Description
Background
The Big Picture is an exciting new arts project that aims to encourage attendances and participation from adults throughout the West Midlands in the C2DE Socio-Economic Group by inspiring them to take, use, view and manipulate photographs. This region wide photography project is an accessible and relevant way for Midlanders to engage with, and experience, art at a very local and personal level. Over a six month period (Jan-June 08) people throughout the region are invited to submit photographs, through The Big Picture website and/or participating arts venues, which they feel define their experience of living and working in the Midlands during 2008, building a detailed visual snapshot of the region, its people and communities.
Six participating galleries throughout the Midlands region are also running education, outreach and enhancement activities as part of The Big Picture. These activities are being funded by the campaign and although they will be incorporated into the galleries regular programmes, they will specifically target the C2DE groups and fit in with the broad theme of The Big Picture.
Big Picture Activity
There are several ways that audiences can engage with, and participate in, The Big Picture between January and June 2008, these are:
Attend an event and/or participate in a workshop at an arts venue throughout the region
Participate in a PR/marketing activity or campaign i.e. “In the Frame” launch roadshow
Take, submit and/or manipulate a photograph on The Big Picture website.
All of these activities are very different, particularly those in galleries, as each one is tailored to meet the specific needs of each audience to encourage attendance and participation (which is the overriding aim of the project).
What is actually required?
A system that allows people to MMS photos from their mobile phones will be in place soon – which is to be used to encourage people to upload their photos and get involved with the project. As users uploading from phones don't need to visit the website (inthebigpicture.co.uk), there needs to be something interesting and exciting happening to the photos – which drives them to visit and engage.
Audiences Central requires an artist/artists to develop and produce a concept and display system on The Big Picture website for MMSed photos.
Processes have to happen automatically (or at least with no input from the user) as users will not have access to the website at the time of upload. The data that there is to work with is only the photo itself, and any text contained within the MMS. Analysing photos in terms of colour - resulting in a dominant, or average colour value – is something that the website can already do, which may be useful.
This is a great opportunity for a local artist/artists to work on a large scale, nationally recognised project which is funded by Arts Council England and is supported by the BBC. The Big Picture has already attracted a great deal of interest from the arts and audiences region wide (and in some cases nationally and internationally) and the world record attempt will be a high profile culmination to this already much loved project.
There is the possibility that the successful artist/artists may be interviewed/profiled on national, regional and local media. They must be available to undertake this aspect of the project, and enjoy being interviewed and working with the media. Audiences Central’s Big Picture PR consultant would liaise with the artist on this and other Big Picture media coverage. Depending on funds, there may also be the possibility of additional work to produce pieces of artwork which can be used to aid the legacy of the project.
Timing
The Big Picture project finishes at the end of June so it is planned that the world record attempt will take place over the weekend of the 28 June. A detailed timing plan will be developed in consultation with the successful artist/artists however a brief outline of timings is as follows:
Artist brief circulated w/c 10 March
Deadline for artist brief 25 March
Artist interviewed and selected 4 April
Online work completed and tested w/c 17 April
MMS Project PR and go-live w/c 24 April
Budget
The artist fee to include travelling costs for the mobile phone upload project is £2,000. If any additional work is commissioned this will also be funded separately.
Next Steps
Please provide a proposal outlining costings, background about yourself, initial thoughts on how you would approach this commission and examples of previous work that is relevant to this project (either in style or technology) to Jon Bounds by 25 March 2008. If you would like to discuss any aspect of the project please contact Jon Bounds.
The short listed artists will be invited for interview on Friday 4 April
Brief prepared by:
Jon Bounds
Consultant working on behalf of Audiences Central
601 The Big Peg, 120 Vyse Street, Birmingham, B18 6NF
M: 07974 789 455
E: editor@inthebigpicture.co.uk
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