By Andrea Montes, member of the Baud team.
March 2017
At last, you have the opportunity to see it with your own eyes. Under the unmistakable feeling of the first times, you enter that great temple while the history of humanity becomes tangible through your gaze. And then you see it. Each stroke comes to life before you and you discover that internalizing all that beauty is the true experience. You smile when sizing its size and you find hidden nuances, even about yourself, in that canvas. In that moment, you understand. This da Vinci deserved any expectations.
March 2020
The new space is digital
Technology has become our great lifeline, being an inexhaustible source of inspiration and content. Cultural experiences must now be transferred to the digital environment. However, it is not a simple adaptation of the format, but rather the creation of a complete sensory and emotional experience that goes beyond any current online content. We must generate more immersive, more ephemeral, more personal or more didactic digital experiences that, through technology, build that connection so present and tangible in our lives, far from a screen. In this new normal, the digital environment is the most normal.
“Art and culture can help act as a remedy. […] As a «social connector» with which people can interact from home. "
Valentina Montalto, European Commission Science Hub.
April 2018
Another, another, another! Two hours of singing and jumping have not been enough. A crowd cheers your name in a dance that seems to have no end. And then you appear again to rekindle that pure connection of the present moment. One chord after another bathed in lights that come and go. Your voice stops being yours to be yours. Hundreds of people who move to the beat that you mark. It is that visceral and free dialogue that gives meaning to everything. Adrenaline, applause and the feeling of having lived a once in a lifetime experience.
April 2020
The redefinition of physical experience
Social distancing, as a preventive health measure, has become the main obstacle to the habitual development of any cultural experience. The physical space must be adapted with safety as a priority objective, giving rise to solutions of all kinds (architectural, limited capacity, added services, etc.). The collective live experience begins to transform to be more individualized and intimate. While it is true, the creation of that personal atmosphere of trust should not stop our connection with the outside, with the true purpose of cultural performance. Let's try to prevent physical barriers from becoming mental barriers.
The union between artist and public
The success of culture in this new physical space will not be possible without a greater involvement on the part of the artist and his audience. There are two attitudinal transformations that will influence a complete artistic experience: on the one hand, the artist must transcend his leading role to initiate a more participatory dialogue that demolishes any pre-established hierarchy, generating a new territory of common expression. On the other hand, the user must stop being simply a receptive spectator to become an active participant who builds, together with the artist, that territory. Any form of art, today more than ever, requires an individual and mutual commitment to seek that bidirectional connection that enhances the cultural experience. The artist and the public create a new language.
"We have seen the birth of a way to explore the arts and participate in the cultural world, the challenge is to take advantage of it."
Marc Merpillat, La Vanguardia.
May 2018
Your eyes are wide open, but they seem to be closed. The curtain slides to the rhythm of the first musical notes and the light illuminates a huge space that, however, becomes small when that first figure appears. To which many others follow, forming a single color full of nuances. You observe the precision of the dance in each movement. You admire anatomy taken to its most beautiful limits. You discover the strength that lies in delicacy. And, you understand that art is born from ourselves.
May 2020
The need for a new creativity
Art has the duty to be a critical and reflective reflection of the time in which it lives. For this reason, the current reality demands new artistic solutions. If the container of any cultural experience is changing, how can the content itself not change as well? A culture tailored to this era must be created, transforming artistic proposals so that they respond to contemporary mental and emotional concerns and the operational circumstances of their context. A new creativity that writes a new story.
"In fear of the future, culture has the ability to draw another type of story, mobilize another type of utopias."
Judit Carrera, The Country.
These are the four keys that outline a cultural paradigm, at least different. If activated properly, it will be easier to approach a satisfying artistic experience in today's world. However, due to the very nature of art, they must be temporary solutions for a transitory reality since certain issues that concern both the artistic community and its most loyal public remain in the air.
How to economically sustain a sector that thrives thanks to the organization of large-scale events? How to combine the online and offline environments to consolidate a single consistent and continuous experience? How to maintain the essence of the art and the artist while fostering a new creativity? How to promote the accessibility of culture despite digital and physical barriers?
Questions that, in themselves, hold hours and hours of debate. And an immense desire to jump into a music festival, to enjoy your favorite museum without limits, to lose yourself in the darkness of a packed stalls.
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