participate” in art and it’s varying experiences is simply to bring people together with a common interest or curiosity in mind. It is not so black and white as Becker’s Aesthetics argue it to be, sorting art into comfortable categories of art and non-art, where the traditional tuxedo wearing opera goers or studiously quiet art museum curators are king. Art participation, especially in the 21st century, is whatever brings people out of their homes, allows for socialization, and creates a conversation between individuals. The ArtsWA Participation Initiative is a fantastic example of bringing people together to experience art in a whole new way and building new relationships for future engagement and posterity of the many arts centers featured.
    By diversifying and reaching new audiences, future audiences have the ability grow bigger and more connected because of the different cultures/backgrounds included. A fantastic example of this was shown in the ArtsWA video where one of the companies elected Ambassadors from different Asian/SE Asian communities in the Seattle area to come to events and promote the organization within a community. By bringing other cultures into the art community, it allows for a unique and much welcomed participation within an art form that might not have existed before. Reaching younger students through the ever-changing and dominant force of technology in our society is another challenge that can be remedied with transmedia. By finding new ways to bridge the gap between online and onstage, a new generation of audience members are receiving information about the arts and are encouraged to participate. And excellent example is NPR’s most recent profile picture with the Snapchat ghost, that brings a more modern twist to classic NPR and allows for a wider audience to engage in new learning and discovery.

11. To quote Becker, “aesthetic value arises from the consensus of the participants in an art world.” Therefore, I would think a participant is any person who adds to or creates the aesthetic value of an art world. That goes much further than the artist and the audience, but instead is every person that adds to the value of a particular art or art world. Participants are anyone who is invested in the art. A lot of the material talks about and asks the question of how we get people to become participants, how do we get them invested? As it was stated in the Why Participation Matters video, everyone has a creative seed, how do help nurture it? The concept of transmedia goes hand in hand with the concept of participation because every person learns and engages differently. The use of transmedia can widen the range of participants and add to the overall art world. Every participant has something to add to the art, no two people will approach art or an art world with the exact same passion or knowledge, and that’s what is so great. We can pull from each others knowledge and experiences to add to the value of the art.

12. What participatory practices constitute ‘art’, art worlds, or art experiences?

    Art is a material form of trying to understand the world around us. Someone creating ‘art’ is participating in the art world by simply creating. However, the creation of art is a community effort. The painter could not paint without a canvas, brushes, paint, etc… All of these things were created by someone other than the painter. All of these people are part of an art world, and participated in the activity of making art. The artist happens to be in the middle of a network of people who all contributed to the creation of the final piece of art in one way or another.

    Viewing a piece of art is part the art experience. Creating art is part of the art experience. The art world encompasses the art itself, the artists, the community of participants, the art experience and the aesthetic value.

    What counts: curating, collecting, critiquing, teaching, doing, attending, etc.?

    Participating in the art world can be anything from being the factory that produces the paint or brushes that a painter works with to unintentionally viewing a piece of visual art and forming an opinion of it. There are many people who participate in an art world without even realizing it.

    How do we engage with concepts of diversity across practices and backgrounds?

    Diversity can be difficult for audiences to accept, especially because we have been taught that certain art is “good” and other art is “bad” by critics and the existing aesthetic. A new form of art, or a new style may be seen as non-art if it does not fit in with the established aesthetic. However, media gives artists and creators a platform to show the world diverse and thought provoking creations. They no longer need to wait for a museum or gallery to show their art.

    How do transmedia contexts interact with these practices?

    Transmedia makes it easier for people to participate in and be part of an art world. Through multiple platforms such as books, television, magazines, and social media we are being exposed to works created by artists. Social media opens the door for people who are not considered traditional artists to create and share their creations with thousands or even millions of people. A person who has no training in photographer can gain thousands of followers on Instagram by posting their personal photos.

    Transmedia also makes it easier for people to unknowingly participate in an art world. Everywhere we turn there are images, photos, and videos created by someone else. It is nearly impossible to escape participating in an art world in this modern age of technology.

13. What I think is so interesting about art worlds is that you can’t choose to be a part of them. Thanks to aesthetics, you can be making something and call yourself and artist, but you could be no better off than a high-schooler trying to get in with the “popular kids.” Becker makes it clear that aethetics cannot be overlooked, even though in describing art its unique qualities are often brought to light. In reality, its fine to have a quirk or two as long as either you are already popular or you’re already part of a cool group like band or theater. At the same time, Becker’s message is not one of hopelessness or repetition: new aesthetics form. So while on one hand you need to subscribe to aesthetics to become part of an art world, your original aesthetics may actually generate an art world. Interactive exhibits were not art until recently, only occasionally displayed in places that describe science and/or technology. Now, nearly every art museum has had some kind of interesting interactive exhibit that plays with light or sound or touch. Now there are school programs and galleries and conferences that specialize in that art world.

    While there is a chance your revolutionary idea could generate an art world, Harrell Fletcher takes us back to earth. What happens in the studio is often the free exploration of aesthetic that could generate a new art world (or just a new subgenre of art) but that is not the working life of an artist. Ultimately, we are a society of production and for every 1 art photograph, hundreds (thousands?) of utilitarian photographs must be produced.

    In this way, art as a hobby is actually more practical than art as a career, in spite of the fact that it doesn’t allow you to hone your craft full-time. While this is commonly seen as a disadvantage (hobbyists lament their inability to “make it” while pros lament the mass production of mediocre works by hobbyists), it can actually be advantageous to art consumers. Now, instead of “great works’ which subscribe to the current mainstream aesthetic produced by guilds, we can choose from a seemingly infinite number of hobbyists. An artist may sell her work at a farmer’s market. It gets used on the Oregon Country Fair poster then posted in galleries. It goes from folk appreciation to inclusion in a formal art world. But even that is nearly a traditional tale. I’m far more excited by the art posted and appreciated on deviantArt. Now you can start having your art viewed while you are first learning to draw. An amateur producer may have “followers” and consumers of art can have a huge number of artists that they follow. What’s also interesting about deviantArt is that consumers can participate in the development of the artist via comments, including both technical critiques and aesthetic valuations. The fact that you can actually buy prints is of little significance to the art world of deviantArt. In this way, both the producers and consumers of art are massively more diversified in age, ethnicity, skill, and more than more traditional art worlds.

14. The term “participation” within the artistic universe should be more appropriately deemed “interaction” or “connection.” Ultimately, the arts exist to tell a story and evoke an emotion from a viewer. This can come from a social or political commentary, sarcastic representation, or any variety of content. I find Harrell Fletcher’s response to the interview question: “What comes first, the site, which includes the audience, or the idea?” very intriguing in that he rephrases the concept as “situation-specific.” This discussion can completely alter the answer to the question of what constitutes itself as “participation” in the arts. If the site or audience came first, then the participation lies mostly in the creator and curators only until the final product is placed and executed. Only then can the public interact with the art, but in what way? A museum like the Broad in Los Angeles, although contemporary and aesthetically pleasing, asserts itself as a rather “tight, unadventurous building” as critiqued by Holland Cotter in his review of the Broad museum. Therefore, the site in this situation can make the art seem rather sterile and expected. On the contrary, museums such as the Guggenheim in New York make its site a situation through fluid gallery space. The inner spiral forces the viewer through a formulated path and influences the act of participation to include the procession up to and throughout the exhibits, rather than stop-and-go pockets of art that are typically viewed in a planar box. This changes once art becomes assimilated into the public, pedestrian spaces of cities. Banksy murals or pop-up art installations can assimilate art into everyday life, which I think is an important sector in the art world across the visual and performing arts. Rather than the stuffy, old-school museums or theaters, art can become a participatory activity while only walking to the grocery store or waiting for the bus.
    Diversity, in addition to participation, is vital. Art in all forms can only grow and transform through this. Blurring the lines between two-dimensional and three-dimensional, installation and architecture, ballet and modern is only the beginning of the hybrid possibilities that are fabricating more dynamic artistic ideas. With these fresh conceptions come the creation of new facilities, as stated by Becker in his chapter Aesthetics, Aestheticians, and Critics. With new facilities come new forms of participation and new types of critique from those who are learning from it, experiencing it, managing it, or sharing it on Facebook. A very diverse art piece I am personally interested in at the moment is called Code of Trees, a multi-discipline performance combining the music of Jamie XX, the choreography of Wayne McGregor with the dancers from the Paris Opera, and the art of Olafur Eliasson. While this is a site-specific work, it could be reinvented on a park lawn. The diversity among the aestheticians brought together create one beautiful piece that is whole, and I think it perfectly represents the possibilities of embracing diversity across country lines and medium.
    Transmedia in the art world is becoming more common and making the experience, or “participation,” more personal and more intricate. It, in conjunction with the other concepts presented in the Module 1 readings, make the idea of “art” less defined. With a larger range of art projects being produced, and digital access to these projects all over the world, art in itself is becoming different at the core.

15. In correlation to art and art worlds, we can understand “participation” in a general and broad way as every activity operated by humans that is related to an art world. These ongoing practices constitute our art world and thus our perception and experience of art because it creates and recreates a matrix, which has its stabilizing values and reference points for the participants navigating and acting within this ‘world’.
    Of course, making art and talking about art means actively participating in the art world which involves people like critics, artists, teachers and beholders of art. They act as the representations of institutions or companies, because it is their job to write and/or judge art. Besides these obvious participants, those facilities and areas should be emphasized; this does not immediately come in mind but nevertheless takes an active role in constituting the art world. These are – for example – institutions, universities and private and public collections, which participate in the art world by researching art, giving access to art through displays, or establishing and caring for a collection (of art or an archive of original sheet music). Some of them present and provide new information about particular artworks or contexts of art, which then become the content of the debate about art. Following that, debates about art constitute and reconstitute the matrix of our art world.
    Because we have a very heterogeneous variety of people, groups and ethnicities involved to our art world, the art world has to face the task of dealing with a great diversity of practices and backgrounds. This is why we have a variety of subsystems within our art world. Experiences in the past made clear that judgements and values of art are subjective, moralized and based on a perception of hierarchies of classifications systems; this unfortunately also determines hierarchy of social and cultural systems. Judgements and values of our art world therefore can be changed, based on new perspectives and new ways of interaction and can be encouraged through debates about art and its values. Therefore, debates need the involvement of the greatest variety of people and their social and cultural backgrounds as possible. This is possible using the concept of transmedia. Throughout the variety of medias and their constant use to communicate, transmedia affords new ways of dissemination. The most striking aspect about transmedia is that almost everyone in our society is taking advantage of these resources and interacting with each other throughout the media. People from diverse social and cultural backgrounds now have the platform to communicate, as an extendend way to participate and recreate our art world in a more democratic way.

16. To paraphrase an old saying, art is, ultimately, in the eye of the beholder. As Becker discusses, aestheticians and critics may, in conjunction with artists producing works and historians producing a canon of great works, decide what constitutes “art” and which art is “great art,” they are never going to be able to arrive at an entirely satisfactory definition or set of traits that everyone will agree with. Everyone has their own standards and opinions that will impact their reaction to a piece, and analytical analysis will always have their blind spots, such as the dismissal of naïve and folk art mentioned by Becker in his chapter on Reputation (pgs 367-368).
    Becker argues that this dismissal is because “what those people do it often too different, both in conception and in form, from the art world’s standard practice to be assimilable. It is stigmatized, as well, as being too crazy or eccentric to be taken seriously or as being too connected with the everyday life of common people to be treated as the special work of gifted people called for by the theory of reputation” (368), but that theory grew out of art as practiced during the Renaissance, and is thus based on art as valued by a very specific segment of society, namely upper class Europeans. This excludes art as practiced and valued by large swathes of society, as perhaps best embodied by folk art. While modern institutions are certainly more conscious of ideas of diversity and the value of including art made by diverse artists from around the world, it can certainly feel like the traditional “Great Artists” of Europe receive more recognition than artists from anywhere else in the world when museums such as the Chicago Institute of Art will devote equal amounts of space to the Dutch Old Masters, painters who represent a very narrow time and place, as to the arts of entire continents, regardless of period. This is why organizations such as the Intercultural Leadership Institute that are pushing for cultural equity, and for the artistic outputs of other cultures and traditions are so important – they are forcing established institutions to engage in new ways with a greater diversity of materials.
    Also useful to increasing this diversity of artistic outputs is the increasingly participatory creation of art. While the viewing of art has always been highly participatory – people are needed to curate, collect, critique, and, most importantly, consume the art – the creation of many forms of art have been closed off from all but specialists. As the NEA’s survey shows, most Americans are on some level involved in the consumption of art products, with music being the most popularly consumed and practiced. Modern technology and ideas open the art world up even more to participation by more people, both through methods such as social practice art demonstrated by Harrell Fletcher as well as the ability of people to share their own creations through the internet. YouTube and other sites are filled with people’s covers, remixes, and mashups of other artist’s songs, and sites such as Imgur and Tumblr allow people to share everything from fanart of their favorite series to modern cutup images. The growth and viability of transmedia efforts have not only increased regular people’s ability to participate in the creation of art, rather than simply consuming it, but also the diversity of art produced and subjects depicted.

17. Art by nature is participatory. Both visual and performing artists invite audiences to view, listen, and engage in whatever art forms they art creating. Later, art worlds will put the ‘art’ on display– whether hung in a community art center’s gallery or as a symphony playing for a large audience. Display yields exposure, so art worlds really help to form and solidify some sort of connection between the viewer and the art. They might also participate by encouraging critique/dialogue regarding art works or perhaps through art education.

    What counts as “participation”: curating, collecting, critiquing, teaching, doing, attending, etc.? I think all of the forms of engagement listed above are participatory. Within art worlds, museums and galleries curate shows and exhibitions. Private collectors discover new artists and may eventually curate their own exhibitions as Frick, Morgan, and Gardner did at the Broad Museum. A great example of teaching is within the interview with Harold Fletcher, by Shelly Lewis. The graduate program he created, Social Practice Art, teaches students about alternative ways to think about getting viewers or audiences to participate in art experiences. I think the Social Practice Art degree is so necessary in contemporary society. In my undergrad program of Fine Arts, the number one thing that was not covered and absolutely should have been was how to function in society and sustain ourselves as artists.

    Art connects people with other people. The concept of transmedia promotes maximum potential for art and audiences to connect. Through multiple platforms of delivery, art is naturally able to reach and connect with groups of people that maybe weren’t accessible before or perhaps needed a different delivery channel to be reached.

18. When we think about art, what is the first concept of the mind? I believe that art is certain substance which people express from nature and society. People get a deep understanding of nature and society, also are good at using certain way to create a great art. We usually say art is from life, but I prefer to say life creates art. Art is not an impractical thought, or an abstract word letting people confused. Life is expressed by art, and eventually become complete due to it. Looking back to history, everyone has been creating and enjoying art every day. All the art we create is not only for some purposes, such as music and visual enjoy, but also diverse cultures.
    The view of art experience is very important. Our life in the world is a participatory process with others.

    I believe participation is an active action in people’s mind. It is a way using ideas and actions to infect others. I grew up in a community with diverse cultures in Beijing where 30 different minorities live, such as Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazakh and etc. Consequently, when I was a kid, I usually celebrated different festivals with other minorities, and immersed in their cultures. For me, different cultures are a part of a life that all the things are so familiar and common. The culture from various backgrounds can influence others a lot, such as religion, education, taste, value and habits. Life is a broad participation among people. In this environment, we easily can be changed and influenced by others and so will them.

    There are primarily three types of media. Multiple media consists of kinds of media together while each part is independent. Cross media, is a bridge between two media or among more. Transmedia is a media platform that can link other media to present that means giving a diverse methods for participating.

19. When I think of arts participation, I have difficulty divorcing the act of appreciation and participation (be it viewing, or creating) from the process of consumption. That is, the sale, trade, and purchase of art (read as classically constructed “fine art” – whatever that may be.) Certainly, based on the readings, participation in the arts could include a number of activities ranging from the curation of an exhibit through to individual creation of a piece of music, or street art. But due to an enculturated notion of what constitutes “art,’” I find a difficulty in conception that is deeply rooted in my own expectations of the “art world.” Is collecting constitutive of participation? I suppose by way of a sort of stewardship, it is certainly participation as it allows individual artists the monetary necessities to continue their work. But is the appreciation through collection active participation? Should we differentiate types of participation based on creation? I’m not sure that I’m convinced one way or another.
    Prior to reading the National Endowment for the Arts Presents Highlights from the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts for this course, I would have said that participation in the arts is pretty equal across backgrounds. However noting the disparity in race and ethnic background within varying types of arts participation, I find that diversity in arts participation seems to be contingent on what constitutes participation itself. For example, attending live concert of jazz musicians is cited as being far more likely for individuals of African descent than it is for their Caucasian counterparts. The highlights of the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts demonstrate the need for an expansive definition of arts participation is essential for exploring the diversity of the arts.
    Transmedia appears to open up art worlds – specifically art worlds centered on narrative – due to the frequency of artist ownership. Any individual is capable of creating a narrative space that transverses both the written and visual form, for example. However, after completing the readings, I am wondering if transmedia may be a double-edged sword; that is, though currently largely creator owned, there seems to be an increasing trend toward the monetization of the transmedia form by large projects produced by corporations — Projects such as movies with comic and video game tie-ins. As transmedia is absorbed into a larger conglomerate of narrative and arts creation, will the diversity fostered by artist owned projects subside? I simply don’t know.

20. To me, art consists of using energy in a creative way to produce a feeling or experience. This includes dance, music, theatre, visual arts, digital art, fashion, cuisine, etc. Typically, and thinking in a binary way, the participation is divided into viewer and artist; one creates the art and the other experiences it. However in the art world, there are many different roles of participation, including curator, buyer, critic, model, studio assistant, viewer, participant, collector, dealer, muse and the list goes on. Some of these roles of participation concern themselves mainly with the economy of a piece of art, such as buyer or art dealer or collector, possibly curator or critic. These types of participation happen long after a work of art is created, post-production. There are few participatory roles in the pre-production portion of a work of art, particularly in the field of visual arts. The roles I can think of include artist, studio assistant, muse and participant. The artist, assistant and participant (an example of a participant could be someone the artist used to make the art, like a person putting their hand in paint and stamping it on the art) are all involved in the creation, where the muse and model are involved in a more referential way. In terms of music (classical music in particular), however, I believe there are more pre-production roles due to things like music teachers, those who built the instruments, tuners and other preparatory roles. That is a large net cast for who could be considered a participant but that is because I believe a lot can count as participation. The participation does not have not be visually or audibly included in the final product/ion, I would go as far to count if someone made a comment about your art that made you rethink how it would turn out as participation. Anything that changes the energy of the person creating the art is participation in my mind because I defined art as a way to use energy in a creative way to produce a feeling or experience, and if someone acted in a way that changes that feeling or experience for the artist, then they changed the art, even in a minute way.
    As far as diversity goes, there are barriers for many types of people to participate in the arts. It can also be difficult to change your role in the art world. If you have spent your whole career being an art dealer, it may be hard to turn around and become a successful model for an artist. It seems like peoples’ previous knowledge of you, or assumption of knowledge about you can really affect what your role is in art. I feel that transmedia could positively impact these rigid participation models. With apps like instagram or twitter or snapchat or youtube, every day people are being turned into content creators. And when everyone is a content creator, everyone is also a critic, a curator, a peer, and a viewer of others’ content. If this kind of participation structure can exist online, can it also exist offline, or is that too dreamy to be real? Is there a literal lack of space for everyone to bring their content into the real world or would people be scared to see people other than their friends see what they can create?