Arts Alive Wales is an educational arts charity based in Crickhowell, Powys. We use the arts to engage, inspire and enhance the quality of life of people in our local rural communities.

BBC Connected Studio, as part of the BBC's Research and Development department, provides the inspiration, support and platform to help keep the BBC at the cutting-edge of online innovation, and a world leader at delivering engaging, digital broadcast experiences.

The Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts in Wales is a strategic partnership between Arts Council of Wales and Nesta. It is the successor to the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts in Wales that ran from 2013-2015. The fund has supported arts organisations to experiment using digital technology to enhance audience reach or to develop their business model.

innovation.arts.wales arloesi.celf.cymru

Introduction

Can we use enhanced digital connectivity to present artists' work in new ways to attract a larger and more diverse audience for contemporary art, whilst being sensitive to our local ecological and cultural context?

Here in the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons National Park, we work with a lot of talented artists creating site-specific work in beautiful, remote places. The mountains - although a real source of inspiration for our artists - provide a challenge for us. In rural areas, it's harder to get the work seen by a wider audience, and online solutions are made trickier by limited internet connectivity. So, we're setting out to explore broadcasting live-streamed and pre-recorded video content to galleries, festivals and online audiences.

We're exploring how we can adapt low-cost, compact, backpack-sized equipment to deliver what we need, and make sure we're offering a consistent, quality audience experience. New technologies are making the equipment needed for high quality filmed content both cheaper and more compact.

Through this process of research and development we have tested a range of available digital technologies and services for creating digital content. We have focussed on using a blend of live streamed and pre-recorded video to create immersive audience experiences. We have delivered two site-specific live streaming events from the Brecon Beacons National Park, allowing us to test the model, the technology and the audience experience of our work.

We found our initial live tests to be a considerable creative and technical challenge, and we're clear that we still have some work to do to make the experience fully satisfying for audiences. Nonetheless, in the course of this research we have been able to try out a whole range of different formats to test their effectiveness. One of the most important areas of learning has been how to use other digital content to create context around the main video being presented. When this works well, it allows us to guide the audience through the digital experience just as we guide our audiences through the natural landscape to reach the works of art in their physical location.

City-based opera houses are already livestreaming their work into village halls. With this research and development project, we would like to present contemporary art created in rural Wales to new audiences beyond our immediate location. In doing so we believe we can challenge perceptions of 'the rural' and at the same time provide greater access to contemporary culture for our local community.

Our strategic challenge

Arts Alive Wales is an arts organisation and educational charity based at the The Old School, our arts venue in the small town of Crickhowell in Powys, Mid-Wales. Our mission is to enrich the lives of people in our local rural and post-industrial communities through active and meaningful participation in high quality contemporary arts and culture, employing the skills and creativity of professional artists.

We work with a wide range of site partners in delivering our work in rural locations, including local authorities, the Landmark Trust and the Canal and River Trust. They share many of our challenges in reaching broad and diverse audiences and they commission us to respond to their sites in order to engage local communities and to attract new visitors.

In the early stages of this project, we gathered initial feedback from our site partners and from artists. Our site partners described their own desire to find ecologically sensitive ways of enhancing internet connectivity to allow them to provide new audiences to engage with their work. They also expressed a desire to harness new technologies to provide educational opportunities and to provide experiences to people with limited mobility who might not be able to visit their locations.

The artists we spoke to at the beginning of this project told us about the many ways they are already using technologies but commented on the lack of hands-on training opportunities. Many of them are looking for more opportunities for nurturing their online audiences in order to reach people who might never otherwise see their work.

This project allows us to test out how audiences respond to these digital ways to present our work. We are particularly keen to explore the potential of using digital technology to provide new experiences for the vulnerable groups with whom we regularly work, in care homes, day centres, schools and homeless shelters.

Research Questions

We developed the following overarching research question: Can we use enhanced digital connectivity to present artists' work in new ways to attract a larger and more diverse audience for contemporary art, whilst being sensitive to our local ecological and cultural context?

To answer this broader question we investigated the following:

• What cost-effective technologies are available to support the production of live-streamed and pre-recorded digital content in a rural arts context?
• How can we use these technologies to allow an online audience to experience the work we present in remote rural locations?
• How can we work effectively with artists and with our partners to use online content to attract new audiences?
• What do audiences see as the advantages and disadvantages of streaming or downloading content as a way of experiencing our work?
• What scope is there for growing our local audiences, visiting audiences and online audiences by presenting our work digitally, to stream or download?

Project Delivery

We carried out the following activities as part of our research and development:

Live test 1: Noctule

Our first live test centred on Noctule, a performance by Stefhan Caddick and Mark Edward Daman Thomas. This work used sound and light to respond to the setting of a cave known as Eglwys Faen. A small ticketed audience of 10 people attended the event and we broadcast a livestream online as a means of testing a basic streaming set up. We filmed using three iPads, and broadcast this over a bonded mobile internet connection (that is, a series of mobile phones 'bonded' together), streaming the footage live via Facebook. We then re-filmed the performance and produced a version we showed at a series of festivals, using our horse box studio to create an immersive audience experience. We gathered audience feedback at the live event and online.

Live test 2: Limelight

Our second live test centred on Limelight, an artwork by Rob Smith and Charles Danby. This was a site specific artwork illuminating a limekiln in the Black Mountains which we broadcast to Cardiff Contemporary art festival. An audience of 52 people attended the live broadcast at a venue in Cardiff, and the stream was available to view live on Facebook. The piece was filmed for the livestream using professional cameras and broadcast using a satellite broadband connection to the

Feedback via email from broadcast partners and artists

We invited feedback via e-mail from our broadcast partners about their experience of the live tests. The artists provided feedback to us about their wider experience of their projects and we have considered the points they have raised about the livestreaming aspect of their piece.

Audience surveys

In addition to the feedback gathered informally and in feedback surveys in relation to each of our live stream tests, we conducted a series of surveys with our audience. This includes a survey sent to people on our mailing list, and to a group of college students.

A full timetable and budget is included as an annex.

We made the following changes to project delivery:

Green energy:

We initially intended to use green energy as the main power source for each of the tests. Although we have used means of generating electricity using water and wind power before, our initial investigations with the equipment used for these tests found methods we had used in the past were not able to reliably provide sufficient levels of energy.

First test:

We intended to use film footage captured at the same time as the livestream to produce a simple video of the performance to show to others. However, as there was little time for planning and limited contact between different partners, we were not satisfied with the footage. In particular the lighting proved to be problematic. We therefore decided to re-stage the performance to get the quality of footage we required. As well as being an additional task, this led to higher costs for editing.

Second test:

We had planned to use a bonded mobile connection to broadcast from the Limekilns however were learned at our early site visits that the location was, despite being in a residential area, almost entirely without a mobile signal on any network. Without the time available to find an alternative location, we opted to hire a satellite broadband connection which involved a level of cost that would normally be beyond our means. The venue hosting the broadcast in Cardiff also had to change at the last minute for reasons beyond our control, which was a real logistical and creative challenge and was discouraging for us and the artists we were working with.

Third test:

We had initially planned a third live streaming test but we realised during the course of the project that the planning period needed to be longer. We realised that a longer planning period was needed to enable us to develop a stronger collaboration with both artists and the broadcast partners. This additional time is needed to adapt our ways of working to make best use of the technology and to develop a good range of content to provide a satisfying experience to audiences.

Cost-effective digital broadcasting for rural arts

What cost-effective technologies are available to support the production of live-streamed and pre-recorded digital content in a rural arts context?

Working with colleagues at the BBC, we have developed a guide to cost-effective digital broadcasting.

The guide is based around a 'delivery chain' which sets out the steps in delivering a live streamed event (below). For each of these stages we have set out some of the most important technical and audience considerations when setting up your livestream.

We also set out a 'simple streaming' solution, which can be used for initial testing or as the basis for a very basic livestream event without any specialist equipment. These are accompanied by a 'kit bag' which includes a set of (low/no cost) equipment that we consider the minimum for a professional quality broadcast. The kit bag is based on the BBC's mobile journalism kit.

The guide is included as an annex: How to achieve lower cost, higher quality live streaming of the Arts.

Live test 1: Noctule

How can we use these technologies to allow an online audience to experience the work we present in remote rural locations?

The commission

Noctule was a special commission from Peak for the Green Man Festival 2016. Farm Hand, the solo project of Mark Daman Thomas (member of Islet and founder of Shape Records), collaborated with artist Stefhan Caddick who works in video, installation and performance. The pair created a new, site-specific live performance taking place underground in Eglwys Faen (Stone Church), a cave on the Llangatwg Escarpment, three miles from Green Man. The piece responded to the unique acoustics, history and habitat of the cave system – one of the biggest in Europe and home to a colony of Lesser Horseshoe bats. On Tuesday 16th August a group of 10 people took part in a guided walk through the dramatic Craig Y Cilau National Nature Reserve to experience the performance in the cave and discover the unique ecology and history of the landscape along the way. This number represents the maximum that we can safely accommodate at the venue due to its remoteness and the ecological sensitivity of the site.

Kit list

We felt that this event was a good starting point for our tests due to its particularly rural and isolated location. All equipment had to be carried, as the cave is at least a mile from the nearest road access. To broadcast this work we brought a team of 6 people to the site. We filmed using three iPads and used a 3/4G bonded connection using four mobile phone sim cards. The bonded connection combines the individual network access of multiple sim cards into one strong connection. The bonded connection then provides wireless and wired internet connections for other devices to access.

Audience response

For the purposes of this test, we didn't actively promote the livestream as we were unsure whether the technology would be able to produce a reliable and high quality stream. Several people did happen to view the stream, and the Facebook analytics suggested that they switched off after 10-20 seconds, though some then re-engaged throughout the 20 minute performance. Elements of the performance were then restaged and filmed three weeks later to produce a shorter film (12 mins) for Peak's Vimeo platform. This version of the performance was then screened at Peak's Horsebox Studio at Green Man festival weekend, attended by more than 750 people over the course of the weekend. We dressed the interior of the horsebox with foliage and we provided viewers with headphones so that they could experience the binaural sound, to evoke a strong sense of place. We did not formally collect feedback from audience members but we felt that they responded well to this setting. Based on our informal conversations with people we began to formulate our hypothesis about how the audience best respond to viewing an artwork in this way. Some of the points raised included the importance of quality footage, and people's preferences around when and where they might want to view an online broadcast. We also picked up comments that, for a livestream to be successful, people felt that it would have to achieve the same sense of intimacy of a live performance.

A more detailed kit list and schedule is included as an annex.

Live test 2: Limelight

What scope is there for growing our local audiences, visiting audiences and online audiences by presenting our work digitally, to stream or download?

The commission

Limelight was a project developed by collaborative artists Rob Smith and Charles Danby, based in Newcastle, and the piece was commissioned for Cardiff Contemporary festival. Supported by Peak/Copa and the Canal & River Trust, the project researched and responded to the working landscape of canals, quarries, tramways and kilns that serviced the lime industry of the rural Black Mountains which in turn fed the nation's heavy industries that roared throughout South Wales. For their commission, the artists used digital means to bring reflections on this history to urban audiences by streaming live illuminations at nightfall from Llangatwg Limekilns in the heart of the Brecon Beacons National Park to the Welsh capital and online. The live stream event (22nd October) was attended by 52 people at a venue in Cardiff. It presented multiple perspectives of landscape, combining live with recorded footage, audio and performance in an immersive experience. The illuminations were created with limelight itself, an intense, pure white light generated through heating quicklime at high temperature, used in the 19th century for land survey work and stage lighting. Each live broadcast lasted as long as it took for the chemical reaction to be exhausted.

Kit list

Compared to our previous test, we had a longer planning time for Limelight. A key focus was to overcome the issues with the quality of the footage that had been an issue with Noctule. We decided to use higher specification cameras to enable them to cope with the change in light levels inherent in the piece. To our surprise, we experienced much more severe connectivity issues with Limelight than in the previous test. The lime kilns at the centre of the piece are in a residential area with a population of around 1000 people. Yet at a visit to the site we realised that there was absolutely no mobile connectivity on any network. After exhausting other options we opted to hire a satellite truck, involving costs would normally be beyond our means. Even then, the connection wasn't perfect but by using a mixture of live and pre-recorded footage, we could be confident that the piece could go ahead even if the live stream dropped out.

A more detailed kit list and schedule is included as an annex.

Audience surveys

Live stream: Did the 'live' stream element enhance your experience?

In relation to the livestream, responses from the venue audience suggested that they did not feel this aspect of the event added to their experience, with all respondents rating this aspect of the piece five or below. The online audience, perhaps unsurprisingly, were more positive though not overwhelmingly so, suggesting room for improvement. Half (50 per cent) of the online survey respondents rating this aspect six or seven out of ten, and around one in five (22 per cent) rating it eight or above.

Watch online: Would you watch this performance online if you couldn't attend?

Both the online audience and the venue audience showed a similar level of interest in watching a live stream of the event online if they were unable to attend, with just less than half (44 per cent and 46 per cent) rating this question eight out of ten or above, and around one in five (18 per cent and 19 per cent) rating this question five or below.

Expectations: Did Limelight 2016 meet your expectations?

The response from the audience at the venue was broadly positive, with more than half (54 per cent) rating the event seven or eight out of ten and none rating the event five or below. None rated the event nine or ten out of ten. In contrast the online audience appeared generally not to have had their expectations met, with all respondents rating the event five or below.

Audience feedback comments

Some of our reflections based on our conversations with audience members include the following:

We should have captured the setting alight of the lime as part of the broadcast, not just the illumination. Whilst this was something we included in our teaser footage, we didn't include this in the live stream on the day. A number of audience members suggested that this could have been a central feature of the piece, something that they wanted the live stream to allow them to experience.

We felt there could have been a clearer narrative linking together the live, digital and non-digital aspects of the piece. There were some aspects of the performance in Cardiff that we feel could have been captured for the benefit of the online audience as well, whereas we broadcast only from the limekilns.

We feel that both of these points highlight the need for a longer planning time in order to ensure that the livestream element is really able to capture the essence of the piece for both the audience at the broadcast event and those viewing online.

Feedback from broadcast partners

How can we work effectively with artists and with our partners to use online content to attract new audiences?

For Limelight, we gathered feedback from the Canal and River Trust, and from Cardiff Contemporary festival, who hosted the broadcast. We also asked the artists to evaluate their experience of their project with us, and they included comments about the experience of livestreaming as well as their overall experience of working with us.

Reaching new and larger audiences

Both the Canal and River Trust and Cardiff Contemporary told us they were attracted to the opportunity of being involved with a live broadcast as a means of attracting a larger audience with what they saw as a strong concept.

The digital element seemed like a strong opportunity for the project to connect inland waterways with ports/a major city and reach a wider audiences. — Canal and River Trust

I thought It would be very good to connect with rural environments and connect with different arts communities... I wanted people to feel immersed into green spaces, real time experiences and all being at the heart of the festival. — Cardiff Contemporary

The Canal and River Trust, in particular, emphasised the importance of the activity being able to reach large numbers of people, and being able to reach specific target communities, as a measure of success.

We are particularly keen to target areas of low engagement with the arts that include estates along parts of Mon and Brec. canal. It is part of our Arts on the Waterways strategic plan to find new ways to connect rural communities with urban centres. — Canal and River Trust

Planning time on site

Both Canal and River Trust and Cardiff Contemporary advised us that we would have benefited from allowing a longer planning time with site visits planned earlier into the process. Both of the following comments were received in response to the question, 'Do you have any other advice for us?'

It would make sense to factor in longer testing and lead-in time on site. — Canal and River Trust

More time for planning and prep, more communication with the artist. More hands on with the technology and back up plans. — Cardiff Contemporary

Cardiff Contemporary also stressed the importance that the planning time should adequately account for their own publicity schedule.

Looking back, the timings became a slight issue but again I felt confident with the organisation. The recce's could have been earlier which would have fitted into our timings better. It affected publicity and brochures. — Cardiff Contemporary

Artist feedback

The artists also provided us with some feedback in relation to their experience of the project with us generally, and some of their comments were relevant to the experience of livestreaming. The artists welcomed the opportunity to develop new aspects of their practice. Having never previously been supported to mix digital with performance in this way they have since continued to develop the work, and have plans to exhibit in other locations in future. They commented that commissioning them to engage in this process as a dialogue rather than commissioning an 'object' was an approach they felt was positive and that they urged us to continue.

Like the Canal and River Trust and Cardiff Contemporary, they also raised the issue of timing and felt that the short timescale meant they were not able to contribute as fully as they could have done to the process. They expressed the strong view that more time on site in Llangatwg was needed. The last minute change of venue for the performance in Cardiff was also a major disappointment. It left them feeling somewhat detached from the final outcome and, echoing the comments from Cardiff Contemporary, meant they were less able to contribute effectively to the audience engagement before and during the livestreaming. They felt that they also had valuable expertise and experience that they would have been able to contribute to the process, in terms of the technical choices, the presentation online, the strategies for engaging audiences and the overall evaluation of the project. However, the digital broadcast was only one element of a broader programme which was already a relatively intensive undertaking. This meant that their engagement in these other activities was limited and there would have been greater scope for involving them had there been a longer lead in time.

Audience surveys

What do audiences see as the advantages and disadvantages of streaming or downloading content as a way of experiencing our work?

To deepen our understanding of our audiences' response to the concept of experiencing our artwork online, we conducted an audience survey which we targeted at two audience groups. Firstly, we distributed the survey to our existing mailing list. Secondly we sent the survey to a group of college students who we are involving in our next live stream test. We received a total of 40 responses, 23 from our mailing list and 17 from the college students. It is not possible to draw firm conclusions from this exercise due to the small numbers of respondents involved. However, there are a number of patterns that may be worth further exploration. We have examined their responses to understand the online content about contemporary art that interests them, their views on the importance of quality images/video/sound, and the factors that would encourage them to attend our events.

Both groups identified major international exhibitions that they had looked at online:

Tate Modern has Robert Rauschenberg exhibition opening at the moment — College Student

The Art of Buildings [international photography competition] — College Student

Elbphilharmonie opening Italian Museum of Contemporary Art. — Mailing list respondent

Tend to look at what exhibitions are on at the London galleries. — Mailing list respondent

Profile of the sample

The two groups answered the same questions, allowing us to compare their responses. The age profile of the two groups has almost no overlap, with all college students aged 24 or under whilst only one of the mailing list respondents (4 per cent) in this age group. Around half of the college students (47 per cent) had not attended any Art Alive events in the last twelve months, whilst several had attended a talk we had hosted by artist Rebecca Chesney. Almost three quarters of the mailing list respondents (74 per cent) had not attended any Arts Alive events in the last twelve months.

Both groups identified individual social media platforms as sources of content about contemporary art:

Instagram blogs and portfolios, also Instagram live feeds, videos of them drawing Art on Pinterest — College Student

17 emerging artists to watch article on Artsy — Mailing list respondent

Google Images, Vimeo — Mailing list respondent

Online content about contemporary art

Based on the questions in this small survey, there were not clear differences between online habits between the young age group (the college students) and the older age group (our current mailing list). Whilst the small proportion who spent the highest amount of time viewing online content about contemporary art were mostly college students, in this small sample the amount of time spent online viewing content about contemporary art was not especially different between the two groups. A smaller proportion of the college students told us that they generally do not view online content about contemporary art than the mailing list respondents (6 per cent and 22 per cent respectively). However in both cases the majority told us they spent either less than 5 hours per week (35 per cent and 35 per cent), or between 5 and 10 hours per week (35 per cent and 39 per cent).

The mailing list respondents also identified some more local exhibitions they had found interesting:

Lubaina Himid exhibition preview images and interviews from Spike Island — Mailing list respondent

The Clearing at Compton Verney — Mailing list respondent

The college students also identified online content about creative techniques that had interested them:

Transferring Images onto Clay — College Student

Sped up creation of digital illustrations — College Student

Interest in livestreaming

In the survey we asked how often in the last three months they had watched a live stream. Those who regularly viewed livestreamed content were a minority in the case of each group. In both cases there were large proportions of the sample who said they had not watched any livestreamed content over this period, 53 per cent in the case of the college students and 39 per cent in the case of the mailing list. The greater proportion of the mailing list respondents who said they had watched a live stream may be as a result of our own livestreaming event, Limelight, and several gave this as an example. In both cases, a proportion said they viewed livestreamed content once a week or more, 24 per cent in the case of the college students and 13 per cent in the case of the mailing list respondents.

We received several responses from each group about the most recent livestreamed content they had seen, including:

Artists creating illustration live — College Student

Live tattooing session — College Student

Live surfing — Mailing list respondent

Royal Welsh winter fair — Mailing list respondent