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Fast Forward - Art History, Curation and Practice after Media

Katrien Berte and Peter Mechant, University of Ghent, Belgium.

The Opportunities of Digital Technologies for Arts Centres: User requirements for a ‘Virtual Arts Centre of the Future’

Keywords: virtual art world, cultural participation, art, online museums, online galleries

Introduction: Building a Virtual Arts Centre of the Future (VACF)

The augmentation of cultural participation in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium) is one of the major cornerstones of current cultural policy. Bert Anciaux, the Flemish Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, sets three major goals for himself and his administration (Anciaux 2004). 

First, to enlarge the existing audience by stimulating art lovers and others in the community to take part in more cultural activities than they ordinarily would do.

Second, to deepen the audience for cultural activities by promoting the understanding and involvement of visitors e.g. through education, by providing information etc. This should lead to a higher quality of cultural experience and hopefully to a higher visiting frequency.

Third, to attract new sections of the population who normally do not participate in cultural activities. (Anciaux 2004).

It is our belief that new technologies and the Internet in particular, can stimulate cultural participation and help the Flemish government to achieve its goals. Research confirms that the use of the Internet reinforces existing behaviour patterns (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman and Robinson 2001) and it is often seen as a way to augment the number of visitors to arts centres (Breedveld 2001, 57).

In order to reach the previously stated goals by using new technologies, art centres must have access to and knowledge of these technologies. Most museums, arts centres and festivals in Flanders are represented online. Unfortunately, a recent study shows that, in general, their presence is far from interactive. The main goal of these websites is to provide practical information. They only make use of a fraction of the range of possibilities offered by current information technologies in terms of community building, interactivity and multimedia (Daems, Nulens and Bauwens 2005; De Wit and Esmans 2006). 

Three Belgian universities worked with business partners to build a prototype for a ‘Virtual Arts Centre of the Future’ (VACF) featuring the latest Internet applications. The Vooruit, one of the leading performance arts centres in Flanders, is our test case (Fig. 1). 

This virtual art world consists of three parts. First, a website with Web 2.0 applications, which functions as a poster for the arts centre, providing all kinds of practical information, and which also acts a portal for cultural information from different sources. Second, a 3D environment comprising a virtual representation of the arts centre which the visitor may walk around and interact with. The 3D art centre is accessible through the website and enables users to participate in cultural activities such as concerts, lectures, plays, performances etc. by using audio or video stream (Fig. 2). It is therefore a very useful tool to help expand the arts centre audience. The environment also appeals to sections of the gaming community who might otherwise have little involvement with arts and culture.
Third, a smart system of recommendations, an extra data layer on the portal site, providing information to the visitor based on his/her (and other visitors) preferences and  previous use of the site or 3D environment. The recommendation system as also has potential as a tool for enlarging the website audience.


Fig. 1. The arts centre Vooriut, Ghent Fig. 2. The virtual arts centre, Ghent
Fig. 1. The arts centre Vooruit, Ghent    
Fig. 2. The virtual arts centre, Vooruit.

 
Building a virtual arts centre involves technical challenges. Although these technical implications are important, a virtual arts centre remains an empty shell if it does not have an active community of art lovers who will populate the site and interact with the content. Will Flemish art lovers be charmed by this online arts centre? Will they be interested in visiting the website and the 3D environment? Which features are they most interested in? Will they be stimulated by the online content to visit a live performance? Can a virtual arts centre contribute to achieving the goals of the Flemish Minister of Culture in raising public interest in cultural activities? 


Can Technology Stimulate Participation in Arts and Culture?

Cultural participation encompasses different behavioural patterns. People can create an artwork e.g. a painting, a sculpture or a song. This is referred to as active participation. Attending an event or activity such as a dance performance, a movie, a play or an exhibition is referred to as passive participation (D’Angelo and Vespérini 1998, 42). There is also a clear distinction between attending a public activity or participating from home through media use e.g. watching a play on television or listening to a concert on the radio (McCarthy and Jinnet 2001, 19).
Ulla-Maaria Mutanen (Mutanen, 12 June 2006) states that there seem to be four ways of categorising the relationship between a visitor and an exhibition or performance:

•    reactive consumption
•    proactive consumption
•    private production
•    public production

In a reactive consumption relationship the visitor simply consumes the ‘arts’ passively by visiting, watching or listening. A proactive visitor will prepare for the visit or the performance by visiting a website or reading a book or information leaflet.
 
In a production relationship the visitor shares his/her ideas or experiences with others whereas in the case of private production the visitor keeps the art work to himself/herself. Public production might involve activities such as writing a review or posting some photos of a performance online.
 
Art lovers can benefit from ICTs by using them as a way to connect and interact with artists, art centres and other culture lovers (Nulens, Daems and Bauwens 2005, 118). Together with their cultural neighbours, visitors with the same cultural preferences, they can form online communities and participate in online cultural activities. The virtual world gives the artist freedom to create things that are not possible in the ‘real’ world.


Cultural Participation in Flanders

Most of the current information about cultural participation in Flanders is derived from a survey conducted by the research group Re-creatief Vlaanderen, ‘Cultural participation in Flanders 2003-2004’ (Lievens, Waege and De Meulemeester 2005). The results of this elaborate study are summarised below:


In Flanders, public participation in the arts is higher than the European average. However, this does not apply to all types of cultural activity.  For a number of activities: ballet, dance, visiting museums in foreign countries and visiting historical sites, we have one of the highest participation levels in Europe. Although, in general, we are situated between a group of countries with a high participation level (Scandinavian Countries, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) and a group of countries with a low participation level (France, Belgium, Portugal and Greece) (Stroobandt, Lievens and Waege 2005). Consequently, there is still some room for growth.

Unfortunately, there are a few thresholds which limit the cultural participation of the public.  The Flemish government identifies five thresholds which could have a significant impact on passive participation.

First, there is the information threshold. Sometimes there is just too little information available about a cultural event or the information is not readily understandable by the general public. There are also a few practical thresholds to be considered. Is an arts centre accessible for disabled people? What are the opening hours? Is there parking space available?

Second, the price of a ticket can also be a threshold (financial threshold).

Third, there are also social and cultural thresholds which lead to the exclusion of some groups in the population such as those with non-Flemish cultural backgrounds or those who lack knowledge and/or experience of cultural visits (Anciaux 2004, 17).

In order to augment the number of cultural participants we need to overcome some of these obstacles. New technologies, particularly web-enabled technologies, are enormously helpful in making the cultural sector more accessible to the general public.

Participating in arts and culture through a virtual space which is accessed by a computer is known as virtual participation (Nulens, Daems and Bauwens, 2005, 126). Virtual participation can be divided into three levels. First, searching for information on cultural events and topics e.g. information about a performance, a movie, a song etc. Second, the purchase of cultural products via the Internet e.g. tickets, CDs, books etc. Third, the online cultural experience e.g. watching the stream of a concert, a visit to a museum website etc. (Nulens, Daems and Bauwens 2005).

To date, empirical evidence remains scarce. The existing research on virtual participation is part of the elaborate study, Re-creatief Vlaanderen (Lievens, Waege and De Meulemeester 2005), mentioned earlier.  This is currently the only available source.

According to the survey, 37% of Flemish people use the Internet in their spare time. Information gathering, focusing on cultural topics, is the most popular activity. 21% of participants often look online for information about music while 18.4% look for information about films. 4% visit virtual exhibitions.
There is limited interest in the purchase of cultural products online or in online virtual participation (Nulens, Daems and Bauwens 2005).

The most interesting finding of this part of the survey was the discovery of a group of people who participate in arts and culture exclusively through the Internet. 20% of 14–17 year olds consume culture online and a large proportion of participants with a lower lever of education are exclusive virtual consumers (Nulens, Daems and Bauwens 2005).

These findings demonstrate the potential of the Internet to renew its audience and therefore help realise one of the goals of Flemish cultural policy.

However, all these findings are based on virtual participation regardless of the degree of innovation of art sites in Flanders.

The aim of this paper is to collect new data on virtual participation while introducing the art lover to an innovative virtual world of art.  The study Re-creatief Vlaanderen will be used as a reference point. 


Research Methodology

The research presented in this paper is part of a work package within the VACF project which focuses on the visitor to the virtual world of art. First, a series of interviews were conducted with national and international experts. This research was completed by the research group SMIT (Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication, Free University of Brussels). Based on the findings, a number of national and international cultural websites were selected and evaluated by users in a qualitative study. This research was completed by the research group CUO (Centre for User Experience Research, University of Leuven). When these studies were completed, we began a large quantitative survey to assess the adoption potential of the Virtual Art Centre of the Future with Flemish art lovers.


Sample

As a result of brainstorm sessions with the different partners in the project the target group was defined as: ‘visitors and non-visitors of the Vooruit who already have a minimal interest in arts and culture and are virtually present’.

We were not aiming to make an online cultural environment that would convince people to go online, therefore we decided to focus on people who already have Internet access. Participants were also expected to have some familiarity with existing Internet applications such as chat boxes, online calendars, ratings, audio and video streams. Therefore, we did not interrogate the entire Flemish population. Furthermore, apart from the link with the Vooruit, this is the target group of VACF and many other cultural websites.

The sample was constructed by using a ‘convenience’ or ‘opportunity’ sample. This sampling technique implies that there is a limited representation of the total population. This method can provide useful information in pilot and/or adoption studies although it does not work when based on a fully random sample (Lunsford and Lunsford 1995).


Research Instrument

The survey has five parts:

  1. An estimate of current (virtual) participation levels.  These questions were identical to those in the study ‘Cultural participation in Flanders 2003–2004’ (Lievens, Waege and De Meulemeester 2005).  This allows us to compare and validate our results.
  2. The level of interest in the VACF concept. An introduction to the ‘Virtual Arts Centre of the Future’ concept was presented to participants. They evaluated a list of concepts on a six-point response scale ranging from ‘not interested’ to ‘very interested’.
  3. The adoption potential of the Virtual Arts Centre of the Future. The goal of this section was to predict the amount of adopters of VACF over time. By using some specific ‘adoption questions’ we were able to describe each segment and compare the profiles of the users in our sample with the theoretical division in the adoption segments: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. This segmentation is based on the PSAP-scale (Product Specific Adoption Potential) (De Marez and Verleye 2004).
  4. An estimate of the frequency of visits to the VACF site and the possible implications for cultural participation in real life.
  5. Standard socio-demographic questions and questions about media usage.


The questionnaire was pre-tested by twenty people and altered according to the remarks of the participants.

The survey was conducted via the Internet. A few leading Flemish websites (in terms of visitor numbers) placed a banner with a link to the questionnaire on their sites. The profile of the sites’ visitors was matched to our target population.


Results

2635 completed questionnaires were collected. The results are not to be generalised to the total Flemish population. Nevertheless, we are convinced that the large number of participants, the definition of the target group, the methodology of the data collection, thorough comparisons of the socio-demographic profiles with other studies on cultural participation, and Internet use among the Flemish population, allow us to make some conclusions about the target group of the VACF.

Some questions in the second part of the questionnaire were aggregated into factors; some factors were aggregated into key performance indicators by using a factor and reliability analysis. This resulted in five indicators:

  1. Information (cronbach alpha=0,80): Professional reviews, reviews by visitors, information on related events etc.
  2. Presentation (cronbach alpha=0,82): Video fragments, pictures, virtual tours, streams of live performances etc.
  3. Communication (cronbach alpha=0,88): A discussion forum, a rating system, chats with artists etc.
  4. Creation (cronbach alpha=0,80): Pictures taken by visitors, creations made by visitors, online art courses etc.
  5. Personalisation (cronbach alpha=0,85): Personal content, personal suggestions, a cultural profile etc.


The results will be discussed in the order of the questionnaire.  


Cultural Participation

In order to validate our sample we compared our results on participation levels with those of the reference survey ‘Cultural participation in Flanders 2003–2004’ (Lievens, Waege and De Meulemeester 2005). The proportion of the results was exactly similar for all types of participation.

45% of the participants watched a film in a cinema at least three times or more during the past six months. Almost half of our participants visited a library three times or more in the past six months.
Almost 40% of the participants visited a play, ballet or dance, a pop concert, a museum and/or an exhibition or a monument once or twice in the past six months. The least popular events are musicals, classical shows or operas and literary events.

The three acts of virtual participation were also copied from the reference study.

Virtual participation: Information gathering
The participants frequently used the Internet to search for information on different cultural activities. Information on music and films was the most popular. More than half of the participants used the Internet three times or more during the past six months to search for information on books or literature.
There were substantial differences between men and women. Men searched more often for information about music, while women searched more often for information about books, literature, theatre and dance. 

The scores also differed significantly between different age groups. Younger people searched more for information about music, films and literature while older people used the Internet to search for information about museums and exhibitions.

Virtual participation: Buying a cultural product online
65% of the participants bought a ticket for a cultural event on the Internet during the past six months. One in three bought a book or music (on CD, DVD or vinyl) online.

The youngest group (14–17 year olds), bought very few products on the Internet. We see an increase in the online purchase of products from the age of 25. This is a general conclusion which applies to all types of online purchases and not only to cultural products.

Music remains very popular among men. Books are mainly popular among families and those with a university degree. Online tickets for cultural events are mainly purchased by 25–44 year olds and people educated to degree level. 
 
Virtual participation: Cultural experiences
67% of participants used the Internet to watch the news while 55% used the Internet to watch video clips. 58% watched a film online during the past six months. Men watch films more often than women. The lower the education level, the more films watched during the past six months. The majority of those who watched many films online comprised labourers, students and unemployed people. 


The Adoption Potential of a Virtual Arts Centre of the Future

Fig. 3 shows the theoretical adoption curve (the blue curve) and the curve deducted from the survey data (the pink curve). The theoretical data is derived from the classical theory of ‘The Diffusion of Innovations’ by Everett Rogers (De Marez and Verleye 2004). When introducing a new technology, consumers can be divided into five segments: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards, as mentioned previously. The innovation will first be used by the innovators and the early adopters. In the case of the VACF these will be the first visitors. The other sectors will copy the innovators and early adopters a little later. The most innovative groups are placed to the left of the graph while the less innovative groups are situated on the right side of the graph. In order to have a large adoption potential for our virtual world of art we expect a high number innovators, early adopters and early majority (De Marez and Verleye 2004).

Figure three indicates that there is a large potential for the VACF concept within our target population.

Fig. 3. The adoption potential of the VACF website
Fig. 3. The adoption potential of the VACF website


There are more innovators and early adopters in our panel than in the theoretical segments. Those participants are certainly very enthusiastic about visiting and interacting with the virtual world of art. The least innovative groups, the early majority and the laggards, are less represented in our sample. The curve also runs smoothly, thus we expect no delay in the adoption process of the VACF concept.

This is a very positive conclusion. Because of the selection of our sample group we had anticipated a certain degree of enthusiasm and positive adoption rates but the results are better than expected. If these people had no interest in the VACF concept, there is no doubt that the enthusiasm within less involved groups e.g. the people who do not like the Internet of have no affiliation with culture, would have been a lot lower.

The group of innovators contains significantly more men and people between the age of 18 and 34 than other adoption segments. They are mainly students, single people and people who live with their parents. Innovators already use the Internet quite often, on average more than one hour for every day of the week and more than two hours on an average day on the weekend.
There are also a lot of 18 to 34 year olds among the early adopters. These are students, employees and managers.

There were substantial associations between the level of innovation of the sector and the variables of age and Internet use. The innovation level was negatively associated with age and Internet use.


The level of interest in the different VACF features

When introducing a new technology into a consumer market, it is very important to select the features in the launch phase quite carefully. It is important to find a common set of features that are interesting to a large number of people rather than just to the innovators and early adopters (De Marez and Verleye 2004). If not, the innovation will not reach the mass market. If the features of the VACF site are not carefully selected, the website will only serve the needs of a certain elite of culture lovers.

The most popular features of the virtual arts centre of the future concern information and presentation, that is the provision of supplementary information about cultural events and topics using images, video and audio fragments, a 3D tour of the arts centre etc. Participants prefer the information flow to be personalised to their needs, but this indicator has an average score, indicating that such a feature is not considered to be a necessity.  The general public is least interested in the more interactive applications such as communicating with other art lovers and in the online creation of art.

No association was found between the indicators and the sex of the participants but there was a negative association between age and the level of interest of the participants. The older the participants, the less interested they were in the VACF concept. Older participants are generally more interested in information features while young people and students are very interested in all the available features. People educated to degree level are more interested in information and less in creation. People with lower education levels are more interested in the possibilities. Again, these are young people and students.


Online Participation in a Virtual Art Centre of the Future

The aim of these questions is to assess the usage of the virtual arts centre of the future.
61% of participants would visit the site once a week in order to stay up to date with news and information about cultural events. 13% would visit the website on a daily basis. 16% would visit the site every month. 


Can the virtual art centre also stimulate people to participate in real life?

Most participants stated that a visit to the virtual world of art would stimulate them to visit cultural events.
61% say that they would visit a play, ballet or dance performance more often than they do now. 69% would visit an exhibition or monument more frequently. These results confirm the statement that the Internet stimulates an existing behaviour and that it can be used as a tool for enlargement, deepening and renewal of the audience.

We also asked the participants how the Internet could stimulate them to participate more often in cultural activities. This was an open question which allowed them to formulate their answers in their own words.

The most frequently stated answers were:

(1)     The Internet can fulfil the need for extra information
(2)     The Internet can be a way to receive reductions for shows
(3)     The Internet gives access to audio and video material

A large number of features that will be used in the virtual world of art were named as stimulators for cultural participation.


Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to collect new data on virtual participation in Flanders while introducing the public to an innovative virtual world of art. The study investigated these issues, with specific attention to the desires and needs of the public concerning a virtual world of art.

The results of this study provide support for the view that the Internet can stimulate cultural participation. The target group of online arts centres, people with an interest in arts and culture coupled with knowledge of the Internet, were questioned in the survey. Although the proportion among the different types of virtual participation remains equal, results show that they have higher virtual participation levels than the general public.

A new and innovative concept, the virtual arts centre of the future, was presented to the participants. The results show that there seems to be a large adoption potential for VACF in the target group.
In general, participants were mostly interested in the information and presentation features which provide supplementary information on cultural events using images, video and audio fragments, a 3D tour of the arts centre etc.

Participants would also like the information flow to be personalised to their preferences. There seems to be little enthusiasm for the more interactive parts e.g. the possibility of creating content or communicating with others, although there was a substantial difference between the different innovation sectors and the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants.

In order to create a dynamic arts site and to achieve the goals of the cultural policy all features need to be implemented.

First, a large amount of information is necessary to attract the general public. In this elaborate information and presentation layer lies the possibility to deepen the audience e.g. by providing online courses and information.

Second, enlargement of the audience can be achieved by adding a layer on the site which provides personalised information to the visitor after they log in. Through suggestions based on a personal profile, enlargement of the audience can be achieved.

Third, if the renewal of the audience is the main goal, a number of communication and creation features need to be present in order to attract young people, students, people who are not educated to degree level. It is interesting to note that these people are very enthusiastic when it comes to using the Internet and Web 2.0. applications.

Limitations and Future Research

This research is conducted previous to the development of the site and can only assess the future impact of the concept. We are restricted to the intentions of the user and can not base our conclusions on actual behaviour. Therefore, it would be particularly interesting to see the actual use of the virtual world of art and to investigate the link between online and offline behaviour to assess the impact of the site.

A demonstrator will be ready in the end of 2006 and will be used by a test community based on visitors of the Vooruit.

References

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Acknowledgements

This paper is the result of research carried out as part of the VACF project, funded by the Interdisciplinary Institute for Broad Band Technology (IBBT). The project is being carried out by a consortium of companies: Vooruit, Cipal, Codefellas, Workspace Unlimited, Agency.com and Innoxys in cooperation with the IBBT Research Groups: MICT (Ugent), CUO and ICRI (K.U. Leuven), SMIT (VUB) and EDM (UHasselt).


Bibliography

Katrien Berte graduated as a master in Communication Sciences in 2001. Today, she is a researcher at MICT, a research group for Media and ICT. This research group is part of the Department of Communication Sciences at Ghent University (Belgium) and the Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT). Her research interests include quantitative survey analysis, new media and advertising. She is also working on a PhD concerning advertising in a digital media environment.

Peter Mechant graduated as a master in Communication Sciences in 1997. He works as a researcher at the Department of Communication Sciences at Ghent University (Belgium).
His topics of interest include: folksonomy, social networking and the socio-cultural impact of audiovisual content online. He is currently working on a PhD that addresses these research areas.


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