Watch it now

Seriously, I am so out of the loop. I only just accidentally found out about the Circuit website, initiated and run by Mark Williams, which is streaming video works by New Zealand artists.

I've been waiting for this website for years. Stills do nothing to convey the nature of a moving image work. And while, for example, one of Alex Monteith's elaborately choreographed multi-channel works doesn't feel anywhere near the same on my laptop screen as it did in the gallery space, being able to re-watch and pass the work on to others is wonderful.

There are about 40 artists and a couple of hundred works on the site now, with more to come. I have to say, I'd love to see the rights to the Len Lye archive negotiated in such a way that his moving image works could be mixed in here - it feels right, somehow.

In the meantime, a few picks:

Steve Carr’s ‘Dive Pool’
Steve Carr’s ‘Tyson’
Steve Carr's 'Burn-out'
Alex Monteith’s ‘Composition with RNZAF Red Checkers’
Alex Monteith’s ‘Composition with RNZAF 3 Squadron Exercise Blackbird for three-channel video installation’
Daniel von Sturmer’s ‘Materials from another medium (Sequence Two)' 

The case against Flash

In her article Why can't the world's best architects build better websites Alissa Walker picks up on one of my pet peeves about 'creative' websites (this goes for you too, certain major art institutions)

Architects are the original interactive designers. They're skilled at creating navigable structures. They specialize in designing rich experiences for their users. But if architects designed their buildings the way they designed their Web sites, they'd all fall apart.

...

Most architects' sites rely on an animated technology like Flash. While this is perfectly appropriate for some interactive experiences, is not what you want to be using if your site is--like most architecture firms' sites--a long list of projects that you want to be easily searchable. Flash sites often rely on gimmicky navigation using images and rollovers instead of simple, clickable text. And in general, a Flash-based site can't generate a URL for each separate page. So say you do end up finding the project you were looking for--you're not able to index or email it. This is when you find yourself saying things like, "Click on projects, then roll over the little museum icon, then click Michigan, then click on the floating image in the white square..." Can you imagine giving the same kind of directions inside, say, a building?

It's a great piece. Go read it.

o hai! welcum 2 teh art galleries! or, the yellow band solution.

It's a terrible conundrum, but one of the things I'm learning with websites is that the better you know your audience, the harder things get.

What do I mean? Take for example an gallery that wants to engage with a teen audience. How do you balance lolcats and unicorn memes with the organsational info you want to deliver teachers, parents, sponsors and other galleries?

The Walker Art Center's solution is characteristically elegant and playful. Go to the teens page on their site, and you're presented with two sets of info ("the business side of things" and "the play side of things") each with its own design (let's call them art gallery chic and MySpace). A yellow band bisects the page, and by sliding it you can choose for yourself: admin-type stuff for adults, or glorious teenage tumult.

The yellow band solution is genius. It fulfils both audiences' needs: teens can avoid all the institutional information and shape their own experience, while people interested in other aspects of the Walker's work with teenagers can get the information they want. But, importantly I think, both spheres are contained in the same place and accessed from the same start point. You can read about the way the Walker developed their approach in this paper from the 2008 Museums and the Web conference.

Actually, to call it "admin-type stuff" undersells the info the Walker provides for galleries looking to build their teenage audience. The Walker's work with teens is mediated through WACTAC, their teen council - a group of teenagers who meet weekly to "design, organize, and market events and programs for other teenagers and young adults". The Walker has a really useful Teen Programs How-To Kit (warning:PDF) that describes their learnings from different tacks they've tried.

p.s. you've got to love the pink unicorn

Two forums make a quorum?

On the Auckland Art Gallery development front: a new forum section! where you can share information and memories about the 1958 exhibition of contemporary Māori art at Auckland Uni, or 1950s fashion & culture .

While it might have been safer to launch on a topic that more people (like people under the age of 50) could really get stuck in to, good on them for having a go at fostering community participation and gathering information for a project in a new way. I wonder how they'll repurpose it?

And, via the ever-insightful New Media blog at the Walker Art Center, the (American) Museum Computer Network's Muse Tech Central site is a forum where members can share information (including budget range) about tech-related museum projects, like using tech tools to streamline the production of wall labels and using cell phones to deliver audio tours.

IMPORTANT NOTES

There doesn't seem to be a homepage link where you'd expect it on the Muse Tech site: use the 'projects' link at the top right to get back to the list.

And regarding the AAG site - here's how to increase your font size:

In Firefox
# Increase font size by pressing CTRL +
# Reduce font size by pressing CTRL –

In Internet Explorer

1. Open the View menu by pressing ALT + V.

2. Select Text Size by pressing X.

3. In the Text Size list, move to the text size option you want using the UP and DOWN ARROWs

4. Press ENTER.

What shall we tell them?

We're at that point on a website redevelopment project where, after a few months of being out of the loop, we're about to present the business with the draft site. They've had the opportunity to see the site design (although it's developed from that point) but they haven't yet seen the final (read, ruthlessly edited) version of the reams and reams of text they contributed for the site.

Inevitably, there are still a number of bugs to be worked out, and some things we wanted won't happen this time round, and some things look downright odd. On the blog Creating Passionate Users, there's an interesting post about the dilemma of managing expectations with demos:

"When we show a work-in-progress (like an alpha release) to the public, press, a client, or boss... we're setting their expectations. And we can do it one of three ways: dazzle them with a polished mock-up, show them something that matches the reality of the project status, or stress them out by showing almost nothing and asking them to take it "on faith" that you're on track."

Their bottom line?

"How 'done' something looks should match how 'done' something is."

But what's really interesting is the finding that the more finished-looking the demo is, the narrower the feedback; whereas the looser the demo looks, the more likely viewers are to give you high-level feedback. And there's even a programme that will help you fake the napkin-scrawl creative feel.

It reminds me - in a opaque way - of a comment by Wellington designer Neil Pardington about presenting to clients, cited by Lara Strongman in an essay for the catalogue for the Objectspace exhibition 'Just Hold Me' (the catalogue's not online, but you can find out a bit on curator Jonty Valentine's website).

Basically, the gist of what Neil said (I don't have the text in front of me) was that you take in four options. Two are clearly unacceptable. Of the remaining two, he wants to push one. So he makes a subtly disparaging comment about the unfavoured design, so the clients magically opt for the design he's selected for them.

Which begs the question - why bother producing four mock ups, if you only believe in one?