MW2010: S. Lopez and A. Ramos, Ràdio Web MACBA: four years of experience with podcasting
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A presentation from Museums and the Web 2010 Winner of the Museums and the Web Best of the Web 2009 Podcast Award, Ràdio Web MACBA (RWM) has been producing on-line radio programs with a podcast subscription service since 2006. Over its four years of activities, this platform, which began as a showcase for the exhibitions and activities of the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, has also developed into a content-generator for specific projects, focusing on the exploration of sound art, radiophonic art and experimental music. It is now a project that produces its own content as a base from which to build bridges between radiophonic production and other lines of work (from generating documentary material for the MACBA Study Center or MACBA Collection to programming public activities or related exhibitions), replicating and intensifying the viral functioning that is inherent in working on the Internet in other spheres of activity. Our informal session will be based on our own experiences and the main problems that we deal with (working in a trilingual context and publishing copyrighted material on-line) as a starting point for working with participants and sharing possible approaches for developing a radiophonic platform or podcast service. We believe that the interest and added value of a project of this kind lies in offering high-quality content and, above all, in the choice of subject matter and the casting of collaborators. Mini-Workshop: Podcasting [production] see http://archimuse.com/mw2010/abstracts/prg_335002183.html
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MW2010: S. Lopez and A. Ramos, Ràdio Web MACBA: four years of experience with podcasting
- 1. Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona www.macba.cat Ràdio Web MACBA http://rwm.macba.cat
- 2. Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona www.macba.cat Ràdio Web MACBA http://rwm.macba.cat
- 3. Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona www.macba.cat Ràdio Web MACBA http://rwm.macba.cat
- 4. a collection of examples to be consumed at home delicious user: radiowebmacba_MW2010 http://bit.ly/aVZRCa
- 6. radio podcast audio art radiophonic_art mp3 download streaming rss itunes_subscription hörspiel documentary
- 7. radio podcast audio art radiophonic_art mp3 download streaming rss itunes_subscription hörspiel documentary
- 12. radio podcast audio art radiophonic_art mp3 download streaming rss itunes_subscription hörspiel documentary
- 14. radio podcast audio art radiophonic_art mp3 download streaming rss itunes_subscription hörspiel documentary
- 16. radio podcast audio art radiophonic_art mp3 downdload streaming rss itunes_subscription hörespiel documentary
- 25. You are listening to FLUXRADIO...
- 28. You are listening to AVANT...
- 30. You are listening to VARIATIONS...
- 42. Ràdio Web MACBA http://rwm.macba.cat delicious user: radiowebmacba_MW2010 http://bit.ly/aVZRCa @Radio_Web_MACBA Anna Ramos: aramos@macba.cat Sònia López: slopez@macba.cat
Editor's Notes
- Good morning. Thank you for coming. My name is Sonia López and with my colleague Anna Ramos we are the website team of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona. We are here to share with you our experience running our radio web-based project Radio Web MACBA, Winner of the Best of the Web Podcast 2009 at the Museums and the Web.
- First of all, I’d like to explain a little bit the context where we come from. MACBA is the second biggest museum of contemporary art in Spain. We have a permanent Collection of international scope and a strong program of temporary exhibitions and public programs as well. Concerning the web projects, our department runs two websites: macba.cat, the Museum’s website, and Radio Web MACBA, a stand alone project that explores the possibilities of the internet and radio as spaces of synthesis and exhibition.
- Aside from sharing with you the project, we selected some references and documentation that we compiled in a delicious account for that purpose. At the end of the talk we would like to encourage you to share your own ideas, ongoing or future projects related with radio and podcasting.
- Before getting into matter and explaining our own experience, we wanted to share with you some concepts that we think will help to understand the project and our framework.
- The following cloud of tags will hopefully help us to do so:
- During our research for the paper we produced for the M&W website we found some amazing vintage ads showing the commercialization of the radio in the beginning of the XXth Century. This ads are from the 1920s to the 1950s. Curiously enough they seem to address some of the same concerns we have had in the Internet age, regarding the use of audio as a tool of communication. As we can see in the following images, these concerns were:
- reception
- speed of transmission
- quality of audio. So ninety years after its commercialization, theses issues continue to be key subjects when it comes to conceiving an on-line radio. Fortunately, podcasting has helped us somehow to overcome this issues.
- Podcasting is the automatic delivery of MP3 files to your own computer. This concept as many other buzz words has been widely overhyped and used in many different ways. Many institutions and Museums use podcasting as a way to provide lectures, audio guides, talks and other contents that are recorded in their Galleries. This can be done with a modest budget and very available resources. We do so at the MACBA website since 2007
- However, the project we are presenting goes a bit further and is very closely related to the concept of radio we briefly mentioned before. Ràdio Web MACBA is a stand-alone project providing self-produced audio content in a more radiophonic way.
- This concept is specially relevant for us. The radiophonic format allows us to document what’s going on in the Museum but also what’s going on outside. It allows us to create a new space within the context of the institution to explain and deepen into what happens in the galleries but at the same time it allows us to establish bridges of communication and reflect on what’s happening outside. With a documentary show you can provide itineraries that cut across your exibitions or public programs.
- We like to think that in some of our productions there’s a certain degree of experimentation and fun, which in some cases brings us to the next concept:
- It is not easy to define radiophonic art as it is a bit of a grey area. We do think some of the shows that we produce stand in the fine line that divides the documentary format with radiophonic art and we feel very inspired by the experiments related to radio of John Cage, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the german tradition of horspiel or radio dramas. Anyhow, maybe it’s time to start with our own experience:
- Radio Web MACBA started being an idea in 2006 and it was launched in May that same year. There were many reasons that pushed us to start with the project, even we didn’t know how it could evolve at that time. We were constantly being witnesses of a transit of curators, artists, art critiques involved with the Museum in many different ways, and we were not using any tools that could take advantage of all these creative processes. So there was a stream of ideas, thoughts, absolutely linked with the discourse of the museum which would leave no trace after an activity or exhibition was over.
- Back in the day, we wanted to start experimenting with the many possibilities of podcasting because it seemed an interesting way to share contents and to engage with the audience. It was very appealing for us because it gave the possibility to the users of consuming our contents whenever and wherever they wanted. We liked the idea of breaking boundaries of time and space with the audience. Besides, podcasting was an interesting way to experiment with audio that was something we really wanted to try. And in this sense the webradio context provided a new space for the Museum to approach sound and sound art both fields we were interested in as well.
- This is what our webradio used to look like in 2006. We began with a single program called Son[i]a, a 10 to 12 minute magazine program consisting of interviews with artists and curators, short sound pieces and the sounds of people and activities at the museum, we were releasing two or three programs each week. This pace left us all dead on our feet, but the statistics soon proved that there was somebody on the other end. We have already released more than 100 programs. Lets listen some seconds of Sonia number 99.
- PLAY SONIA
- Once we had seen that the creative potential of the project went beyond simply broadcasting the different voices that passed through the museum we began to develop other formats and lines of programing which Anna will explain in a minute. When we relaunched the website in 2008 we expanded our line of programming and for this reason we redesigned the website. We kept some of the initial functionalities of the project like audio streaming, downloading or RSS subscription. Our idea was and still is to make things easy for any kind of user, so you can either listen to the latest shows at home just by clicking the player or you can become a more advanced or remote user.
- With the relaunch, we also included some new features: such as the iTunes subscription, a delicious account where you can find the related documentation compiling significant links or information found in the process of creating the programs; and a Twitter account.
- We started by taking the simple but logical step of creating a new section, Specials, that allowed us to offer contents complementing the exhibitions and public programs. They seeked to document events, issues and artists from a different perspective, making the most of the potential of the medium that we move in: radio. We have never set out to provide a voiceover to the material exhibited (like an audio guide would, for example) or to offer audio of museum content (like a lecture), as we already publish these kinds of materials on the MACBA Web site. Instead, the idea is to seek the complicity of the exhibition curators in order to create specific, stand-alone programs, and even put the microphone in the hands of other agents who can trace a parallel course.
- PLAY FLUXUS
- When we relaunched the website in 2008, we also decided to take a bold step and start working together with curators and artists to tell stories and develop certain contents that were not necessarily part of the museum’s day to day life and exhibitions. We did so with two brand new lines of programming, one based on research and consequently named Research, and another one called Curatorial, where we invited curators to develop their own ideas. The Research line of programming was designed to explore: scenes + art movements + subjects and figures of interest in the fields of contemporary and sound art.
- Maybe the easiest way to explain this is through an example: AVANT -a retrospective of the key figures of spanish music avant-garde of the XXth Century -why? Because we felt it was a very poorly undocumented part of our history -how? The series features 12 episodes including interviews with the composers, who explain their memories and experiences in their own words. Each episode is complemented by a compilation of their own music.
- AUDIO AVANT 15 segons
- With the Curatorial line of programming we went a bit further. We are inviting curators and musicians to develop and edit theme-based series around subjects as varied as the history of sampling, which is an ongoing Project, or a series based on the concepts of transmission and radio, which was of special interest for us due to the fact that it is closely related to our medium.   We can listen to a a short excerpt now.
- PLAY VARIATIONS
- Unexpected consequences/effect Our programming started interfering somehow with the programming at the Museum. When we started the radio -> it was mainly conceived as a showcase for the museum and its activities, the production process of RWM has ended up generating ideas that have naturally gone on to "contaminate" other spaces. This synergy has been expressed in many different ways, such as the programming of one-off concerts and lectures or of a whole program of activities (scheduled for spring 2010) and even an exhibition at the MACBA Study Centre called Possibility of Action: the Life of the Score, focusing on graphic notation and linked to the Curatorial Lines of Sight series led by Barbara Held and Pilar Subirà. Feedback Very rewarding
- And so it is Working with artists, curators and musicians, because they bring many ideas to the table. Their input has helped our project to develop in a very organic and creative way. To give you an example of this synergy, i’d like to mention our QA, a series of online essays and Publications. This project was born to delve into some interesting subjects which are explored in the radio series but still can be explored a bit further. So again this series of free online Publications derive from our own radio contents.
- As an example we picked Cuadernos de Yokohama, by Llorenç Barber. -part of the one of our series and an exhibition produced by two curators at the radio. -selection of small-scale graphic scores made in Japan in 2005 until then unpublished.
- A part from the very rewarding side-effects that we just mentioned, there are also some day to day problems worth to reflect or mention: For starters, our website design gives priority to the newest contents we feature. In the home page you can find at first glance all the newest episodes. But sometimes we need to recover programs published in the past and our design doesn't help with it. In this sense, we recently launched a new section called the tag of the month where through a single tag we recover different programs from any line of work related to that tag or concept. But we think we still have to work on improving this issue.
- Also regarding the design, our control panel was developed in Flash, which is not a very good cross-platform tool. We are considering to change it in a near future.
- Another issue would be the fact that we work in a bilingual context (Catalan and Spanish) on a project with international scope. We are used to work with text in 3 languages, but if your tool is audio and your framework is internet it is far more complex. In this sense we try to stay away from artifice and let the projects themselves determine the language by using the language of the guests or the curator. In practice this translates into a very complex language puzzle: so you can find programs in catalan, spanish, english and even french.
- We have applied a similar philosophy to the difficult issue of copyright. In Spain, the SGAE (similar to the ASCAP) is yet to define a rights management framework for projects like ours, non-profit, based on the diffusion and syndication of on-line radio programs on an international scale. To avoid the project coming to a standstill as we wait for this situation to normalize, we manage permissions through the authors/rights owners whenever a direct contact is available. In addition, the related documentation that can be downloaded on PDF attempts to list all the sources used and includes a disclaimer in which we express our sincere intention to correct any possible errors.
- The partnership between the British Museum and the BBC radio in order to produce the radio series A history of the World in 100 Objects is a clear example of how far you can go with a radio project related to a Museum or an Institution. The episodes are extremely well-produced, of course, and they are of general interest. The shows are broadcasted at BBC Radio 4 but they are also available in the British Museum website, to be listened online or via podcast subscription. Their interface is also very neat, clear and clean. During our research we found out that the collaboration between Museums and the more traditional FM broadcasters or local radios is more and more common.
- At the Smithsonian Institution they do something similar with the back catalogue of Folkways Records, a record label they acquired in 1986. Besides providing musical selections of the Folkways catalogue they are producing radio shows for FM radios, which they also provide as a podcast in their website. The show conducted by Michael Asch, the son of Moses Asch, founder of the record label back in 1948 is one of their most interesting shows, as it collects both the music and the memories of Moses Asch.
- We also find specially interesting The MOMA Red Studio Teen Audio project, because of the way it engages with young audiences. For this project they invited New York City high school students to write, edit and produce a series of shows analysing a selection of works of their permanent collection. They are available to be downloaded and to be listened online. The students analysis is absolutely refreshing and fun to listen to.
- Another interesting example would be the Soundmuseum is an online museum for contemporary sound art. It opened online in 2008 and has over 200 sound art works in its collection. Every month, the museum features an exhibition in its gallery. It has a interesting and creative interface and their pieces can be listened online. You can also select your own playlist. As you can see, this projects is based on sound art, and shows another possible line of work. There are a few more examples like this one in our delicious account, and we would also recommend art@radio, the Radia Network, free103point9, WFMU and art on air.
- Finally, we wanted to reflect on the fact that you don’t need a huge infrastructure to develop an online radio project. As you will see if you have the chance to check the delicious account we set up it is not difficult to find examples of both individuals and institutions selfproducing their own shows and publishing them in a blog format.