Writing Practices- An assignment given by my teacher and mentor Konstantina Georgelou. One more let
This is an assignment that I had during the writing practices module of my MA. I had to read an assigned literature and write a response to one of the sources. In my response I needed to try and engage fully with the suggestions that were made in the selected source, make use of the other sources in order to (counter)argue my own, and write from the position of the artist who is concerned in her work with similar ethical and social questions.
I read and responded to the article “Always choose the worst option” by Bavo Research Team, and to a video within which Renzo Martens explains his work.
You can find the text and video here:
https://www.bavo.biz/always-choose-the-worst-option-artistic-resistance-and-the-strategy-of-over-identification
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIwFd1zB1zk
Content-wise, I decided to respond by employing methods and tools I had learned while working in advertising several years ago.
My response was in the form of a letter and this letter is included in my fringe publication: 'Do you believe in God, my dear Institution?'.
Dear BAVO research team,
Dear Renzo Martens,
Ι have been following your work through articles and videos that my mentor and teacher Konstantina Georgelou has shared with me, for the MA of Theatre Practices at the University of ArtEZ.
I am an artist myself, and I have passed through several phases in order to approach my need to confront (through my art) with the existing order in late modernity.
My practice and my artistic work have been informed each time by my attempt to articulate more accurately within language, body and time/space, how to deal with what is happening in the world today, politically, socially, and ethically.
My search has started with what I called 'in-between' spaces, looked upon as spaces that overcome the binary form. Being completely disappointed when I discovered that a liminal or an in-between space can easily work in favor or in line with the principles of the existing order (namely capitalism, neoliberalism, and many other 'isms') I started looking for what I called (not in the sense that I gave name to it, but mostly in the sense that I claimed right for using the word) alternatives or alternative spaces.
Spending some time with these terms, I realized that an alternative could also be something equally bad or even worse than the initial attempt I wished to oppose to (and therefore wanting to find an alternative for), and for this reason I continued looking for new articulations.
My Dears BAVO research team, and Renzo Martens, I don't want to risk to bore you by naming here one by one each of my attempts to deal with, react to, come to terms with, confront, resist, and/or create a dialogue within my artistic research-practice with what I called precarity, vulnerability, endangerment, and anxiety, so I will cut the long story short. No matter how many the attempts were, what I would like to let you know, is that I am still within the process of searching.
I address this letter to you today, because I came up with this idea, that I would like to share with you.
I thought to use my work experience in marketing and advertising in order to analyze my artistic research/practice, because maybe then I thought, maybe this would give me and you more insight in regards to the articulation of the above attempts, and therefore to the artistic research/practice itself.
I also thought that there is no better audience to address this letter than to you my dears, as, as you have most probably realized up to now, although we do not know each other, we share similar ethical and social questions. My analysis will be done using the tools that I managed to remember (I haven't work in the field for almost 20 years now), in no specific order, and I hope it will inspire and disgust you, as much as your propositions have inspired and disgusted me.
Target Market
Primary Target Market
A primary target market is the particular group of consumers at which my product/service is aimed at. Below, I include as many demographic and psychographic factors about my primary target market as I can.
Women and men, 25-45 y.o., in Arnhem, Zurich, and Athens, of higher socioeconomic and educational status, artists, academics, intellectuals, teachers of the MPT in ArtEZ. Women with the aforementioned characteristics interested in creating a dialogue with the existing sociopolitical order within late modernity.
Women with the aforementioned characteristics, interested in the performing arts. Women with the aforementioned characteristics interested in the possibilities of language and the body, within time and space.
Women and men with the aforementioned characteristics that see art as the ability to change the world, not by money or force, but by orientation, by radically transforming the 'sensible', or sensory, reality of the eye, ear, taste, touch and smell, which unavoidably results in a change in ideas, understanding and insight. (1)
Women with the aforementioned characteristics with an interest in the performativity of the ephemeral in the theatre. Women with the aforementioned characteristics interested in the introduction of temporality in the theatre.
Women with the aforementioned characteristics who have done some kind of therapy (psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, dramatherapy, dance therapy) for a period of one month and/or more in their lives.
All the first year MTP's ArtEZ students: Mariela Nestora, Konstantinos Voudouris, Conrad Useldiger, Maria Joao Falcao, Flora Mc Murtie, Jan Deboom, Silas Neumann.
My ideal customer, and/or my most loyal buyer persona, is a woman who is interested in an artistic work/research that does not follow a certain aesthetics, her interest is rather related to its ethics and is based on creating a dialogue between the inner and the outer self, the personal and the social, the intimate and the general. The only person I know who has the above characteristics is my partner in life, and because he is a man I am obliged to categorize him in the secondary rather than the primary target market.
Secondary Target Market
Men and women, 25-45 y.o. in Athens and Zurich, performance and dance enthusiasts that would go to anything imported or new in town, friends of the artist (i.e. me) around 50 people, school classmates who think they still need to support the artist as a group (although they are not interested neither in the topic nor in performances) two or three people who believe in the work of the artist.
My partner in life.
Key Competitors/Direct Competitors
Direct competitors are seen as people who sell the same or very similar to my product. They compete across the board, or for specific products, for certain customers, or in certain geographic areas.
Women and men artists, makers, choreographers, and researchers between 25-50 y.o., that show work in Arnhem/Amsterdam but also in Zurich and Athens.
Coming from the broader field of dance (choreographers, dancers, theorists of dance, researchers) with an interest in exploring movement through/within language.
Exploring the movement of language through contemplation/imagination.
With an interest towards an ethics that explores possibilities of dialogue within the sociopolitical existing order in late modernity.
Key/Major Brands as Direct Competitors
Mette Edvartsen and most of the products she sells
Ivana Müller and some of the product she sells
Andrea Božić
Bojana Cvejić
Product : 'Contemplations' performance, by Mette Ingvartsen
More specifically, direct competitors are the following artists and researchers that compete with me across the board in the geographical area of Arnhem.
All the first year MTP's ArtEZ students: Mariela Nestora, Konstantinos Voudouris, Conrad Useldiger, Maria Joao Falcao, Flora Mc Murtie, Jan Deboom, Silas Neumann. Indirect Competitors
Potentially all researchers, makers, and choreographers who sell work in Switzerland, Holland and Greece, and are somehow sensitive about what is happening in the world around them.
More specifically, I consider as indirect competitors artists who although do not offer the same product/service as I do, still satisfy the same consumer need in the same geographical region as I do. All the first year DAS theatre students: Ira Brand, Samara Hersch, Max Gold, Billy Mullaney,Max Gold, Brogan Davison, Ana Vilela da Costa, Ingrid Vranken.
Marketing Tagline
A tagline is a short phrase that encapsulates my service's/product's image.
It is actually a one-liner that portrays my artistic research's/practice's philosophy, and potentially will help me differentiate from my competitors. It should be a tool to explain one's business philosophy or product in a couple of words. If I remember correctly, it has to be concise, emotional, specific and positive.
'Exaggerate the subtle or subtle the exaggeration'
Company mission statement
A mission statement is a brief explanation of one's company’s reason for being.
In general one should keep the mission statement short to one or two sentences, but as you may see below, I failed to keep it so short, so probably my artistic research's/practice's statement will need to be re-evaluated in a later phase to become stronger.
My artistic research's/practice's mission is to find ways to respond inside the theatre to the ethical, political, and social questions that concern me as an artist. Moreover, through writing/language, body/movement, performing, and their relation to time and space, the research looks for ways to create a dialogue with 'being vulnerable and precarious' in the modern world.
SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)
Swot analysis is a framework that analyzes the factors, internal and external, that have an impact on the viability of a project, product, service, place, or person. Internal factors are seen in regards to the product/service and external in regards to the market the product/service is placed in.
Strengths and weaknesses analyze the internal factors whereas opportunities and threats the external ones.
Strengths
Things the research/practice does well Invites people to meet and work outside the theatre. Planning and organizing. Performative writing, performing, dramaturgical and artistic compositions.
Qualities that separate me from my competitors Well-motivated, independent, self reflection/ awareness, focused, persistent. Internal resources such as skilled staff: Trained in working with consistency.
Tangible assets such as intellectual property: I don't believe in the ownership of art, but I consider my personal artistic process as an asset, in relation to the specificity of the experience earned and therefore 'owned' in that sense.
Weaknesses
Things the research lacks: Being fully aware of own strategies. Being more pragmatic and nuanced in ways that theory is perceived, and in dramaturgical and compositional decisions.
Things my competitors do better than me: Research proposal articulation, critical writing, economy of expression.
Resource limitations: Reluctance towards the formation of a structure to support the artistic work financially.
Unclear unique selling proposition : The way precarity is used is still unclear. Whether the use of the word is needed is also still unclear.
Opportunities
Underserved markets for specific product/service: I analyzed the niches I am targeting at in my primary target market. I looked into interests of the target group instead of analyzing only demographics, which is what I think opens a door to one's niche underserved market, and therefore to more opportunities.
Few competitors in my area: I covered the competitors in the direct and indirect competition part.
Press/media coverage of my research: ArtEZ university does this work partially. Tanzhaus Zurich also 'covers' small parts of my research. In Zurich, Stillpoint spaces, Maxim Theater, and Holzke Kollektiv have done this work in the past and can potentially do it again.
Threats
Emerging competitors: Institutions that teach and individuals interested in learning a form of representation that constantly leave(s) open the possibility to discuss any subject. (2)
Changing Regulatory Environment: Data protection and privacy may affect the artistic research market in relation to how qualitative and quantitative research results are used. How the theory of affect, and embodied knowledge are perceived and used in the specific market also influence and regulate the environment within the market.
Negative press/media coverage: Two main arguments that hold two opposing positions. On the one hand, artistic research can be easily seen as not valid, as if it does not exist, in relation to the knowledge it produces, (especially when compared to scientific research) and on the other hand, it may be wrongly interpreted as everything and anything in the art field.
Changing customer attitudes towards my research: Changing customer attitudes is in general very difficult. Customer attitudes is a combination of a consumer beliefs, affects and behaviors towards a brand. Especially for my research I think the problem is that there is not an established attitude towards it because it remains very 'domestic' within the institution of ArtEZ. Probably, if I create a structure to support my artistic work and therefore make my name more established in the artistic market (artistic institutions, theaters, educational institutions) then it would be easier to change customer attitudes towards my artistic work.
One of the strategies I employed to change customer attitudes, is the approach of classical conditioning, which tries to 'pair' the product with a liked stimulus. For example, we 'pair' a car with a beautiful woman. In my case this year I will try to 'pair' my artistic research and work with the artist 'Mette Edvartsen' as I will ask her to become my external mentor. This may or may not have an effect on the attitude of my customers in the following years. I already have employed this strategy last year, by 'pairing' my artistic research and work with the artist 'Danae Theodoridou'. The results of this pairing were very good in comparison to my customers' positive attitudes towards my research.
My Dears BAVO research team, and Renzo Martens, this was a short analysis of my artistic work (research-practice) in which I used only very few of the tools, strategies, and tactics that I 'borrowed' from the field of marketing and advertising.
In case you find within it some interesting strategies that relate to your work, and would like to discuss with me further, please don't hesitate to contact me personally via email at mylonaeleni@hotmail.com or call me at +41 767 872 400. I will be very happy to discuss with you possibilities on how to cooperate in order to deal with the common concerns that we have in the best possible ways (whatever that may mean). At the moment, I am looking into templates of business plans and advertising strategies in order to refresh my memory and be more ready for our discussion when and if this happens.
I hope we will find a way to continue this dialogue further,
Best Regards,
Eleni Mylona
Mika Hannoula, Artistic Research Methodology, Foreword x (2014 Peter Lang Publishing)
Ibid, Foreword ix