Press release from ABC TV
How are we now experiencing arts and culture in the digital world? With the explosion of TV, mobile and online platforms, and a high speed National Broadband Network just around the corner, what are the digital opportunities for artists? Where is the money coming from and how will rights be managed?
The new frontiers of the digital era will be fully canvassed at Revealing the Arts, a two-day conference jointly presented by the ABC and the Australia Council for the Arts, starting this Monday 26 October at ABC TV Sydney.
Bringing together the Australian arts community’s strategic thinkers, artists, funding bodies, practitioners and directors, the conference aims to find creative solutions to assist the arts industry to take full advantage of the digital era. The event will also be webcast and a guest twitterer will summarise proceedings.
CEO of the Australia Council, Kathy Keele, says the forum is yet another milestone in the ongoing partnership between the Australia Council and the ABC to build together digital opportunities for artists. “Developing arts content in the digital medium is a key strategic priority this year for the Australia Council,” she said. “We are helping artists to explore new applications for their arts practice, while building for audiences a more immediate access to Australian arts.
“Since signing a strategic partnership two years ago, the Australia Council and ABC TV have launched a series of live performance initiatives, collaborated on arts documentary series and the interactive initiative, My Favourite Australian and are continuing to work together to enable more innovative arts content in the future.”
International guest, John Richmond, Commissioning Editor and International Development Executive of Teachers TV UK, will present the first keynote address – Get ‘Em When They Are Young – about developing audiences and talent for the future, and the need to take the arts experience beyond traditional venues and into the classroom.
Hans Petri, Managing Director of the highly successful, British-based, international classical music and arts production company Opus Arte, will give the second keynote address on Tuesday, Show Me the Money – arguing that business and art do mix. He will lead discussion on how DVDs, national and international broadcasts, paid downloads, satellite delivery to cinemas, mobile applications, and subscription models can all present opportunities. Content may be king, but how can artists avoid being paupers?
Other key themes include:
Show Me Your Arts – explores the challenges arising from our capacity to make entire archives and collections available online, as Australia unlocks its store of cultural assets.
Who Owns Your Arts? –focuses on the complexities and longevity of artists’ intellectual property in the digital space.
Show Me How – presenting traditional arts and performance in a multi-platform environment is now a reality. So what are the different approaches to storytelling, and how do you broker the relationships between industry and artists?
Among the many speakers and panellists are Katrina Sedgwick – Adelaide Film Festival; Wesley Enoch – Theatre Director; Kate Stone – National Film & Sound Archive; Brian Fitzgerald – QUT and 2.0 Taskforce; Adrian Collette – Opera Australia; Christine Clarke – National Portrait Gallery; Michael Lynch – former CEO, London’s Southbank Centre and ABC Board Member; Elizabeth Ann Macgregor – Museum of Contemporary Art; Scott Rankin – Big hArt; Robert Hutchinson – ABC Commercial and Paula Bray – Powerhouse Museum.
ABC Director of Television, Kim Dalton, says the ABC has a key role to play in helping artists get their work to audiences. “The opportunities presented by digital are unlimited – but turning ideas into reality can often be difficult. This conference aims to inspire ideas and partnerships for creating exciting new content that ABC TV in turn can help deliver to many audiences in many forms.”
Around 200 members of the arts community from around the country are attending the conference, which will be held at ABC TV’s studios in Harris St Ultimo on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 October.
The event will be webcast via http://www.abc.net.au/arts
Follow it on twitter @revealingarts