Producing with the Audience Workshop

 Story and pictures: Heidi Mäenpää
TAF events are ongoing in the Finalyson campus area, and luckily there is still time to participate! This two-day Producing with the Audience -workshop was held by Cyrille Bloemers and Johan Rijpma from the Utrecht School of the Arts, Netherlands.


Cyrille and Johan contributing to the TAF Group Picture
On Monday morning we, 13 brave Media and Film&Television students, began our workshop by going through the more theoretical parts of producing with the audience and trying to get a clear picture of the meaning of the terms themselves. With Cyrille we discussed where the line between an interactive installation and an audience created art piece lies, what is the role of the artist and when can they still claim the work as theirs. We also saw some great works done by Johan, I recommend everybody to check out his amazing videos! The Ballon Oranje was very impressing in all its randomness.

Later in the afternoon we went through our own ideas and brainstormed about them, figuring out the pros and cons. We teamed up with each other and made some final touches to our works for the next day.

On Tuesday we went through all five final ideas and tested some of them with "outsiders" already. After testing it was time for feedback, and everybody who participated seemed to really have enjoyed the workshop. We learned a lot in such a short time! 

Here are pictures on how our testing day went:


Continuous Video Story -idea being tested within the group

Out-of-the-body Experience obstacle course.. Would you make it?

Bulldog Astral Brunch -art piece, progressively drawn by the workshop
participants. Inspired by some awesome techno music!

Poor Fuzzy Bunny beginning scene

Eager people using their strategy skills to either help or harm the bunny

Proud of the skills of my test audience, the story is getting really intense!
Will the bunny survive? 
There will be a TAF exhibition on Friday afternoon, so be sure to come and enjoy our fancy installations!

A big thanks for these useful two days to Cyrille and Johan, let's hope the rest of the events go as smoothly as this one. These two gentlemen also made a useful blog, which in my opinion will be beneficial to everybody, so why not go and have a look!


The author is a student of the international Degree Programme in Media
Read more about the IMPs, the Media students