Evaluation of Friends on the Other Side Project

Friends on the other side is a project which aims to bring people together via digital art in these times of loneliness. Participants are put into pairs and are asked to draw something based on or inspired by the themes Apart, Escape, Friend, Home, Outside/inside. They are encourage to interact as much as possible on this digital canvas and the aim is to have fun. These completed images are them uploaded to our online VR exhibition.

Participatory Storytelling

The aims of this participatory storytelling project is to 'develop and deliver a narrative experience in which the audience become active participants. This will involve blurring the boundaries between author and audience. It will challenge you to hand over a degree of control and you will need to balance the storytelling and participation. This is not asking simply for your audience to make choices between existing storylines. Instead, you will need to consider how they can contribute to the story in its writing and experiencing. How can new media and platforms harness collective and collaborative approaches to storytelling?' With this description, Friends on the other side project (FOTOS) meets these aims. The project is based on the participation of people to create a piece of art on a digital canvas, this blurs the boundaries between author and audience as the audience becomes the artist in FOTOS. We gave the majority control of the project to the participants, we only provided the space for them to create, an exhibition for them to view and resources for them to get in contact. With these pieces we received quite a few beautiful pieces which all tell their own personal little story.

One issue regarding participation in this project was the amount of participants we actually received. When planning this project we hoped for an abundance of participants, aiming to create a huge digital exhibition for viewers to explore and observe. However we did not get as many as we hoped for. This could be due to the amount of time participants would need to complete a FOTOS submission as a lot of people who helped out wanted to put their full effort into the project and spent on average around 20-30 minutes painting, some even spent around 2 hours drawing. This ended up creating beautiful and detailed pieces, however almost set a standard to other participants which could've steered people away. Time was definitely an issue for participants as a lot of people just do not have the time to help out, especially when there isn't a reward for their time. If we were to set up the project similar to one of our inspirations 'The Sheep Market' by Aaron Koblin, where we pay a small amount for a drawing, we may have got more participants.

One more issue with participants was the worry they were not skilled enough. I personally believe that any form of art can be classed as good art, however not all people have this mindset. There was an insecurity and fear of judgement on some potential participants which steered them away from helping out. Other participants had this mindset too but i managed to persuade them by telling them the aim of this project is not to compare artistic abilities at all, the main aim is for participants to interact with each other as we are in a time of isolation due to the global pandemic. Artistic skill isn't what we want, we want people to connect via art.

Despite the fact we didn't get as many participants as we wanted i am still very happy with the participatory storytelling aspect of this project. The pieces of art we did receive were detailed and told a very clear story, we can see the beautiful different art styles of each participant and embrace each and every one despite their skills. I think that all of the pieces we collected are wonderful and i'm very proud of this project. I think that this project could easily be continued after the deadline and developed even more to be greater. Perhaps even with a real life exhibition, which we would've created if we did not have COVID-19 restrictions. However i do think that this project would've been even greater if we did have more participants and more pieces of art to showcase.

Social Media Page

A part of the project i managed by myself was the social media profile which can be located at https://www.instagram.com/friendsontheothersideproject/ . The aim of this profile was to bring in participants in a form other that just asking friends/family/colleagues and spreading the project through word of mouth. On this site i posted resources to help future participants with the project, i did this by creating an image with text explaining the rules and theme of the project. As well as this i posted a 3 minute IGTV video, which is also a youtube video found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fckQ1x9y_xc , which explains the basic tools used in aggie.io for people who have never used a digital painting application. This is to hopefully make the project much easier for participants. This social media profile is important as its easily accessible for participants and all the information they needed is on this page and is archived as a story highlight. They are also able to contact us directly via the social media profile and ask for their personal canvas link as well as ask questions if needed to. On this profile there is also a link to our website if they wanted extra information. Also in the story highlight is a list of inspirations for audiences to see where we got the inspiration for this project as well as inspirations for what they can draw if they choose to participate.

Alongside posting about the rules, themes and resources surrounding the project i also posted the artwork we received from participants in hopes to inspire people to contribute as well as work as another form of a gallery. This makes the exhibition accessible via phone as the website (Artsteps) that we used to create the virtual exhibition does not work on phone, therefore if participants and viewers wanted to see all the images together they can see it on a different platform. This can also push the project to different demographics. Another good thing about the social media profile is that people can interact with the pieces, they can comment like and share pieces. This allows interaction even when the project is finished so the cycle of interaction and bringing people together never ends, which is what we want.

I posted all images with these hashtags #friendsontheothersideproject #artproject #artist #project #mediaproject #media #contemporarymediapractice #cmp #artistproject #digitalart #digitalartproject to try and boost the project as much as i could. I also ended up creating my own hashtag #friendsontheothersideproject where nobody else has posted, it is just work regarding our project. This is important as it allows participants and viewers to find our work using the hashtag as well as post their own pictures using the hashtag as well as promoting the project further.

This profile got us a few participants but not as many as we intended, however i still think it was very useful to make as it acts as another exhibition as well as website. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, maybe if i had more time i would've created more story highlights maybe talking about the process so the profile could act like a blog as well.

Website

The website was the main priority of my group member Reece however i took a large part in creating and editing it, especially the home page. The sites purpose was to promote our project as well as hold resources and information regarding FOTOS. This site also holds the link to the exhibition and the instagram account. You can find the site here https://w1783195.wixsite.com/my-site

The first thing you see on this site is the introduction video as well as a welcome title and a tagline. As you can see i added anchors on the right hand side so the viewer can go to certain sections of the hoe page to find the certain information they need. I thought this was important to add as some viewers may not realise there is more to the home page so this just shows them and makes it easier to navigate.

When you scroll It has a similar explanation of the project that is on the instagram account but has a more detailed paragraph of how people can participate. This is put near the top so viewers know exactly what the project is and how they can participate straight away. It also has the collaborative canvas there so if they want to contribute but do not want to do a paired drawing they can. It also can just show an example of what we do.

Below that is the tool introduction video i created if they need it right below the canvas. And below that there is our email and a link to our instagram so they can get in touch as easy as possible.

At the top right we have the menu bar which links to the gallery, this has another explanation of the project as well as direct link to our VR exhibition and our own personal emails. I think this page could've done with more work as its quite simple.

The final page has a couple of inspirations of the project for reference for participants, they have small descriptions and images. If we had more time we could've put some more inspirations on here to just develop the page a bit more.

This website unfortunately didn't get any participants despite being shared around to the course community. However i still think it is a very important aspect to this project as it provides a space with every bit of information of the project. I think the aesthetics of the site could've done with more work and it could've had even more detail if we had more time.

Exhibition

The exhibition was set up by group member Leonard with the website Artsteps. This exhibition would've been real in person and we could've printed out the pieces in high quality however due to being in a pandemic it was unable to happen. However because our theme is about lockdown and bringing people together via digital art since we are all basically trapped indoors the virtual exhibition fits well to the theme. However it would've been nice to have interaction via the exhibition as well. Link - https://www.artsteps.com/embed/60622843c25992ffeb139865/560/315

The exhibition set up is simple, with an opening room with the collaborative canvas and a welcome sign. The you move into the main room with all of the submissions we received during these few weeks. In this you can compare and analyse each piece yourself, maybe try and figure out which theme each pair chose.

The design of this exhibition is simple as we do not want to take away or distract from the art pieces themselves. The website Artsteps is very simple to use and you get to move around by simply clicking where you want to go. It is accessible on laptop or by using a VR setup for a more immersive experience.

I think the exhibition really wraps up the project perfectly, it allows a space for participants to see their art and also any other viewers can be apart of the project just by observing. However if we had more time i would've explored more virtual exhibitions, specifically ones where you can see avatars of other people who are also viewing at the same time as you. This is to mimic a real exhibition as much as possible as well as push that interaction aspect of this project even further after all the pieces are done.

This whole project was very special to be apart of and i think really positively affected participants as after they completed their artwork they told me how they had fun interacting with people again, even if it is not in a conventional way. It also really fits the brief of participatory storytelling with the viewers becoming the artists and telling their own little stories on a virtual canvas. I think this project has a lot of potential and could even be continued in the future.