Digital Works Podcast
Talking about all the different things that 'digital' means in the arts, culture and heritage sectors. Tales of success and failure, interrogating the shiny new things and looking at what works (or not) and why, Interviews with digital folks working across the sector and beyond, in-house, consultants, funders, and more.
Digital Works Podcast
Episode 031 - Seb Chan (ACMI) on the power of 'digital imagination', the importance of experience-focused roles in museums, and understanding the importance of capital in predicting the future
An incredibly wide-ranging conversation with Seb Chan, CEO and Director of ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image).
Seb talks about his background in community radio, 'looking under the hood' of the early internet, the importance of experience-focused roles in museums, the power of cultural leaders developing a 'digital imagination', understanding the importance of capital in predicting where the future is heading, and loads more.
Prior to joining ACMI as their first Chief Experience Office (CXO) in 2015, Seb led digital change projects at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum of Design in New York. Seb is Adjunct Professor, School of Media and Communications, in the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT, an international advisory board member of Art Science Museum (Singapore) and board member of the National Communications Museum (Melbourne). He is an alumnus of the Getty Leadership Institute, Salzburg Global Seminar and UNSW.
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Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Digital Works podcast, the podcast about digital stuff in the cultural sector. My name's Ash, and in this episode, episode number 31, we speak with Seb Chan. Seb is the c e o and director of Acme, that's the Australian Center for the Moving Image in Melbourne. He joined ACME as Chief Experience Officer in 2015, and prior to that, led digital transformation programs at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. Seb is also adjunct professor at the School of Media and Communications in the College of Design and Social Context at R M I T. He's an international advisory board member of Art Science Museum in Singapore, and is also a board member of the National Communications Museum in Melbourne. We talk about figuring out how things worked in the early days of the internet, the usefulness of being a generalist , uh, the advantage of having a digital perspective as a institutional leader, and the importance of what SEB refers to is digital imagination. Enjoy. So, hi. Hi , Seb . Thanks for thanks for joining me. Eight o'clock your time.
Speaker 3:Hey, Ash. Yeah, no worries. Eh , it's good. Beautiful day , uh, day today . It's all nice and hot here. 25 degrees. It's summer. It's all good,
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Well, it is. I think it's about 10 degrees and it's raining and it's winter here, so you definitely win on that count. Um, and to , to , to start us off, I'm, I'm interested in hearing a bit about your career because I've, I, I think I first encountered you about 15 years ago, maybe at a conference that I went to, and we've chatted a bit in the intervening years, and I've sort of watched your career from afar, and it's been really fascinating to see the roles that you've held and where you've ended up at , at Acme. But what does the Seb Chan story look like ? Well,
Speaker 3:It's a pretty, it's, it's a story that goes back beyond those 15 years, in fact, and it's sort of, it's a bit of luck that I ended up in museums at all, actually. So , um, maybe go right , right, right back to the start. So, you know, when I was at secondary school , um, I actually started doing community radio or what was called, what's called Community radio here. I , I guess an equivalent might be sort of Legitimized Pirate Radio in the uk or maybe college radio in the us . Um, so I started doing some radio while I was doing my final years of school. And then , um, uh, I got caught up in the whole , uh, you know, electronic music scene in the nineties , um, while I was doing a social work degree. So I was actually , um, studying to be a social worker. I completed that , uh, degree and was also at the same , at the time, you know, know, doing all this radio stuff, but also doing a lot of , uh, you know, putting on parties and warehouses, running club events, and having a, a reasonably prolific career as a, as one, one half of a d of a DJ crew or sound , uh, sound system crew down here in , uh, Sydney , Sydney in Australia. Got into a lot of , um, uh, also, you know, writing and music journalism and culture journalism during that period too. And I, I guess the sort of my social work part, my social work career really ended up more down the policy path and around , um, social change. So a lot of , uh, com , uh, community action work and research work. Uh, and then I started doing a PhD kind of d in , uh, sub subcultures and sub subcultural theory and geography, and this sort of notion, which I was exploring in that, in that piece of research, was about why do certain cities have certain sounds at certain times, and what infrastructure does a city need to make those things flourish? What is that both in terms of hard infrastructure, you know, places , uh, places to hang out, real estate that doesn't cost mountains of money , um, happens to have , uh, declining economy , so there's warehouses to put parties on in, yada, yada , yada, but also the soft infrastructure. So the way that in the nineties record shops worked not only as places of commerce, but places of meeting and sharing , um, somewhat secret knowledge, so that sort of thing of taste, taste, cult taste cultures, and all of this just at the cusp of , uh, the internet becoming a mainstream thing or a , a reasonably accessible thing. So that, that was the nineties for me. And, you know, I had a pretty fun time then , um, doing lots of things, putting on events, creating spaces, touring artists, touring bands, you know, we, we worked a lot with VJs , so video, video , uh, people who were doing live kind of video with us. Um, and that, that was really great and fun. And, you know, with the internet piece, you know, of I'd been a child had grown up with , uh, computers and so , um, that sort of sense of the internet being a thing that you could manipulate and work with the grain of. So a lot of people in my , uh, I guess generation , um, saw the internet as a , as an expressive space for experimental, creative, creative practices and that whole sort of notion , uh, building early websites as I was doing too , um, that notion of view source, you know, that sort of view source model where you go to a , go to a webpage that you liked , um, the , uh, design of click view source in your browser, figure out how it all worked, copy to paste to your page, manipulate it, that kind of thing. So that , that view source model of culture as some kind of people have expressed it in other domains. So it comes around to the end of the 1990s, and of course we've got , uh, the y y two K bug hype going on, and I had a , uh, part-time job during my , uh, doc doctoral research , uh, working in tech support in the university library, fixing computers, servers, all those sorts of things. And I ended up , um, doing project management of part of the university's Y two K project , um, and a job came up at the Powerhouse Museum , uh, doing the same thing. And I ended up there. So that's how I fell into , uh, museums by that time. So social works long , long kind of gone from what I was doing, but I was still very in interested in this idea of how , um, how technologies, places, spaces, and in this case also virtual spaces at that time could create new forms of cultural practice. And of course, media and comms, right? So when I'm work , working at the Powerhouse in it there , um, you know, a couple years in, after Y two k I was working on some really exciting other projects and , uh, eventually got put in charge of the web team there too. Um, and , uh, started think thinking with the team there, a couple of , uh, colleagues there. We were all kicking around these ideas of, well , what happens if you could make the entire museum's collection accessible to people? What new forms could emerge from that? What problems could, could, could, could we solve? And that's sort of when I started to do with my teams , um, all that work around the early social web and collections and making collections accessible. Um, so that , so I was at Powerhouse , uh, from I guess mid, sort of 1999 to , uh, 2011. Got , uh, got recruited by the Smithsonian to , uh, work for the Cooper Hewitt by Bill Mulbridge . So Bill Mulbridge was the direct director then, and he hired me from Australia to come in as a director of , um, uh, emerging media , uh, digital and emerging media. And , um, that was a role that was to help the Cooper Hewitt become a digital museum as they did a big redevelopment. Uh, and that's when, you know, I got known with my teams for the work , uh, work, work there around open access and making, you know, much of that collection available. We were the first Smithsonian to , uh, release its collection as CC zero collection metadata with C CCC zero , et cetera , et cetera. Then also working with local projects on the read redevelopment there, which was resulted in the, the , um, Cooper Hewitt pen , uh, an interactive device that allowed you to collect things throughout the museum, but also became kind of a , um, an avatar, an icon for the museum's change. So it was a sense of putting the power back in the visitor's hands and returning the public collection physically to the kind of visit visitor. So I won a lot of awards, yada, yada, yada , uh, and then I , uh, was looking for the next , um, thing, and it turned, turned out that coming back to a to Australia was where that was going to , um, have the most interesting and exciting possibilities. So Katrina s Sedgwick, the then who had just , uh, started as the director of the Australian Center for the Moving Image here in Melbourne, hired me to come in and , uh, you know, be , um, the C X O . So the chief experience of officer , uh, first time that term had been used in the museum world, which were kind of amusing and fun , uh, and do a sim do a similar thing. Think about what, what in a big museum re redevelopment was possible , um, and what could you do within this case, a museum of film, TV and video games to , um, make that more accessible and to reboot it as a, I guess a museum that could work at the speed of the internet is, is I guess how I phrased it at one point. Um, and , um, so I was doing that. And then , uh, about six months ago I got appointed as a C director and c e o, so Katrina , um, de departed, and , uh, she is now the c e o of the Melbourne Arts Priest Precinct, and we are a tenant of the Melbourne Arts pre precinct. So tech , technically she's our landlord, so that's kind of nice. Um, and that's where I'm today. So I'm the director and c e o of the Australian Center for the Move Moving Image. We're a large , um, public museum in the center of Melbourne. Uh, we have cinemas, we have labs, we have a co a co-working space. We have a collection. We do lots of digital stuff. Uh , we have lots of galleries. We tour exhibitions, we build exhibitions that tour around the world. We do all the things that , uh, contemporary contemporary museum does. We commission lots of art too. So , um, that's it. So from, I guess music person, social worker, media studies kind of person, internety person, museum person, you know, now to , uh, running an in , in running a large museum, which is great.
Speaker 2:And that's, that's fascinating because I think in the sort of , uh, 25 year <laugh> span that you covered there, you , you , you touched on a few things that I'm noticing crop up , you know, time and again in these, in these conversations that I have. And it seems that folks that seem to work successfully in, in digital roles in, in our sector, seem to have , um, a shared interest in storytelling, a shared interest or ability to be empathetic and to sort of bring people with them , um, and also seem to have this , uh, magpie like curiosity, I suppose, you know, people that are interested in technology, but also interested in different art forms and interested in emerging art forms, and interested in how things sort of collide into each other and how audiences can be a part of that. And it feels like all of those elements are very much present in your, in your sort of journey through your, through your career. And I wonder, you know, now that you find yourself, as you say, c e o of a of a large institution, does your, or how much does your background in digital and your sort of digital expertise inform your leadership style, the , the priorities you have as a, as a leader of, of an institution? Or are you finding that, having to worry about all of the things that the person in charge has to worry about , uh, flattens out some of that ambition that you might have had prior to stepping into the role? Look,
Speaker 3:I think it's a bit of both. Uh, to be honest, I think, you know, I think , um, the digital, my digital back background immediately foregrounds an audience, a user, the public, it immediately does that. Because I think having spent decades now working with the grain of the internet and dig digital practices and the way that those, the metrics, the data that you get around how people behave with your sys systems and service services, when you're building those really does skew skew you towards a bias towards , um, who you are doing things for or with, and understanding that. So, so I think how I, what, what I'm very conscious of is that it's, even when I don't intend to, I will often have a very audience focused bias in my decision making and my style. So I'll always be asking questions about how do we make this better for a visitor? How do we help what the artist is trying to do and, and explore, reach the most people in the most legible way? So I have a big mantra in the office of like, I want us to be an approachable and legible museum. Now, lots of, lots of museums and galleries wanna be approachable. Uh , I think the focus also on legibility is, is very important. So that, that sort of sense of a visitor, particularly a visitor who may not be familiar with an artist or an art , art artistic practice in these modern times too, they may not also have been to a cinema before, given we've been in lock lockdowns and the, like, that cinema going is some, a new thing for many people that needs to be learned. So how do we make the practices of that legible? And that's part of that democratizing urge I think that I've, I've, I've had throughout my, my career from, you know, music and music kind of journalism and ra ra ra radio, all of the way through to the open access stuff, but now also spatial design and those kinds of things. It's about making, give , giving a purpose to the work we are , we are doing. And I think, you know, of often when I think about the work I now have got got to do and the decision making around the things we do and the, and how, and when we do things, a lot of the questions I'm ask asking is, is our intent legible to the public? Is that's how you build that , uh, in , in , in a state, state finance museum , um, that social contract , um, that social license between the public and the institution to do what it does, given that we are paid for by tax tax taxpayers or , um, uh, tax kind of , um, deductible donations, <laugh> . So there's always in a public museum a commitment. There should be a commitment to , um, uh, uh, that social license piece, which I think is really important. And I think that that, that does very strong strongly come , come through in a lot of people who have a digital background, because in the dig digital space, things live or die on whether it gets used so that the sort of bias towards user experience , um, I kind of think of user experience in , in a , perhaps a broader way now, beyond interface interface design or ui uh , design. What is the UI of a museum or gallery? What's the user experience as well of that?
Speaker 2:And I think what you've touched on there is sort of tulies with why I think at a digital mindset and in heavy inverted commas can be so transformative outside of the sort of strictly defined , uh, definition of, of digital stuff. Yeah . Because as you've said, it inherently centers the user, the , the, you know, the participant, the visitor, the audience member. It's sort of forces you to, to be empathetic and and to focus on how you can be effective and engaging and impactful. And that doesn't need to be confined to things involving technology or the internet. That's right. Yeah . That's , uh, those are , those are soft skills that are applicable across everything that everyone does completely.
Speaker 3:I mean , there is a risk in this though, and I think this is also worth saying. I think the risk, the risk in this , um, and I say this sometimes with , uh, digital practitioners who , uh, particularly have come up in the last dec decade of, you know, really digital practice under , uh, platform capitalism is quite different to the digital practices that pre-existed before , um, social media or before mobile. Um, so I think you sort of have these two areas , or , or three areas really , um, sort of, i , I think this sort of piece that I think there is a risk sometimes with digital prac practitioners or people with a digital back back background to be seduced by purely quantitative , um, approaches to efficiency, performance, success, and also acceleration and speed. So I think one of the things that I'm, I'm very conscious of trying to tease out in , uh, my practice and with people who I work , work with too, is to allow breathing space for , um, for results to , um, emerge. Um, which is sometimes for people who have been specifically trained in a commercial dig digital environment, quite tricky for them because in a commercial environment, you've been driven by the metrics that have been available to you, and they've been quite short term , maybe court , court , court quarterly reporting, or may maybe even shorter term than , um, that if you are designing, you know, making change changes to user experiences, you're looking for immediate results. And I think in, in, in , um, spaces, in physical spaces and with more diverse users, you , those impacts are , are much more squishy and they're not fast ne necessarily. I , I was talking , um, on a panel at a uni at a university this morning, and , um, someone asked about impact measurement and , um, you know, I was talk talking about how universities, it's really, really interesting the way that the alumni associations of universities so that the fundraising folks who chase up former students for donations and stories, right? They never contact you in the first couple of years after grad af after , after graduation. They always take like a decade at least, right? So they, they , they contact you a decade later because they, they know that that ed , that education experience that you have had won't have actually made a difference in your life in a tangible way for maybe 10 years. Um, and it may have made , made a difference in a way that you didn't expect. And so that, that sort of space allows the imm the , im the impact to emerge in a more , um, organic way. And I think that's really, that's very much the same with , um, museum and gallery and , and , and artist , artist , artistic and cult , uh, cultural experiences to , um, you know , uh, we've been doing some work with , um, uh, a primary school in , um, one of the , um, lower socio-economic outer suburbs of Melbourne here. And , um, it's been a five, five year pro project. And in the , uh, qualitative research done by one of the unis on it, it was showing that for a lot of the kids who had come, it was not only the first time that they had visited a museum or gallery, it was the first time they'd been in the city. And in some cases, the first time they had encountered an Es as , as , as escalator. And that to me was, you know, quite eye-opening. And so for them, the impact of their visit is, is , is is not me measurable in an immediate way, but I think will become apparent and , and , and did , did, did become apparent in the creative work that they did , um, in the years following at, at , um, at , uh, school and the way they thought about themselves and their own values and what they thought of as their possible futures too, which I thought was very exciting, but also hard to quantify in a quantification, in a quantifying methodology. The , the , um, there's no , uh, sort of user interface or user experience design you could do to optimize for that , um, or even in , or , or even measure that directly. So I think there's sort of, often I also see the risk with dig digital people is they, they , they don't have necessarily the patience to see that , uh, different sorts of results might emerge in different ways. And , um, I think that's where , um, the sort of messiness of art and art and culture is really exciting. And
Speaker 2:I'm , I'm interested to dig into, 'cause I think it's a really important point actually. And with your experience both as C X O and also c e o, how did you approach conversations where you were maybe having to set expectations that there are, you know, there are two, there are sort of two speeds at which impact will be measurable, and those, those are distinct, you know, yes, we can make it easier for someone to find out when we're open, find out what's on bio ticket , enter , you know, move into the gallery, and those things will perhaps be , uh, m more immediately measurable. Whereas we may be changing the experience that people are having once they are either in the physical spaces or engaging with a , a more qualitative online experience. And that impact will not be measurable in the same or as immediate away . Did you find it difficult to articulate that, or difficult to get people to understand that actually you are making change at two different paces with, with digital transformation? Yeah,
Speaker 3:That's, that , that's an interesting way of putting it. Actually. I, I hadn't kind of thought of it in that two speed approach. I, I , that's, that's, yeah. I think though , so I guess taking two examples here, I think it's interesting to, to , to look at the Cooper Hewitt, Penn and also the, the lens project. So the lens , uh, in Melbourne is a , is a take , take , take home device . It's a little bit similar to the pen where you can collect the films and media that you see in the museum to watch later. Similar idea to the pen , uh, but perhaps with a more tangible outcome. And also that sort of sense that taking the thing home is its own value . Value. And it's been interesting , um, over the last couple years since we reopened with this new tech technological piece in, in the museum. Um, um, so working with the teams and , um, Lucy Patterson talks about this, so she's our head of, head of kind of experience product and , um, digital , um, you know, we often talk in the museum about, well, what is the value of the lens? So we give this lens out to , uh, visitors, it's free. They collect a bunch of stuff. I think in the last 2, 2, 2, 2 years, visitors have collected like seven, seven , 7 million things in their visits. And you know, Earl early on , um, you know, we were trying to set K KPIs for that. So I was like, alright , well let's set a K p I around the percentage of people who use it and collect more than one thing, collect one thing when they start, do they collect an anything else? And you know, I think it's about 96% of visitors collect more than one thing. Awesome. And then the second , um, K p I was, well, do they log, log in when they get home? And this is where it gets a little fuzzy because, you know, when I was being asked this, I was thinking about my Cooper Hewitt experience, and with the pen, you know, when I, when I left the Cooper Hewitt, which was about a year af after the pen launched , um, it was about 35 to 40% of visitors had logged , logged in. And I thought that's pretty great, right? Because, you know, we know when people visit , um, museums basically 0% go back to the website after the visit, you know, maybe 60% go before, but zero, 0% afterwards. So from zero to 40 big, massive, massive jump. So here in Melbourne, they take home the lens, that's great, and it's about 25 , uh, percent of visitors. But of course we get more visitors than cou here, it did by , by a sig significant amount. And it's a free, ex free experience. And it's also a , an experience where people are more, more likely to visit, say, in family groups or with a series of friends. So the context of them using the lens compared to the pen is quite a different thing. Um, so I'm quite happy with 20, 25% post visit visitation, right? So again, the benchmark of that is 0%, right? Why would you go back to a museum's website afterwards? So zero to 25, that's awesome. But of course, within, within the museum, there's always this tension because , um, someone has to write the content that visitors get when they go home. You know , maybe that's a cataloger cataloging , um, the things that they collect, maybe that's a curator , uh, choosing the films that are recommended based on what someone's collected. So if you have collected, say, the Mad Max car and you get the Mad Max series of films, the Mad , the Mad Max series of films, we send you the streaming links for those, we send you curators notes, all that sort of stuff. But we also rec recommend you other things that the curators and other staff think you might want to watch or play. If , um, you collected the Mad Max cut , super cool, good thing, value creation, yada, yada, yada. But in that value, value creation, of course there's a lot of work. So someone has to create that content. And so often I will hear this , um, piece around, well, it costs us time to write that stuff and if own only 25% of our visitors are looking at it, potentially, is it worth it ? And of course, the answer in my mind is yes, of course it's, but it becomes that piece of like, well, do you put a percentage quant ? Do , do you have a percentage? At which point that that doesn't become worth it? Do, do you put the, the effort into growing that percentage? What do you need to do to do that? Do you have more signage? Do you have better visitor experience, staff talking to people about the lens? All that stuff. So in the ab absence of a benchmark that is agreed on, or an intentional target with both a quantum qualitative side to it, I can see how those things partic, particularly now as a C E O come, come, come to bear. So, you know, as C X O I had a third of the museum in my remit and , um, the curators were not in that, but a lot of the visitor experience staff and others were the tech staff and the marketing staff and all of that. Now I'm at the top of that. I, I do need to make choices around, well , do, do we hire another curator? Do we hire another researcher? Do we hire another software developer? Do do we hire another cataloger? Eventually those choices come up to me now and I need to make, I need to do that cal , uh, calculus around, well , which choice is going to have the greatest media , but media , but term positive impact. And that's, that needs an understanding that's shared around the type of value that , um, a visit creates and how that value is expressed , um, and measured and , um, how that value might change over for time too. So, you know, when we did the big relaunch and rebrand in 2021, so beginning of 2021, the brand launched of 2020 Pandemic was still on. We Open , we opened the Doors, Feb, Feb, February, 2021, and then went through a weird nine month period where we were opening and close closing, but still we got through that. Um, you know, this , this sort of sense of, well, the museum being a place that you didn't just come to see things, but it was a place that had an opinion that made recommendations to you to, to watch and play different sorts of films, TV show shows and games based on the things that you'd, you had experienced within the , within the museum, which in my mind and in the sort of , um, uh, rhetoric around the museum's brand was about expanding your curiosity of the world of screen screen culture. So if you were a super fan of Star Wars or the Marvel films, maybe you come and you see at the moment we have the costumes from the latest Thor Thor movie on display. Maybe you come for those. But in so, so doing, you also see and get excited about a bunch of video games you've, you've never heard of that just happened to also be made here in , um, Melbourne. And then you speak, speak to your friends about what, what sort of movie am I gonna see next? And your lens had made some recre recommendations based on the stuff you collected based on Thor for , for , for example, that are not , um, other Marvel films. So that kind of subtle piece, I think when , um, we were going through the design for this, you know, many years ago now, 20 17, 20 18, the chief, the chief curator, Sarah , Sarah Tutton and I would often talk about our experiences in record shops and that sort of sense of going into a record shop to buy one thing, and then the clerk at the, at kind of the desk recommending you a bunch of other things. And that was the value value. It wasn't just a like, Hey, I came in for this thing, I leave with it. Like when I go to buy milk at the shops, it was like, I'm coming in to buy milk. And you are also saying, oh, you should try at this maze and yogurt and this , uh, you know, 99 to percent cocoa choc choc chocolate's gonna be amazing with that. You know, it's sort of a cultural sommelier, let's say, sort of what is that cultural sommelier? How , how do you value that? And how does a museum create value from that? And so I think that that's the sort of piece that I think , um, you know , that the sort of experience with the pen and the lens and the way that's integrated into an experience kind of design , um, is now, you know, throwing up all these quite interesting , uh, decisions that now need to be made about resourcing value creation, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that what you've described there is always what I get most excited about the , uh, around the role that digital, the digital layer could play for cultural organizations, that it can, I suppose, play a more intentional part in the sort of continuum of engagement that an individual might have with whatever it is the museum or an institution is sort of concerned with focusing on. And I think that the example that you, that you sort of described there is a really, a really good example of , of of the role that digital can play, you know, in, in extending a visitors' or, or enabling a visitor's sort of deeper dive exploration into whatever it is that the museum is a , is a gateway into. And you know, the role that you held , uh, prior to becoming c e o Chief Experience Officer, as you say, you were sort of a pioneer in holding that role in, in the museum sector. And, and since you held that role there, have, that role has started to appear at an increasing number of , of institutions. Um, but given your perspective as c e o now, and maybe it's difficult to disentangle yourself from your own own experiences, but does , does that feel that sort of perspective of someone who is not just concerned with what is sort of physically happening in, in the gallery, but, but all the touch points , all the layers of experience that a visitor and or an audience member might have with, with an organization and the work they do. Does it feel increasingly important that a Chief experience officer or a version of that sort of role exists in museums that can gather all of the threads of that experience together so that it is coherent and that things are aligned and and speaking to one another?
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah. Look, I think it is, I think, I think what, you know, when, when Katrina and I were talking about the role that I took in the end, I was very conscious of it not being a digital role or solely digital role. It was about saying that that sort of binary between analog and digital or physical and digital, you know, had long past , you know, that sort of , um, that idea that digital lives was somehow separate from our, in quotes , real life , uh, you know, that evaporated with mobile, you know, is the idea of, you know, I would always joke that I, I come from a time when you had to get online like that , that to my teens is just absolutely ridiculous. Um , you know, and we joke about the sound of the modem connecting and stuff. It's like what you had to connect and like, yeah. And like if someone rang on your phone and you , you know, would like di disconnect and you know, your parents would pick up the phone, you'd be like, oh, I was downloading this thing from this , uh, bulleted board and you've just, just wasted four hours of my life or whatever, you know, as a kid, you know, it's sort of all that era is completely passed. I think, I think the , the C X O role at that time, 2015, was about really clearly saying digital is just part of the broader museum experience no matter what you do. And, you know, it's seven years after mobile in 2015, you know, come on, museum World, this is what it's about. Um, the, the , the , the, the , um, uh, the , uh, challenge of that though is of course the museum, the , the , the technology world is also at that time moving very, very fast and continues to move fast, although perhaps slowing a little now with the , um, uh, the rise in , um, the interest rates. So venture venture capital is moving to other places. Uh , but yeah, you know, in that tech tech boom of the 2010s , um, digital was moving and changing very rapidly. Uh, so , uh, in that role as C X O , you needed to keep up with a lot of different things and adding the, the physical and spatial elements to it and the service kind of design thinking that it requires. Um, it, it's the CX role . C X O role is a much more expansive strategic role in an ideal world. Um, but I can understand why a lot of organizations still feel that they need a chief , um, digital as well as someone who's in charge of experience or in charge of design. And , you know, but most museums are small, so they can't, they can't , um, they can't afford or, or structure in that way. I mean, where I am now, we have about 150 full-time equivalent staff. So 200 plus people I guess, in to total, including front of house staff and all the rest, maybe two 50. So, you know, that's sort of, that's a largest place, but for a lot of smaller places, the separation of roles , um, probably makes more sense and you probably make some priority choices there. But, you know, I think the, the, the sort of , um, notion of di digital being folded into a lived experience is, is of course the reality of our lives now. And I think , um, ac um , I'm acknowledging that structurally has the value of plugging into the rest of the systems and processes that have supported in museums and galleries, the physical design and the physical operations, the infra the infrastructure layer for such a long period of time. And I would extend that to the performing arts as well. I think, you know, that, that once you move away to a A C X O role in the performing arts, you start to think of the experience of going to the theater or going to the ballet or going to music venue venues or music events. The role of digital is more than having a really good ticketing s system and user flow and, you know, a what's odd website and things like that. It can be much, much more than that. And that's where, you know , I guess some, some of the work that's been going on in the mentoring program that I set up has really been pushing into is this sort of sense of now 15 years post mobile or fif 15 years since , uh, the iPhone. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's really not you, you really can't separate in quotes , real, real life from, you know, virtual or dig digital or whatever ridiculous thing we call it now. But it , it just is life now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I , I , I want to talk about that mentoring program because I think, you know, from what you've described, it sounds like we are a similar generation. The, the sort of experience of , um, blocking up the phone line for hours on end because you're talking to your friends on M S M Messenger or downloading something, and then, as you say, learning how to be a web developer by just botching it together. And, you know, again, I come from a sort of music technology background, so interested in the hardware side of things as well. Yeah . But o on the whole, and this is absolutely a sweeping generalization, <laugh> cultural leadership is the generation above us, at least, if not mm-hmm . <affirmative> older than that. You know, they were into their careers, you know, before the internet was part of their formative years. Um, and so that digital transformation has been something they've had to sort of educate themselves about and , um, and work out for themselves. It's been less a part , I suppose, of their worldview than it is perhaps for, for you and I, and certainly people younger than us. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And I think that brings us neatly to, to the, the digital leadership mentoring program that you mentioned. And I'm interested in where that came from and how it works. 'cause I know you've, you've run a couple of Yeah . Uh , cohorts through that now. So, so tell us a bit about this program that you've come up with. Sure. So
Speaker 3:This program started during the pandemic , uh, lock lockdown period. And , um, I was talking to a program manager of one of the major philanthropists, philanthropy found foundations at Funds Arts, arts and Culture here in Australia. And, you know, that we caught up for coffee , uh, in one of the periods when we could catch up for a coffee, I'd have to say. And , um, you know, they , they were getting a lot of inquiries about their funding round that was about to close, and they were getting endless , uh, inquiries about , uh, or , or proposals around , uh, projects that were to be delivered digitally because the pandemic, right ? And they asked me, look , you know, is , is is there a reason why so many of these, these proposals seem kind of boring and unimaginative and un, like they just want something really basic. Like, we don't, that's not really what we fund. We fund transformative amazing things. Uh, but people are asking for the , for very , uh, prosaic things. Is there , what what might be causing this? And, and , and we talked a talked a lot around this, and I mentioned , um, the Arts Marketing Association in the UKs , uh, mentoring program that I'd previously been a mentor on, and a couple of other men mentoring schemes here in Australia that I'd been a , been a mentor on. And, and , and I sort of was like, look, I think one of the problems is that , um, you know, arts and culture has not invest , not invested in or made choices to, to invest in innovation or in , or, or the infrastructure, both soft and hard to , um, support innovation and to support practice change transformation of creative prac , prac practice, or the ability to support artists and productions that require different ways of thinking, different infrastructure. You know, what is, if you were building a new theater from scratch, you might not build it the way the theater you current , current currently run is, is a , is a , I mean , is architected because you know that future performances will be using, you know, projection of mapped stage setups, or they'll be wanting to use motion capture or whatever. You might have a whole bunch of other things that help determine the kind of contemporary works that you are being pitched by, you know, theater makers and others, right? And so, so we were talking about this for an hour and, you know, and, and , um, I was like, well, look , you know , maybe , um, maybe what we need is a mentoring, a mentoring pro program for the leaders of these organizations that allows those leaders to develop what I , what I've now call a digital imagination. So, you know , moving away from this sort of notion of literacies, which imp which imp which implies a deficit , uh, and move moving away from skills, which implies that these are sort of things that you either have or don't have, and you can learn quick, quickly. A digital imagination points to a different mindset, but a mindset that's not just an ent entrepreneurial one, which I, which I have other , other , um, issues with now particularly. But this sort of sense of, well, what might be possible if, and knowing some of the cons , the constraints around that, and realizing un un understanding who you need to work with the organizations , uh, universities, researchers, tech companies, artists who , whoever to help push on the edges of that imagination and turn that imagination into reality. Well, in order to do that, may, may, maybe a mentoring program is what , um, we might need. And the program manager was like, well , look , SEP , um, this round is gonna close in co in in a couple , a couple of days. Do you reckon you can put in a bid and see, and we'll , I'll take it to the board and see if they would fund , uh, that if it's a good , uh, uh, um, proposal. So Katrina, I went back to Katrina, my c e o at the time, and like, Katrina, what do you reckon is this kind of crazy , crazy , crazy idea? And, you know, I would often go, go , go to her with ideas which were sort of half formed , and we'd workshop them and we'd end up doing most of them. I think they were great. She was a great, really great leader in that sense of, of opening up and sort of being o open to quite left of center I ideas and going , well , let's give it a go. So in this , she was like, look , Seb, yeah, why don't you write it up and see what happens. Cost , cost it out. Well , uh, so I did and, you know, put it in and a couple of months later they were like, well , you got the money now. Um, let's do it. And so then we paired with the Australia Council for the Arts , um, who were launching their , um, uh, digital strategist in residence program as part of their new did digital strategy in 2021. Yeah, 2021. And so we launched with that. Uh, we had , uh, I think 140 applicants for, at that 0.6 mentorships. We filled those really fast. We went , uh, I recruited a bunch of mentors who were other people , um, who had, had similar expenses to me or in my peer net network. I , I guess who had been able to, who were digital practitioners, but had also worked directly with senior leadership teams . So, you know, it was really, really important to pair people with people who they would have a mutual res respect and way for working, could figure out a way of work , work , working with. And that first six went through the prog program, which , um, we developed in a quite loose way in, in, in a way, because we knew that these were very different types of practice. So we had someone from a theater company, someone from a literary journal, someone from a music venue, you know, et cetera, et cetera, being mentored by people from the Opera house, myself, you know , uh, Paul Lare , Kia Wine Smith , you know, great Australian people who have been leaders in this space internationally for a long time. Um, and , and we tried to pair people up so they were not working in their normal domain, right? So I actually men mentored someone from the Melbourne, the c e o of the Melbourne, the Melbourne Recital Center, you know, put , puts on both classical performances and um, uh, contemporary music per performances. So it was a good exchange of , um, prac practice, con con constraints, ways of thinking, ways of working. And the idea was if these six would work out, then we would have a coalition then of the six men mentors, the six men mentees across diff different art art forms that could then move the program for , for forward into another restoration. 2022 come , comes around. Um, and we ran it again, we got fund fund funding again, this, this time from, from the Australian council as well . And we expanded the pro program to have 15 mentees, 15 mentors. Again, huge amount of people applied. And again, we ran this with a very diverse range of , um, people. And , uh, uh, we finished up late last year and we've got a big sim sim symposium, wrapping it all up in a couple of days time here in Sydney , uh, in Melbourne. I mean , uh, people flying in from Si Sydney, of course, that's where we've got people coming from the u UK and Europe and the Asia, Asia Pacific . So again, you know, we , we sort of finishing up with this big public sym symposium talking about some of the major issues and themes that have come out of these men mentoring sessions. Again, with that notion that now we will have had, you know, 20 plus leaders go through this program who all have had very diff different experiences, but now all have an, have an urge, an itch to, you know, make their, make what they want to do, expand in new ways. And , um, I think that's very exciting. You know, I think it's been , uh, it's been a really exciting , uh, and for me it's been fa fascinating just, you know, men mentoring Yuen from the recital center and then the , uh, c e o of the Adelaide Fest Fest Festival has been very , uh, in very interesting for me to learn from them as much as they may have learned from me. And it's been the same for many of, well, for all of the other men mentors too. We've, we've learned as much as our , uh, men mentees have learned. But, you know, I think , um, I think in many ways it's also been , um, and we will be publishing the, so we got one of the local uni universities, R m I t to do a formal evaluation of the program. So they did a big qualitative piece and make, and have produced a many, many page re report on the program that will be launched next week, as week as well, and published. So it's been interesting to read the kind of things that have come out of it. And it's very much about, in some ways, the CEOs and senior leaders were seeing the program almost as therapy , um, to work through some of the com , the com , the com , the complex issues they now face that all have a digital element to them. Um, also to be able to talk about and ask questions about some of the things that they didn't feel that they could ask some of their teams about because they didn't know that their teams also didn't know about them. Web three blockchain, but also basic things like, why does my ticketing system suck no matter how much money I put into it? Basic stuff like that, it becomes, it became quite an interesting exchange. Um, and of course we also talked a lot about new forms of creative practice that in some cases , um, directors and CEOs were not aware of super exciting , um, but also some that they were, were aware of, but they didn't know how that would affect their field. So in one of, in , in the second round of , uh, the pro the program, when we brought all the mentors and mentees to , uh, Melbourne, one of the days in the kickoff , um, intensive period, we took them all to a motion to capture studio and for, you know, people who are in the theater, in the opera, the ballet dance, and, you know, music and others, and museums too. They , it was the first time that actually seen motion to motion capture being done, or in some cases got to wear a motion , motion capture suit and be captured. And that, that experience changed how they thought about how that technology might apply in what they're doing or what their teams are doing. So it's a sort of, you know, it's , it's sort of , um, it's, it's been a really interesting experience all around. And I think, well, I hope it's been, IM been, been impactful in that longer arc of change. 'cause I think , um, it's sort of that, that sort of, you know, I , I broke it down in the early days of the Pro pro program in the infrastructure that arts and culture practitioners or leaders work from and imagine possible futures from is usually the infrastructure that was put in 20 plus years ago. And the Capital works programs that have Im , that have improved their buildings or whatever, have not really addressed wide scale technological infrastructure that might transform prac practice and the type of artistic and creative practices that could now be supported. So that, that's kind of the nuts, nuts and the bolts of the program. Um, but yeah, as , yeah , as I say, you know, I think one of its real strengths was that it wasn't just within a single domain. It wasn't just museums and galleries or library libraries. It was actually about saying, let's pair people from museums with people from the opera. Let's pair, you know, the chief kind of digital of the op of the op of the op , uh, of the opera house with the de deputy direct director of the Na Nash National Science Center, you know, pair these people in interesting friction, full encounters rather than frictionless ones and see what sparks, creative sparks could be generated from that. And that, that I think has been part of why it's worked. Um, you know , I have to say that during, during the first round, during what became more lockdowns here in Australia was, was particularly challenging . Challenging. 'cause we did really want these to be face-to-face as much as possible. Uh, but of course then we all adapted to doing them through Zoom. Um, but uh, yeah, it's been, it's, it's been really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And when I heard you speak about it at , at a conference last year, it just, it just seemed, I dunno , it's like when you hear a good idea, it suddenly feels, of course it's obvious. That's of course what, what should be being done around digital leadership, I think. And I think what you said there about creating cross art form, cross discipline pairings, I think is really interesting and important mm-hmm . <affirmative> and as is the focus on, as you put it, sort of developing a digital imagination. Because I think effective digital experiences, effective digital thinking is inherently not bound by discipline or art form, and it's sort of comfortable to remix and sit at the intersection of, of lots of different things. So I think by forcing that into the, into the way that the conversations were happening is what a really smart choice. Mm-hmm . And I'm, I'm curious, 'cause you know, you, you said the first cohort there were six people, second cohort, there were 15 people. Mm-hmm . Is this model, I mean, it sounds like other countries could pick the model up and , and replicate it, but how scalable is it? Is it, is it always going to be a relatively small thing , uh, small, small numbers, but because you're focusing on leaders of institutions, you're hoping that that sort of cataly catalyzes a ripple effect across the sector? Or do you think you could be putting much larger numbers of people through each cohort?
Speaker 3:Yeah, look, it's, it's an interesting question. I think it's one that ev that everybody asks. And we are, we are licensing the , the model to other jurisdictions. We've had a lot of in , in interest in that. Uh , we are looking at how that might work. But, you know, I think, I think , um, the , the , the key thing I guess is that, you know, also being someone who's worked as the digital in sort of innovation person in large organizations, and many of my colleagues and many of your colleagues, we all see that if the c e O is not interested in it, no matter what you're doing, it's gonna sort of cap out at a particular level. So this intervention was about, you know, we're gonna have lots and lots of the digital literacies, digital mind mindsets, digital skills programs running through our organizations. You know, that's kind of just gonna happen. But the impact of those and the transformational nature of those is reliant on that top person caring about it enough and caring about it. As I said, in one of the early meetings I had with people about this was caring and like, like now being a C E O , I kind of figure out, I've kind of come to learn that yes, when someone says you can only have four things on your mind at a time, they're really being serious about that. So, you know, how does digital push out one of those four things as a persistent piece? So, you know, you think thinking about staff got a welfare , you're thinking about the budget, you're thinking about the building, well, there's probably about 10 other things that can pick up that fourth spot. So how do you get dig digital in there enough times that it supports the change below you? And then that , that's really the motivation from it. So yes, you're right that that sort of this , that , that it can scale. It's, it , it sort of has this impact ripple effect across the institution. And that's certainly the point of mentoring from the top level. And it was also a response to a lot of the initiatives that I'd seen both in Australia and in other parts of the world, that the bottom up initiatives kind kind of worked, but they hadn't seen the wide scale change that I think the people who financed those had hoped. And I , you know, I think back to , um, the work that was financed in the u us particularly in include included in the Cooper Hewitt work, you know, there was millions of dollars put into trans transformational change. Um , and some of those worked, but some of them did stop because they were very reliant on retaining very particular people. Not even particular skills , skills , skillset , but particular people who were willing to be persistent enough and smart enough to integrate with the infrastructure layer and could to make them stick , um, or they had other effects, whatever. But you know, that that sort of top, top down approach catalyzes a bottom up as well, or, or helps bottom up work , um, can it scale? You know, in going from six to 15, we've found that the biggest, the biggest limitation is the availability of mentors and the availability of mentors who are themselves experienced enough to be able to do and show what they're doing. And you know, we , we've seen in the museum and gallery sec sector, many people with these skills leaving to work in other sectors, adjacent fields, or actually just quitting completely , um, for many, many reasons. But , um, I think we know some of what those are. Um, so I think there is a bit of a , a cap based on that. Um, and um, I also kind of think that by keeping it at that manageable level, you can focus on , um, it not being a sort of, here's what you're gonna learn, tick all the boxes, here's a set certificate done. It's not digital transformation as you know , uh, caterpillar to, to , um, to a butterfly, but actually a much, much longer continuous process of change that it's about getting someone understanding that that's what they're doing. It's not about you are gonna get a digital strategy at the end of this, or you're gonna care about a digital strategy. It's about you are on a learning kind of journey and you've had your sessions with , uh, your mentor and you're in a much, much better, better place now to continue to think in this sort of way. And when your tech technical staff or your creative staff come now to you with a proposal that requires digital in some manner, I can't imagine things that wouldn't really, to be honest. Now you have, you know who to speak to and you know the types of questions to begin with, and you also perhaps have a better sense of when you're being fleeced by another consultant or vendor. Uh, and that's also really important because , you know , I think we, we know that digital transformation is now the, you know, thing everybody's selling, but it's not a simple point A to B pro process at all. There is no b you know, in, in my view of it. And that's, that's I think, an interesting one for , um, the sector too. So it's, it's becoming in my , in my view, it's becoming comfortable with volatility and an interest and op optimism about having an agency within that technological space to see and be curious about where things might head and
Speaker 2:For people working in organizations where the leader of that organization hasn't been through your mentoring program. Um, yeah. As someone who has been in charge of digital stuff in an institution and who is now in charge of the institution and who has led this mentoring scheme, are there any arguments, tactics, advice that you could offer to people who are heading up digital programs in an institution that could maybe help to start to develop that digital imagination or start to get their leaders to be more comfortable with the un the inherent uncertainty of properly engaging in, in digital working? I , I just wondering if there's any advice you can offer people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think it's really about , um, showing proofs of concept and figuring out what the, what the purpose of the institution is in your mind and the organization's mind or , or the , the leadership's mind. And showing that technology is not just about the transactional and really , um, exploring, you know, if , if you're in a theater company and you're trying try and get to do this, yes, of course have a really good website, event calendar, ticketing system, but if that's all you are there doing and the digital mark marketing, that's gonna be pretty boring. What, what is driving contemporary theater production now? What can you show that could enable different types of ways of doing things on the creative side to come through? Um, that's the kind of stuff that I, I often now suggest to people. And that means often people who have come into an organization through the IT side, through the marketing and the marketing side as a digital marketing person, or perhaps through, you know, some, some other side they're going to need to learn to work with and engage with the creative side of the organization as well and learn the language of that and to learn where those practices are going in a, with the help of , uh, media tech technologies, network tech technologies and all of this. That's really where it's interesting. And I think , um, not everybody's gonna be up for that, right? Not everybody, not everybody's into that. Um, you know, I, I often bump, bump into tech technologists who work in cultural sector things who don't go to gigs. They don't go to see, you know, people who are doing amazing immersive, you know , um, uh, light shows for big bands. They don't go and see those things. And I would often say to them , why don't you go to that? I'm not really down with the music. I'm not really down with like, that sort of stuff. It's like, well, but you're working in like a field where this is not just a ticketing system or SQL databases or op op optimizing the interface that design for the website. Think about what, why you're in arts and cul culture and engage beyond your comfort , your, your comfort zone. And I think back to the, the sort of impact that, you know, really for me in the nineties going to these amazing warehouse warehouse parties where I was hearing music that I couldn't hear anywhere else, opened my eyes to like spatial design and how lots of things work in ways that, you know, blew my mind literally. And I think , um, I'm , I'm very interested, you know, I think there , there's , there's the same stuff going on now with all sorts of creative , uh, creative practices. And I think figuring out and having an interest in those, if you work in arts and arts and culture, it's , it's fun . It's fun fundamental to me. Um, uh, and I think that that helps you build the language and, and that passion around , uh, how tech technology could affect the other side of arts and culture, the creative side. And , and that brings you to interesting conversations that you might not have had with your curators in a gallery, with your theater, theater producers, you know, all these other people. Um, and really trying to get out of the transactional side of things, which has to be done. Of course, of course it does. But the business and creative side, you, you're working in the creative SEC sector, like take an interest in the creative side. Um , I I, it, it always surprises me when I meet people and there are far too many of them who don't engage in that. Um, which is interesting to , to me , uh, you know , um, yeah. So anyway, there's that, and it , it's just the common language piece . And I think the work that Serpentine's been doing , um, with their future art ecosystems reports are kind of interesting. And , um, the author of those reports, Victoria over over sort of Aveva , uh, who's coming out to Australia next week, she, she and I were chatting and, you know, she was telling me about the genesis of some of those reports. And, you know, her, her work around trying to find a common language here that, that the language that creative prac practitioners use, the lang language, that technology comp companies use, the language that funders use are so misal misaligned that we need to find com commonalities there. And I think that's a great opportunity for people who work in digital within institutions, is to be the people who are actively developing and pursuing that common language. 'cause if they, they, they don't who's gonna do it. Uh , but that does mean stretching yourself into those creative spaces, into those other adjacent creative prac practices. If you're a theater person and you're not going to music events, I would suggest going to music events. If you're an art , art museum person and you're not going to theater, why aren't you, you know, these kind of things. If you're a, you know, if you're a music person and you're not going to, you know, visual art stuff, what , what's happening here? Like, you know, you work in the space, explore the space, it's such a privilege. You know, I mean, it's, you know, that's why I think most, most of us do it, because certainly in those dig digital roles , um, there are plenty of other places you could work in the digital realm that would pay considerably better, particularly nowadays.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And to , to , to finish, I suppose I'm interested in, in looking forward and hearing a bit about what you are excited about in terms of digital working, digital developments, you know, last few weeks, AI has been in the news a lot. You know, you've already mentioned web three, you've mentioned blockchain, you know, mixed reality, immersive experiences. Are those things getting you excited? Um, both, I suppose specifically within the context of, of your work at Acme mm-hmm . <affirmative> , but also more broadly for the cultural sector? Look,
Speaker 3:Yes and no. I mean, I think it's interesting. I , when I gave my Icom keynote in August, I used , uh, stable diffusion and, you know, daily and things to , uh, generate the images for it and, and , and , and , and specifically just credited those with, with, with my prompts. And didn't, didn't, didn't act actively specify AI or any of that in the talk itself, because I, I wanted it just to be seen as like, the technology is not really the interesting thing. It's that we need to understand that our cul culture is being shaped and will continue to be shaped by these at different paces. Um, so I , I am , I, I still try to get as much skin in the game with these tech technologies as I can. So as soon as I can spin them up on my lap , lap , lap laptop and play around with them in the very early days to sort of push on the edges of stuff, and, you know, I'm getting older now, so it takes a bit more of watching , um, various YouTube videos to work out why, why the hell it isn't working for me partic particularly in the code space. But, you know, I think it's the effort's worth it because I think, I think , um, artists and creators are often the people who try to break things in particular ways and, and by breaking things, they find the edges of tech technology. And I, I think that's, that's where we start to see the limitations and also the opportunities. And I think that's particularly important. As I said, you know, as did , did digital is now part of our lives, our digital understandings, our, our technological literacies as a society are way, way behind. Um, and this sort of sense of technology technology's banal of magic that we don't even get excited by them now as much as we we did. But also we don't care enough to figure out how and why they work is to me, a big weak , weak , weak weakness and a flaw . And I think we're seeing , um, this pace of technological change that's happening below the hood far exceed our ability as a culture to grasp where it's heading or its impacts that we, we, that are unexpected. Um, it's been, it's been, you know, fascinating to read , uh, some of the more deep infrastructure writers and , um, talking about you can really, in terms of AI and machine kind of learning, you can trace back a lot of what we're seeing now to the investments in semiconductor companies a decade ago. And then also the sub subsequent , uh, academic research that's going on, some of, some of which is public and much kind of now with the privatization of research and the corp , the corporatization of research, particularly in the West , um, is now quite opaque to our people and our governments and our society as a whole . Um, but you can still see the sort of , um, the, the , uh, early signs of where things are heading. Um, and you know, I think that's, that's, that's what I guess is exciting me, is sort of looking at like, we are here now because of things that were being done and invest invested in and explored a decade ago. So what are we investing in now that we can see where things are heading in a decade from now? And what are the challenges that are coming from , um, um, the changing nature of that, that investment cycle? And I think we saw that in the, the big bubble around Crip crypto and , um, NF kind of ts over the last year or two , um, that, that the kind of mentality around investment and the return on that , uh, because of a range of , uh, economic and cultural and social factors have meant that the ex the ex expectation of out kind of sized returns , um, has kind of, kind of broken how things work or used used to work. So we're in a , an , an unexpectedly volatile period on kind of top of all the volatility the , uh, pandemic's brought and the volatility that climate is bringing continuously now. Um, so lots and lots of things all at all at all at all, at all at once. But it's not that they aren't predictable. Um, and, and it's sort of the ability to trace back some of those predictabilities or those, those early signs, I think is to me quite interesting. Um, and I was reading a , a very amusing dark tweet the other day that was some, some, some something like what if kind of you discovered your whole personality was based on low interest rates? And now of course we know those interest rates are not low. So what is invested in now and where cap capital is heading is into very different things and the kind of risk appetites and experimentation and consumer , uh, consumer consumerism that was fueled by those low interest rates has rapidly evaporated. And that that's gonna have really , uh, fascinating effects , uh, and , and very challenge challenging effects for , uh, a whole gener gener generation or more who, who, who really have , uh, have really grown up through , through a tech , tech , tech boom, fueled by low interest rates and hence very high accept , um, acceptable risk venture capital. So, you know, the macroeconomic piece around this, I think is also to me interesting as , as , as I look to where I see things going, you know, the museum that I run is a museum of film TV games and adjacent fields around that. And , and if you think about film, TV and games, they're high capital creative practices. If , if you're going to make a film , uh, that's gonna show in a cinema that that is instantly millions of dollars, there is not a low capital version version of that other than an experimental or student student film Video games, I think have super exciting to me still and that sense, I've always, you know, for many, many years thought that, you know, video games are the medium of this part of the 21st century , um, and , and really the one of the most exciting and dynamic creative practices , um, and we're seeing a lot of people who , uh, would've previously described themselves as contemporary artists working with interactive media and, and effectively making what they now call games , uh, which is great too. So, so I'm super excited about games , um, and, and the sort of things that we can learn , uh, from those and how we we think about things there. Uh, and, and also how for a museum like mine that opens up the opportunity to talk about , um, systems design and Platt platforms as well. So what happens when all vis visual effects in films and video games are being made with you UE or Unity, you know, the two or, or you know, the , the sort of platformization of creative of a particular creative practice. Uh , what are the aesthetics that that brings? What are the politics that brings? What are the things you cannot make with those plat plat platforms become questions that I'm interested in exploring and , um, you know, working with artists to find where those limits are and to unpick those so people develop new systems and plat platforms or new ways of making creative things. Um, and of course for me too, you know, I think there's amazing stuff going on in music at the moment, and we have a really interesting period where that complete dominance of streaming good music platforms has, you know, completely broken , uh, creator , um, creator incomes that cannot last. And, and so what happens out of that? Um, do we end up with just playlisted music that is made by people who can afford to make it, or does alternative systems and prac practices begin to emerge? And I think that's been one of the, one of the few interesting things to emerge from all the who, who, who the, who are about web web three is this sort of re renascence of investigation, particularly now in the crypto slump, a reinve investigation of different ways of working together. Um, and whilst I'm a , a very hair heavy skeptic of this notion of trust trustless exchange, I I would much prefer that we build communities and societies that work on trust rather than , uh, tech, tech technologies that are designed to work without trust. Um, uh, I , I do think that there's very interesting experimentation going on around , um, different ways of forming micro communities and creating different forms of value that isn't economic. I, I find that pretty fascinating. Um, so yeah, you know, I think I , I think there's a lot, there's a lot, there's a lot to be excited about. Um, and, you know, working in the museum that I am , that I am in now, I think I'm , I'm working with, you know, some of the most dynamic forms of culture and the most accessible, and Im , and Im , and impactful at scale forms of culture, tv, film, video games. They are really impactful , um, across many, many lives. Super accessible, super approachable, and , um, it's , it's such a privilege to be able to kind of poke at that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Brilliant. Seb, well, I can't wait to see what that poking <laugh> results in . Thank you so much for, for taking the time to share your, your experience and your perspectives with us , um, today. Really appreciate
Speaker 3:It. Thanks, ec . It's been fun.
