chapter draft

To start contextualising what I was researching I tried putting parts together to create a rough chapter draft. I hoped I could see whether what I was researching was actually coming together to make valid arguments. This was also an opportunity to make sure I was able to triangulate properly between sources. After writing this my feedback showed that although content was relevant my structuring was almost non existent. I needed to make sure that my paragraphs had clear points and that each source cited was adding to the same section of argument rather than being one long trail of thought.

1000 word triangulation demo:

What ever the source pleasurable experiences for people will ultimately on some level have a

positive influence on their life. Whether its a life changing event or a singular moment of ephemeral

joy, a part of their life has been altered for the better. When looking at “cultural value” from a purely

utilitarian point of view (which is often the case in the 21st century) positive (and negative) effects

on emotional well beings is an incredibly important point. “The value of all these arts and

sciences…the value which they possess, is exactly in proportion to the pleasure they yield.”

(Bentham, 1830) All art has the possibility to bring joy in some form to its audience but different

media can do this more effectively. There are important variables surrounding accessibility(;

educational, technological, geographical and cultural) to consider when looking at the breadth of

effective engagement of art.

Often when individuals experience some form of beauty it is regarded as a positive experience and

correlates strongly to feelings of happiness (People and Society 2014). A survey drafted by the arts

and humanities council: People and places: Public attitudes to beauty (ipos moro 2011) looking into

how the public perceive art showed that of the people they surveyed 47 percent said they had

experienced beauty in art. This is however significantly less than the 65% who’d experienced

beauty in nature. This could be indicative of the absolute immersion that is created nature, no

matter the level of engagement an art piece creates its likely to whither in comparison to a real life

vista. Virtual Reality (or VR) is a challenge to this idea as VR gives the potential of real world

immersion into the hands of artists. Digital art and in particular apps have the potential to create

works in which audiences could experience beauty through and possibly be a more effective media

for this. A good example of this is the app “Grove”, created for android devices by Simon Geilfus

(Grove 2015). The app allows the user to move through a controllable forest which contains a 360

degree camera, this allows the user to look around in any direction emulating real life vision. This

level of visual interaction mimics the immersion created by real life nature but with the added

bonus of an artists stylistic input adding to the experience. Although this will never be the same as

experiencing nature in real life the mimicking of the immersive traits is likely to aid the audience

connecting with the work and experience beauty. The use of this app in this case is as a tool which

an artist can use to create work that possibly communicates more effectively to a wider audience.

Unlike a lot of artistic mediums apps have the capability of using multi sensory engagement. One

aspect of this is the use of both audio and visual in conjecture. The spectre of sound talks about

music and visual becoming a different entity when combined “the combination of music is always

more that the sum of its parts. It is never merely the vital aspects of the shots and the music; they

become a totally different genus when unified” (Donnelly. K 2005) This discussion suggests ideas

that art which contains multiple medias can create a sensory experience which totals to a new

platform that is greater than the sum of its parts. Apps also often take advantage of touch inputs or

other forms on user interactivity such as voice commands, facial recognition and motion sensing.

“interactivity tends to force user attention on content and increases user engagement” (sundar,

2007). Apps being able to utilise this wider range of human interaction is more likely to bring out a

response from the participant, as has the possibility to appeal to them on different levels. The extra

spread of tools an artist is given when creating an app compared to a more traditional media gives

a wider chance for them to engage with their audience into experiencing beauty and joy.

In the same survey by published in Ipos Moro there was also some qualitative data along side the

quantitative, which alters what conclusion you can draw from the results. The data showed a lack

of relation to art and music by audiences and although they understood what emotions the work

was trying to emulate people struggled to connect with the work. This was often due to personal

lacking in similar experiences which stopped audiences form relating to the work. This is a

contention of intellectual and educational exclusion which can often be seen in the arts. When

looking at “cultural value” from the same utilitarian point of view this becomes an issue as arts have

less societal worth if they can only reach a smaller demographic. Apps have the potential to

overcome this problem through their accessibility. A majority of people in the western world are

exposed to apps and digital media everyday through multiple different platforms, it is almost

unavoidable. In a study discussing using digital media to engage children into learning it said “their

constant exposure to the Internet and other digital media has shaped how they receive information”

Oblinger, D. and doblinger (2014). This could indicate an entire change in how a generation would

best receive information. This wide spread exposure to digital media of potential audiences is more

likely to make the use of them a more effective medium to reach those audiences other art medias

may have alienated.

Delivering art on a platform that is more frequently used by the general population may allow those

audiences to better engage with the work. This arguably makes apps a more intellectually inclusive

media than other art forms as the tools available can create relatable works to a wider

demographic to enjoy. A problem with digital media is its financial accessibility, to access digital

media you will likely need to own a computer and/or a smartphone. This financial barrier instantly

excludes everyone who can’t access the relevant technology who could arguably visit any free art

gallery. Although the arts may be more financially available through galleries those people may

come across issues of geographical accessibility where as digital media . Although there is a

financial barrier surrounding the use of app (audiences must own phone or computer) the vast

majority of the population does have access to at least one of these. The technological barrier

surrounding apps does however create a divide in accessibility, “of the 6.4 million adults who have

never used the Internet, 3.5 million (55%) are disabled.” (Ofcom 2013) This is a major barrier when

considering the societal worth of apps as they can easily exclude a large demographic different to

others arts.

Bibliography

-Bentham, J. (1830). The Rationale of Reward. London: Heward

-Donnelly, K. j. J. ) J. (2005) The spectre of sound: Music in film and television. LONDON: British

Film Institute.

-IPSOS MORI, People and Places: Public attitudes to beauty, Commission for Architecture and the

Built Environment, 2011

-Geilfus .S 2015, Grove, (Version 1.2) [Mobile application software], retreived from:

https://www.androidexperiments.com/

-Oblinger, D. and doblinger (2014) ‘Journal of interactive media in education’, Journal of Interactive

Media in Education, 2004(1). doi: 10.5334/2004-8- oblinger.

-Ofcom (2013) Children and Parents: Media use and Attitudes report. [online]

Available from: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/medialiteracy/october-

2013/research07Oct2013.pdf.

-PEOPLE AND SOCIETY (2014) Available at:

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-

file/Value_arts_culture_evidence_review.pdf (Accessed: 19 October 2016)

-sundar,s,s (2007) social psychology of interactivity in human website interaction in A joinson, k.

McKenna, T. Postmes & U.Reips (Eds.), The oxford handbook of internet psychology (pp89-102)

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press