A message for interactive artists from the Harvard Business Review. You’re art is competing with fridges! So if you want people to look at, you’d better make it smart…
Your paintbox should include these tools:
Microprocessors: Your art is competing with the phones, computers and even refrigerators. Make it smart. Put a computer chip in it. (Arduino!)
Sensors: Motion detection. Location detection. Face recognition. Sensors are cheap. Use them to make your stuff responsive.
Wireless Connectivity: Make it social. Make it mobile. Make it work anywhere.
Databases: Store the data. Then turn the data into a story.
(It’s pretty hard to change the world, if no one wants to follow your thinking…)
Curtis Faith has been asking us all about stories. What is your story? Who is the hero? How will it end?
Good questions, because stories provide a powerful framework for spreading ideas. This is especially true if your ideas are different, challenging, and could seen by ordinary folk as a little bit “too newfangled for practical application”.
Randy Olson, the scientist-turned-filmmaker, regularly lambastes the academic/science community for getting so caught up in the pointy-headed details that they completely forget how real communication happens. Randy is the author of the wickedly brilliant and funny Don’t be Such a Scientist.
Yet most scientists (and other big idea people) don’t get it. Despite the fact that there’s tons of “peer-approved” research demonstrating that what you say (the details) is NOT nearly as important as how you say it (your communication style!).
The thing is, if you want to move your idea from the edge into the mainstream, from the future to the present, you have to package it. Style it. Make it easy-to-get and attractive.
This is not the same thing as dumbing it down. It is more about upping the drama, raising the stakes, and making it personal! It’s all about creating emotional resonance.
That’s why, especially for the “issue entrepreneurs”, stories are the key to changing the world…
And no one is better at telling stories (that move a big audiences) than Hollywood. So maybe we should drop our guard, and our biases, and steal a few tricks from tinsel-town. Well, I have two favorite screen-writing books, Raindance Writers’ Lab by Elliot Groves, and Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Both writers pull apart, and dissect the Hollywood story to show us how they are made. Here is a summary of the key components.
Hollywood Story:
Hero: A person on the brink of change, who realizes that the status quo is not sustainable.
Problem: The hero’s problem. It needs to be personal. It needs to be urgent. And the stakes need to be high.
Goal: The hero must have a single goal. The hero’s plans (the way they try to solve the problem) may change, but the goal never changes. When the hero achieves the goal, the story is over.
Flaw: The hero must have a personal flaw — ideally a psychological or moral weakness — that they must recognize and deal with, before they can achieve their goal. This flaw often points to the “theme”, or moral of the story.
Enemy: The hero needs an enemy who wants to stop the hero from achieving their goal. The more powerful and dangerous the enemy the better. And the closer the enemy is to the hero the better — both in terms of relationship and in terms of psychological make-up. The enemy is often the mirror image of the hero where the “flaw” has become the primary driver.
Action: The basic action that drives the story forward needs to be consistent with the hero’s character
Struggle: The hero must try and fail to solve the problem. Repeatedly. The hero learns something from each failure, and modifies the plan, getting closer and closer to dealing with core issue.
Disaster: Before the story ends, the hero needs to fail big-time. What Blake Snyder calls the “All is lost” moment, when the hero is worse off than when they started, and is pretty much ready to give up.
A Happy Ending: The hero overcomes their limitations, reaches the goal, and realizes their full potential.
Both Elliot and Snyder insist that writers figure out how to tell the story in just one or two sentences (the 25-word pitch) before working on any details. Why? Because it focuses the story and helps you figure out if it’s any good — before you get bogged down (for months!) in the details.
Going Hollywood With Your Story
Which brings us to the real challenge of this post. Can you take your big idea for positive social change, turn it into a Hollywood story, and then cram it into a 25-word pitch?
Given that all stories are really about character transformation – personal change — it is not surprising that the Hollywood story components closely fits with the social entrepreneur. Here is how the key story components can match up with a program for social change:
Hero: Your Customer
Goal: What your customer wants
Enemy: Whoever, or whatever, is stopping your customer from getting what they want — the status quo:
Struggle: What your customers learn or get from your product that helps them overcome the old limitations — your product features.
A Happy Ending: The new world order where your customers have transformed themselves using your service.
Is this too crass with the Hollywood ending? Not if you’re promising to change the world for the better.
Too corny with a hero? Not if you’re trying to help people with serious challenges. And not if you’re trying to engender personal responsibility.
Too formulaic? Well yes, it’s a template — a formula. But the final result, the final story, really depends on you and the uniqueness of your idea. The closer it is to your heart, the better it will be.
Okay, let’s fit these story parts into 25-word template for the social entrepreneur. The promise of change in 25 words or less…
The Template:
A flawed hero [Your Customer]
Urgently needing change [Customer Needs]
Overcomes huge obstacles and powerful enemies [Established Limitations]
And learns how to open the door [Product Feature]
To a happy ending. [Product Benefit]
Writing the 25 words is really just a word game. But if it helps focus your thinking — and spread your idea — it’s probably worth playing.
Bottom-line: If we’re going to change things, we’re going to have to enlist, engage, and enroll people from outside our circles. Stories are a great way to do that.
Want to get “in” with the In-crowd? Trying mirroring their body language and facial expressions.
Facial expressions of emotion (FEE) are universal, but even small social groups develop their own “private” vocabulary of non-verbal messaging and social cues. Check out these papers by Steven G. Young and Kurt Hugenberg from Tufts and Miami University.:
“The ability of the human face to communicate emotional states via facial expressions is well known… However, recent evidence has revealed that facial expressions of emotion are most accurately recognized when the perceiver and expresser are from the same cultural ingroup.”
“Belonging to social groups serves an important role in shaping our social identities. Nonetheless, research indicates that exclusion by ingroup and outgroup members seems equally aversive… Direct manipulations of essentialist beliefs about ingroups and outgroups (i.e., political affiliations) led to the same results. These results offer a novel demonstration that essentialized ingroup—outgroup distinctions enhance the sting of social exclusion and the positivity of social inclusion.”
Of course this type of social mirroring can get out of hand, and people end up “bostituting” themselves in order to gain acceptance from key group members.
Bostitute: /bos-sti-toot/ v. To seek approval from your superiors by emulating their style, mannerisms or affectations. n. A person who uses such techniques to win favor.
It is interesting to watch how this type of mirroring and social grooming is played out in our online social networks.
Just take a look at the +1′s, likes and retweets in your networks. Are these mechanisms functioning as substitutes for non-verbal communication? Do these virtual FEEs reflecting our desire to belong? Does the pattern of “liking” mirror the social structure of the group? Is it genuine communication? Or is it just bostitution?
Tim Flannery, author of Here on Earth and The Weather Makers, explains why he thinks Darwin’s theory of evolution points to the development cooperative social systems like ant colonies, cockroach agriculture, and human cities — what he calls “intelligent super-organisms”.
Others, like Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, see “Survival of the Fittest” as justification for unfettered, and uncaring, competition. Flannery points out that the actual legacy of evolution, the world we live in today, is made up of highly complex, species interdependent, bio-systems. And, that it is social consciousness, with the evolution of ideas and the technology, that is actually driving us forward.
Interview by Allan Gregg. Watch the whole thing, or start at minute 4:12 to see the discussion of evolution as a story of “extraordinary collaboration, cooperation and co-evolution”.
Is fear of the “Dirty Oil” label behind Canada’s tarring of Artist’s European tour? What lengths will the Canadian Government go to ensure that oil from the Alberta Tar Sands is not labelled “dirty”? Watch this video about Canadian artist Franke James, and how a dream opportunity — a 20-city European artshow to educate youth about climate change — faced behind-the-scenes interference by the Canadian Government.
“Who cares about the Forest?” Do you ever feel guilty when you use paper towels? Do you ever think about trees being cut down to make envelopes? Do you ever wonder, “is it really right to cut trees?”
Way back when Billiam James was known as D. Nile… 1986-1989 Multimedia Video/Computer Installations.
“I want to be a credit card to my society”
~ Billiam James
Money ATM (Art Technology Money)
An interactive sculpture with real-time video integration of user input, consumer profiling, and electronic commerce — it delivered a customized print-out with real money to every user. Created by D. Nile (a.k.a. Billiam James) for A Space 1987 exhibition Guerrilla Tactics.
Printout from Money ATM
“‘Money is the center of our culture’ says Nile… ‘and technology represents our dreams.’ The two come gloriously together, he says, in the automated teller machine. I have the horrible feeling he is right.” Christopher Hume, Toronto Star
See full story: Art Exhibit gets a laugh out of technology
Canadian Cultural Center
Installation mixed media, created for Edmonton Art Fesitival, 1989
Teeter-Totters: Bank Balance
Bank Balance
Electronics/Mixed Media, White Water Gallery exhibition Teeter-Totters, 1986
“A satire of the banking system giving people a ‘different perspective’ on that segment of every day life.” Kieth Howell, North Bay Nugget
See full story: White Water features contemporary works
Image Conscious
Image Conscious
Multimedia sculpture created for Etobicoke City Hall, 1986
“Artwork’s rude, lewd slogans irrate Etobivcoke aldermen. Visitors to Etobicoke city hall are being told to ‘pick your nose’ and ‘spank your baby’ by a piece of mirrored electronic art hanging at the Civic Centre Gallery hall. …But the moving billboard, created by artist using the pseudonym D. Nile, is raising the most reaction so far from local politicians.” Bob Mitchell, Toronto Star
See full story: Artwork’s rude, lewd slogans irrate Etobivcoke aldermen
Mud is Motivation
Mud is Motivation
Multimedia Exhibition, stArt Gallery, Kitchener, 1988
Grass and Sand
Really Visual
Watch Your Step
Concrete Desire
“Although Toronto artist D. Nile has fun parodying the imagery of pop art, his art is essentially concerned with content (social commentary) rather than form.” Robert Reld, Kitchener-Waterloo Record
