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 042 - Stuart Buchanan (Sydney Opera House) on digital teams, international collaborations, reaching new audiences, experimentation, rights and IP, and artistic applications of AI
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We catch up with Sydney Opera House's Head of Screen, Stuart Buchanan.
We talk about Stuart's new job title, how digital teams are structured at SOH, and the unhelpfully vague nature of the word 'digital'.
Stuart shares how digital artistic programmes have enabled the Sydney Opera House to work with new artists, in new ways.
The issues and challenges around rights, and reaching agreements with artists (and the value of having a track record that you can point to in these conversations).
We discuss the many experimental strands to the work of Stuart's team, and the potential uses of generative AI in that context.
And lots more!
Digital Transformation in the Cultural Sector
AshHello and welcome to the Digital Works podcast , the podcast about digital stuff in the cultural sector . My name is Ash and in today's episode we catch up with Stuart Buchanan . Stuart is head of screen at the Sydney Opera House and we talk about his new job title , the difference between digital content focused on promotion and marketing and that focused on digital artistic content experiences , the importance of differentiation between cultural digital experiences and those offered by the big streaming and content platforms , the increasingly hybrid nature of his work and thinking , international collaborations and lots more . And if you can hear a slight squeaky noise , that's Stuart's chair . Enjoy . Hello again , stuart , hi .
StuartHi , it has been a minute .
AshI mean , I don't know how many minutes there are in two years , but it has been two years worth of minutes .
StuartWow .
AshYeah , as we were just saying , time has sort of collapsed , I think , over the past few years and it those two years have just gone by in a flash . But I'm excited to talk to you again because when we spoke last time , you were coming out of a period where you had , in your words , just implemented a two to three year strategy in two to three months . You know that had given you the opportunity to experiment a lot . I get the sense from our conversation . You know you'd formed a new team around that . You just launched Stream , which is is it fair to call it your sort of digital stage ? Yeah , streaming platform . Streaming platform is a is a less wanky way of describing it .
StuartCall it what you like , that's fine .
AshAnd you know , I think it was interesting . We spoke at that point about the fact that stream was sort of supporting strategies at the Opera House around shifting perceptions of the house and around reaching new audiences , and you had been very successful I think in both of those measures . You know you'd reached a lot of new audience , you'd reached a lot of younger audience and Stream still very much exists . You know , that's one of the exciting things from my perspective is that so many of the digital initiatives which maybe survived the pandemic just have now , a couple of years on , started to fall into disrepair . I think it's really exciting that Stream isn't one of those . And also I noticed when we were chatting on email prior to today , your job title has changed . You used to be head of digital programming and you're now head of screen , which is an interesting shift and maybe that's where I want to start .
AshWhat does that shift in job title mean ? What does that sort of denote in ? What is that telling people external to the Opera House ? What does it tell us about the conversations you've been having around your area of work ?
StuartYeah , that's a really good question and it is a good place to start because it does then , you know , potentially leap often into lots of different trajectories . I think there's probably like a multifaceted answer . You know , I'd love to give you a simple one . Let's start with one which is really pragmatic , I suppose , and then we'll talk about one that's a little more conceptual . So the kind of pragmatic one is such that , you know , the notion of programming within digital for a lot of people was just simply hard to grasp , because you know even the nature . You know even the nature of this podcast or the kind of nature of the way that we utilize .
StuartThat naming convention of digital , particularly within the arts , has very specific connotations that I think were obviously initially drive through marketing , but not exclusively so . But you know , when we think of digital in an arts context , yes , it could be marketing , it could be infrastructure , it could be website , it could be software , it could be network , it could be a whole bunch of different things and then when you put programming at the end of that , that sort of adds an extra layer of confusion and like , legitimately add people who sort of put two together and got five , who would say you're digital and you do programming , does that mean you code websites , right ? Because because they were programming , of course it's also kind of part of that . So one of the first things we wanted to do is to kind of clarify what is digital programming , because I would say probably anytime we introduced or any member of the team introduced themselves outside of the organization I would say at least in 50% of occasions , if not more the first question would be asked what is digital programming ? So that was clearly a little bit of a barrier . Now , it was never a phrase we used in market , it was always just , you know , industry facing right .
StuartI think internally there was a useful differentiation to be made between the team who are responsible for digital marketing and within that includes I guess this is something we can make , perhaps touch on later . You know , in parallel to the work that I've been doing , the digital marketing team have developed a new content strategy . So there's an increase in promotional content being made . That is , still people running around the building with cameras . They look a little bit like our people running around the building with cameras .
StuartSo there was a kind of need to differentiate between what do we mean by , you know , digital in the context of marketing , promotion and content , versus what we do , which is in artistic programming . So there was a kind of pragmatic rationale for it , but the other I guess something that's a little more conceptual was to acknowledge that time has moved on and we are in a new paradigm , and a change of name like that does signal that things are moving , does signal that there is some kind of development or innovation occurring . And , as we'll get into in a second , our work has kind of bled out of for one of the better phrase the online world , and we're now developing projects that are stage based , which may or may not be recorded and may not be streamed , but are still screen based , you know . So there's all sorts of different ways we can consider that , whether it's things like emotion capture , performance with a large screen in a venue , or it could simply be the screening of a film or in some way that a screen is integrated or technology is integrated in some way . So it was also to kind of denote that there had been a movement away from your traditional the filming of things to a more kind of considered artistic development of the team as well .
StuartAnd you know it's not that screen is the best name you know , because there was a , I don't actually recall . There was a long list of options , but we did have an error about the screen . But we didn't know . There was a couple of other organizations that we knew of who had also had a staff position . That was screen , whether that was producer screen or head of screen . They weren't film festivals , these were performing arts events and organizations or arts events and organizations . So that kind of felt like well , that is , maybe there's a slight lead that the industry might be taking there , so let's go with that .
AshYeah , it's interesting . I've had a few conversations recently where the question has been asked you know how useful now , especially in more senior roles , is , or sort of departmental titles . Is the word digital ? Because it has become so broad as to be almost meaningless ? And you asked five , five different people . It means five different things .
StuartCompletely , and that's the other side of it . So part and parcel of getting up in the morning , leaving the house and going about your day so many so-called digital touch points within that . But also I think this is something that we've talked about . I mean , it was a great interview we did recently with Seb Chan from Acme here in Australia , who talked about the CEO mentoring program that I'm one of the mentors for , and throughout those discussions there was definitely that kind of sense that once we eradicate digital from language rather when digital becomes part and parcel of an organization or leads an organization , you can eradicate it from language .
StuartWhen you eradicate it from language , you sort of cease to put it over to one side . It's just entirely their part of it . So , dare we say , post-digital I don't know if that's something you want to hang a hat on , but essentially you know organizations who can now sort of consider themselves to be post-digital in a language sense . I think of those that are sort of saying , yep , we've fully integrated and we're now into the next phase of the next chapter , but there may be a necessity to retain digital if you're still in that transitional phase 100% and I always use my 100-year-old example of you know most corporations used to have a head of electricity and you know it's just a tool or a thing that is powering the workers .
AshUsed to make things happen and I certainly started to see that in some organizations . It's interesting . You referenced the conversation I had with Seb . You know you're also in Australia . There does seem to be something around conversations I have with Australian institutions where they some of them are seemingly more mature around how digital is thought about and talked about . I don't know if that relates to on-the-ground realities , but certainly you know Seb was Chief Experience Officer . You know you are head of screen . These are far more specific and , I think , useful ways of talking about your two very , very different skill sets and areas of focus than you know direct or digital .
StuartYeah , I mean , there is a little bit of a sense that we are detached on the other side of the world and these sort of things help us to , you know , feel a sense of a greater sense of position or pride in terms of what are on a global scale . But it's also smaller , much smaller industry . You know where discussions like this do happen frequently , you know , and because of that you kind of lose some of that inertia that comes when conversations are more displaced , you know , or happen across . You know greater , you know kind of not just geography but time zones . So at least here I think we have that sort of advantage where everybody is intrigued and interested in the conversation continues at pace , which is great .
AshAnd I want to focus in now on your area of focus , in contrast to some of the others we've touched on is a programming focus .
AshYou know it is a commissioning , it is an artistic focus .
AshWe spoke last time about the fact that a lot of the work you were commissioning was to use the language of some of the people that had complained about it to you a bit weird , and that that was something that you were intentionally pursuing .
AshAnd it feels like you're still doing a lot of work with new and emerging artists , artists that perhaps haven't worked with the opera house before . There's the outlines 2023 performance reimagined strand that's available on stream , available for free if people want to go check that out , which feels very , I suppose , forward facing . You know it's more exploratory perhaps than some of the other stuff that's on stream , but also it feels like , since we last spoke and this is , I imagine , by virtue of the fact the opera house has been open and there's been lots of stuff happening there's a lot now , a lot more it feels of sort of live performance footage , and have you had to rebalance your programming focus To deal with the fact that you have this giant engine of live performance happening in the background I the Sydney opera house that you could and should be making you solve , alongside the work that you're doing , with more innovative , perhaps , artists and forms .
StuartI think I mean , first off , in terms of balance , it's certainly three areas of focus which broadly would be recording broadcast , commissions and , let's say , community in schools , and we can we can sort of talk about those individually . Talking about recording broadcast is probably the one that the reason for recording broadcast that's the definition that's been in the house for 12 years is very hard for all of us to Change that line , which is not even recording a broadcast , the things I broadcast , recording streaming , let's say a recording distribution , that work continues a pace and some great development there is that as part of the kind of postcode response , but also just a part of it kind of Acknowledgement of where recording distribution sits within the organization that was lucky enough to receive a substantial investment that allowed us to upgrade our infrastructure . Now , a lot of the infrastructure was quite old and so we had to Initially kind of front end that with with a lot of replacements , but we're now at the part where we start to upscale . Long and short of that is we now shoot in 4k , which is terrific , and we pretty much should everything in 4k , unless it's something that is , I would say , can you know , very kind of deep , prioritized and , like I said the CEO's address or something you know . So there doesn't require a kind of 4k shoot . So you know we're probably shooting anywhere from five to seven cameras in 4k when we do that . But that's important to know that that infrastructure was purchased by the house , which means the cost of us then using that on a show by show basis is actually pretty cost effective . We've also brought a lot of the post production management not completely in house , but A lot of that has come in house as well . Again , cost efficiencies and time efficiencies
Filming Live Performances
Stuart.
StuartAll that said , it's still true that I think when I ran the numbers of the end of the last financial year , probably about Three quarters of the people as an artist and companies that we put a request to film say no , you know . So we are somewhat sort of naturally 10 part in our ambition by the folks who are willing to For this to be filmed . Now I don't need to explain what all those lists of reasons are as to why somebody wouldn't want to be filmed . We understand that , you know , within live performance , but of course , now that we have this catalog of work on stream , it's increasingly more beautiful to watch because of the 4k . Upscale is that if people are on the fence about being recorded , once they see the work they'll sort of generally agree .
StuartI think there's I think you know there is that natural hesitation is what's this going to look like Once they actually see the work ? That test get folks over the line . But yes , there's still , you know the still are reluctance , which is nothing to do with model , is nothing to do with the financing . It's simply that the work is not there to be filmed . The work is there to put in front of the live audience and not to be captured .
StuartThat's that is , you know , as I see , in the minds of the artists , the companies . The other thing is , of course , that we still I'm not sure exactly how , what the case is in the UK , because I haven't sort of looked into it for 12 months or so , you know but we still do not have any price agreements with the unionized companies in terms of rates for recording and streaming , which means that every single recording , particularly those that have to be done with companies as opposed to individual artists , need to be negotiated on a case by case basis , and they can be very , they can take a very long time , it can be very for it to be very expensive . So essentially what we do there is we sort of we understand that and know that and therefore ensure that , let's say , maybe into a month period there might be one or two of those . But that is then tempered by your work and standard agreements , which is more kind of contemporary music and talks and maybe kind of more independent practitioners .
AshI was going to say just on that point of sort of rights and licensing , because again that feels a little bit like the elephant in the room that's stopping A lot of not stopping progress , but it's . It's making it slower because everyone perhaps has a divergent perspective on how that might exist . Have you found , over the time that you've been having these conversations , as you've got this sort of growing body of practice to point , to have those conversations become easier ? Not easier because you've got , you've got a more experience , I suppose , more experience , I suppose .
StuartAnd you've got contractual precedent and that's the most important thing , because , in the absence of an enterprise agreement or at least a kind of industry standard , we have our own precedents in the contracts that we've been developing independently of an industry solution . Now , of course , they vary , but we're able to find a through line and so when a company on ours comes as it says , well , we think you should pay as X , we can be able to say , well , here's three comparative recordings , or companies or artists or works , this is what we pay them . This is what we'll be looking at . We'll be looking at something closer to this . There is an agreement in place that live performance Australia did develop for COVID and , by their own admission , that has not developed over the last three years . However , it's still used as a benchmark , because it's the only benchmark and it's still kind of helpful to be able to say you know there's X number of people in the cast and creatives times dollar value and arrive at a fairly big number and at least that's consistent . And even if we can't always afford to do it , at least there's consistency there . So , like I say , we can say well , we know we can afford to do , let's say , three in this particular quarter . But we can pretty much guarantee , if we approach X , that the fee for that will be why . You know it's not kind of out of the blue .
StuartNow that doesn't stop the kind of crazy , you know , kind of responses that we get from time to time , which is usually one agent , you know , not saying a specific agent , but it's not an agent who's saying my artist needs to be paid X . You're like , well , that's just absurd , you know , by anyone's standards , you know . So there is still those outliers that still come in and think that you know one should be that we're Netflix , you know , or that we're the BBC , we're still just an art organization , and so you know , in those cases , well , that's fine , we just don't record those , you know , with those . Hopefully in time that will change . But yeah , there are enough outliers to make it irritating .
StuartBut I think the consensus is building now as to what's fair and reasonable . And actually , in this current season that we're running and with some recordings that are coming up in the next few months , they have probably been a little more expensive than we've done in the past , but when we actually break down the budget and look at what those fees represent , it's very fair and you know , we're obviously conscious , when you look at things like the writer strike and the and the actor strike , in terms of ensuring fair remuneration within the kind of streaming context , even though we're , worlds apart from that , still very conscious that we need to do right by . Everyone is involved in this . So call on story short or , in summary , we're getting a good sense of what is fair and reasonable , irrespective of the scale of a production .
Ashso that's kind of and I suppose , away from the recording and broadcast strand of what you're doing . We look a bit for a moment at the commissions strands and when we spoke last time it seemed you're very clear on that . The purpose of that was . One of the purposes of that strand was to enable you to work with artists that the opera house may not otherwise be able to justify from a sort of commercials point of view or , you know , operational uplift point of view . Is that still ? The predominant focus of the commission strand is to work with artists you might not otherwise work with the opera house new artists to help artists get in front of audiences they may otherwise have to spend a long time building up to .
StuartCertainly it's only part of it . Yes , I guess that the kind of slight extension of that is is the acknowledgement that most of those artists don't Confine themselves to a particular area of practice . They're usually interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary , and so therefore , when you have more genre based programming , more traditional institutional genre based programming , it's very hard to find the space you know . So it may well be that they're not necessarily early career . It may just be that their practice is such that there's no other way for that to kind of find its way into through the pores of the walls of the opera house . So there's something about being able to bring artists in earlier because , as you say , you know , we don't quite have the same financial constraints or impediments . We can have to talk about that . But also the nature of the practice is shifting and changing , and such that so much of it is now screen based and not just exclusively screen based , perhaps integrated into my performance as well . I guess that thread is where we start to pull a little stronger , which is about the application of technology Within a performance environment and not just to enhance the performance , not just to kind of go on now the screen can be bigger . It's like how does . How does technology fundamentally change the nature of the work ? You know , and to ? I guess two recent projects that can talk to that is you know , one of which was Emotion capture .
StuartPerformance and motion captures , obviously in within a live context , has been , you know , be around for a little while . We sort of took it to the next stage , if you like , by having one dancer and Sydney and one dancer in Hong Kong and having them perform together , if you like , in in real time . But the avatars that were being rendered through the motion capture were performing together on screen , so they kind of met , if you like , within the virtual world . I was tried I tried so many times with marketing , with columns , with our team , not to use the phrase virtual world . We didn't get there , clearly still use it , you know , five pounds to the person who gives a good alternative .
StuartSo that was interesting because then that sort of really talked to how performance can be geographically removed or more and can still perform together and for those to be an outcome , that is live , that audiences in different places around the world cannot watch simultaneously and get a slightly different experience , although a shared experience done with that was really fascinating . And then that also talks to me and there's a strategy will go into During model , let's say . You know , because essentially what they are is to us , in this case Lou Yang , what we brought to the table was the design of the avatars and , you know , commissioned or kind of help to produce the technology that could then could be lifted and shifted to essentially anywhere for local dancer to strap in and deliver the same performance without Lou Yang having to travel without even a kind of production need to try .
StuartSo that was , that was kind of interesting the other one which we did in July . We've got another project coming up very soon on similar , which was the application of artificial intelligence within a live performance environment . You know like there's so much discourse about , you know a creativity , but that test being like a desktop environment when you're in the act of producing . And what I wanted to tease out was well , let's take that logically forward how can performers use that to change their live show ? So I commissioned a creative technologist and two musicians and they went away and thought about that for a long time and came back and did a performance which you can see on stream called sonic mutations , and it's fascinating because essentially , ultimately you know I don't want to be too reductive about it , but even just sort of looking at what they had done , they're really kind of thinking of .
StuartThe artificial intelligence tool that had been developed as part of the project is sort of another . It's another digital audio workstation that's sort of sitting adjacent to Ableton , doing things in a way that are fascinating and unique in a kind of AI sense , but nonetheless the artist had total agency as to how and when to incorporate that into their show . So I added this brilliant kind of sweet spot between the kind of agency control and total kind of randomness that you know was generated through that generative tool . There's two examples of thinking about so called digital or screen within a live performance environment and the impact is having on the way people make work and the way people present work and therefore the way audiences experience work . So that's where the kind of commissioning bit sits .
AshAnd I think that's so exciting because when you say screen , you could think about you know , essentially delivery of work onto screens for remote audiences , you know onto a laptop , onto a mobile phone , whatever . Or you could think about delivery of technology enabled in person experiences . You know big screens , immersive things , vr , whatever
Exploring Collaboration in Art and Technology
Ashit might be . But I think what's exciting in the work you just described is you're also looking at the space between those two things . You know where one can influence the other and vice versa , and I do think that is the exciting opportunity going forward for certain art forms , certain artists , certain organizations is working out how these things can be combined to create something totally new and being able to service different audience experiences in slightly different ways from the same thing , as it were . And I think the dance example , particularly , is super exciting .
StuartAnd I think when you put that together with what we just talked about in terms of those artists who are , you know , dancing around genre , who are interdisciplinary , multidisciplinary , who are thinking already in their practice , thinking outside the box , who may be early career or emergent , when you put those two things together you got something really exciting . Because it isn't the established diet and the will of artists who has a very clear sense of their own practice that is coming to these projects . It is , you know , artists who are still that's not to say that experimentation dies the older you get , but your practice becomes more refined , I think , Whereas it's a little more chaotic , you know , a little more punk , perhaps , you know , at the kind of early stages of your career . We may have even referenced it on the last interview we had , because it's the example that I referenced all the time and actually came from Claire L Evans , who was part of our Outline Season , which you can watch now on stream . I'm going to just edit that and watch now on stream throughout the interview , you know , who essentially noted that the drum machine was first invented . The drummers were up in arms and they took out you know ads and NME and said you know death the drum machine . This is the end of blah , blah , blah , blah . And actually what happened was a bunch of punk artists got to hold the drum machine and invented electronic music .
StuartThat's what I want to bring into the commission series is to actually , you know , how do we bring artists who have that kind of riotous sensibility to give them or help them have access to the technology or two ways of working and ways of thinking that perhaps they don't otherwise have the privilege to do so ? So can we use the opera house to basically be that conjunction , or to prize open doors that otherwise they can open , or that those doors are only reserved for , you know , older and more established , you know more traditional , more Western even artists , and so how do we sort of , how can we prevent that ? And that feels like a very kind of you know , I'm happy with that approach . For me , that feels really logical , because what it gives us is actually really exciting artistic outcomes that deviate from the expectations of what the house should do , which is , you know , one of the purposes for that strand .
AshAnd just on that question of making interesting new opportunities available to these sorts of interdisciplinary artists , you know you mentioned earlier that you had a big investment that enabled you to upgrade some of your recording and broadcast equipment . But a lot of the things that you just talked about around AI , around software development , around sort of generation of visuals they require powerful and new technologies . Have you explored new partnerships with technology providers , with other institutions , in order to more easily make those opportunities available to artists you might be working with ?
StuartYes , we certainly explored and have , you know , engendered a number of good partnerships , but , that said , I am also very focused in ensuring that , whatever technology we use , there is at least the possibility that a wide cohort of artists can access it . So , for example , when we did the motion capture work , it's about understanding that , well , there's about four different manufacturers of motion capture gear that are out there and the most expensive is like 100 grand a suit in terms of Australian dollar terms , whereas the cheapest is like 4000 . So let's use the 4000 dollar one and so that when another artist comes along and says I want to do it , say , well , you could probably get a grant for 4000 year , I'm likely to get a grant for 100,000 .
Small-Scale AI Projects in Cultural Institutions
StuartThe AI project that I just mentioned we paid for the creative technologists and the artists to make the software themselves . So they went off and basically hacked together this AI tool rather than using an established model that was out there . And that was really exciting because , you know it wasn't was a massive amount of money , but it was enough to allow them to hack something together for the purpose of this commission . But that now has long lasting ramifications where they're actually now saying actually , this could be used within , you know , the independent music community in really interesting ways . So they're sort of now off thinking about that . So it's worth noting that it's .
StuartYou know we're very much looking at projects that don't require very , very expensive investment and infrastructure , because that , for me , that kind of defeats the purpose a little bit . And actually , you know like and this is my favorite tub to thump which is why we don't really do VR , you know , because in order to experience the VR , you either need to come to a venue and have a very weird experience of sharing a headset and standing in a queue while you do that , or you need to have , you know , hundreds and hundreds of dollars available to buy that headset . And until that's more readily available , to me that doesn't seem like a very opportune or fertile space to develop work if it means that the number of people who can engage with it is drastically reduced because of the cost of access . The couple of great partnerships we knew is another artificial intelligence project we're working on . That was a partnership with the University of New South Wales , loc University , who has got a sort of creative AI ambit . That was really exciting .
StuartWe did another project last year . It could take too long to describe , but a generative artwork piece where the artwork was generated through voice , and that was a beautiful project and that was done in collaboration with Google Creative Lab . But these aren't massive scale projects , you know . They're fairly , I think even handed in terms of the scale of them . So they're kind of , you know you still , I guess you could look at it with a bit of a 90s or 2000 lens and still think of that kind of like skunkworks idea . It's still very , it's a little bit . We're not calling it a lab and not calling it skunkworks , but there is still that kind of commission , a project , with having a reasonable idea of where it's going to go , but knowing that it is just whatever the outcome . That outcome is just the next step in a very long trajectory for that type of work and it may not be fully realized and it may be a bit shaggy around the ages , but more power to it .
AshAnd I think that's an admirable approach . You know you work in one of the best resourced cultural institutions , certainly in Australia , and I think to be keeping that as one of your principles is exciting and , you know , for people listening to this . If you want to get a sense of why Stuart has this perspective , go back to our last chat and you'll hear him talking about organizing raves and fields and working on zines and that sort of thing . But I think it's admirable that that sort of DIY and you know you've said the word punk a lot but that sort of ethos still seems to be really informing your perspective now as a sort of leadership role in an institution .
StuartThere's also a super pragmatic rationale for that too , which is that by keeping the costs down , we can do more . It's that simple , you know why invest $100,000 in a project that has one outcome ? For me , that could maybe be spread across three or four different projects that are small on a scale but arguably could be even more interesting .
AshSo that's the other part of it as well is ensuring that we get a good range of work by keeping the scale in check , yeah , and I think we've seen some of that in a National Gallery here in the UK last year did a bunch of micro commissions to . It seems sort of seed the field , as it were , and that is perhaps at the moment we're in going to be the most fruitful approach for commissioning organizations , rather than saving all of their pennies for the once every two years big bang thing that you know you can't guarantee with any of these things . They're going to be a success .
StuartThe last bit I'll say about that is I have been very inspired by the work that the serpentine has been doing within future ecosystems , in particular the kind of idea of where an institution sits within its local , or at least national , arts ecology . And I'm very mindful of where the opera house sits and what its purpose can be within , within that ecology . And you know , it's as much about be able to give a voice or give a stage to , you know , by elevating work as it is to , through projects like this , I think , be able to kind of permeate back again , to be able to see a right when we've developed this and we've done this kind of , you know , quasi research project that delivers this AI tool , and now this AI tool can go back into the ecosystem as something for independent artists local independent artists to start playing with . So I'm kind of mindful of that two way dialogue and exchange , because otherwise the house then just becomes a kind of a rarefied stage to elevate our two without that then necessarily ricocheting back again .
AshAnd in the last sort of 10 , 15 minutes of a chat I really want to talk about value and sort of . I suppose not how you justify your existence , but how do you talk to colleagues about .
AshYou know in the opera house and stakeholders outside the opera house , potential commercial partners , about the value of the work that you do or how is that work seen to be valuable ? I know recently that Deloitte have done a valuation report on the work of the opera house and that has looked at the work of stream as well , I believe , because it does feel in conversations I'm having with people working in organizations where there are sort of meaningful digital programs is actually people are being surprised by what they're realizing About the value of those programs . You know we've talked about audience reach in other conversations on this podcast . I've talked about accessibility . You know we've talked about the surprising potential commercial value of some education programs . You know the absolute you deliver for free to your core audiences but internationally there may be a paid audience for that I'm just wondering
Streaming
Ashabout . Obviously , stream has a revenue generating strand to it . You know you can buy a subscription , but I imagine it's not purely on the sort of commercials that you're talking about the success of this .
StuartYeah , well , interesting you say that because there are some residual programs available on stream to rent , but that is essentially phased out . So I think this is really important to get on record is that the initial hope I wouldn't say expectation , but the initial hope that stream would at least wash its own face to some extent by driving revenue has Largely not proven to have a ventured . And that's not to say that there's no revenue . Where we see revenue opportunities , and they continue to be successful , is in the live streaming of events that are ticketed . So you know the essentially the in room ticket versus the digital ticket . Any other opportunity to monetize has proven to be largely unsuccessful and to that end , essentially the strategy now is if there are opportunities for a ticketed live stream and generally those opportunities are things that have already sold out or , like that , are high demand If there are opportunities for ticketed live streams , will explore those , but otherwise everything that we're recording and these are full-length performances , and five minutes full-length performances are available free .
StuartNow , you know , I know that that can be contentious , because you know there are a lot of people struggling to monetize this type of work , but I also kind of , you know , take a little bit of a view of . You know we're a large , well-funded arts institution that in many respects is just like our national broadcast or the ABC or the BBC equivalent and therefore it's incumbent upon us , given that we're entirely driven or no , you know , the money that we receive from government is entirely different from taxes that we get back . So you know there's very much a sense from the top down , from CEO down , that let's use stream to be the vehicle to attract as many audiences as possible or to , you know , encourage repeat attendance within existing audiences and by making stream free , that is part of that . So when you take it out of a revenue driver lane and put it into audience development or even public good , then it becomes something quite different than you'd cease to worry about whether or not it's driving revenue , because the sole purpose of it Is to develop audiences and to stimulate public good . So that's kind of where we're sitting right now . You know we will , like I say , continue to be opportunistic where we can , but the majority of content on stream is now free , and I guess the other thing is that we have also pivoted towards trying to do as many long form performances as possible . In the olden days it's about recording bits of a show , not really interested in that . We're either recording a show or you're not recording the show , you're doing the whole thing . So , yes , there is more content on stream and there's more longer full shows on stream . There's more theater , there's , you know , there's musicals , there's a the genres have expanded quite a bit over the last couple of years .
StuartSo , as a kind of slight kind of jump off from that , the Deloitte report that you mentioned . This is a report they've done now three times and it was done initially 10 years ago , just as we're about to start what we refer to as our decade of renewal . Basically , we spent 10 years Entirely redeveloping all the venues inside the house , bringing them up to modern standards , and a lot of them hadn't had any work done on them since it opened in 1973 , so a lot of that was Equipment you know , beyond end of life , etc . Etc . So we started that process , we did an initial valuation of the opera house so we could at least this week , when we get to the end of that process , have a bit of understanding of where we got to .
StuartBut there's two things I think they're of interest to the people listening to the podcast that it is a valuing digital , one of which is at a very specific level . That the Deloitte report highlighted was that there is a value to our time . Right , and I think when this was done locally and I think it's done through transport . So basically says that you know the value of your travel time on an early basis Something around $20 an hour , so you are worth $20 an hour and so you could basically extrapolate that to say how many hours of content were consumed . Times $20 an hour gives you little digital cash dollar value , because that is somebody's time . You know . If our time is worth that much and that is what we are , then Giving our time to watch programs that have been produced by the price , then there's a very straightforward little piece of arithmetic there . So wonder that calculation . The digital value last financial year was about $23 million , so straight away you can go well , you know , investment of $1000 , digital value $29 .
StuartBut that's not the end of the story , because where Deloitte's taken is into the kind of stratosphere when they start talking about social value , and I hadn't really come across social value before . I don't really sort of operate too much in this sort of policy space to have come across that before , essentially social value , goes beyond obviously your material value of the land and the buildings and essentially the asset value , and starts to talk about what is it worth to the public . And obviously , when you think about the opera house , it is such a beloved and iconic Institution . If I've got 60 seconds , I'll tell you a little anecdote that one of the folks in Deloitte told us is they took like seven , like 20 or 25 quintessentially Australian things right and sort of measured them in terms of on an axis of kind of importance to Australia and how much you love them , right . So if you think about those as as the two axes and you put lots and lots of different things in there you put in Vegumite , you know , or they put them in Marmite , you know , they'll put in Uluru , which is the beautiful giant rocket at the heart of the nation . They put in Bondi Beach .
StuartWhen you look at that access , there were three things right out in the top which is very important , much loved . They were basically referred to as being in a class of their own because they're so , so , completely removed from from all the other things . That were kind of the point and those three things , and this is according to the general public of Australia , the three most value things were koalas and kangaroos and the Sydney Opera house , and so when you're in that world , it's like it is . I mean I don't use the word stratospheric , stratospheric lightly it is something completely that cannot be . Yeah , there's something about that that doesn't afford reasonable comparison to a lot of other things , because you , because you're looking at it through a lens that is so distorted and so are so unique . So I say all that to kind of put a little bit of a sort of caveat around some of the , some of the other things that the report mentioned .
StuartBut essentially , when you look at the social value of the opera house and so you know all the things , what's the value of the house to Australians ? And you don't have to be a member of the audience to consider the opera house to be valuable . You might never be to the opera house and still consider it to be value , but the social value was just over 11 billion dollars , which is huge . But within that and this was the bit that both excited and terrified me in some respects is that out of that 11 billion in social value , the digital component was 500 million dollars , and that was pretty staggering in so far as is essentially saying that I can't quite do the math , but this is a large percentage of the social value of the opera house that is derived from digital , and the last number that was that was both terrifying and validating was that that number has increased by 400% over the last 10 years . So there's a lot .
StuartI mean it sounds like a crazy sort of insane number , but I like to be able to think about , irrespective of what size and number is that , if you can , if you're able to say , if you're able to somehow quantify the social value of whatever is you're doing , and also be able to then say what is digital's part to play within that , you know . So , yeah , that's , that's a very top level kind of reading of that report . But if you're , if anyone's , interested in kind of working out what do you mean by social value , how did you get those crazy numbers to have a look at ? The report was a great section , very detailed section about digital . Within that that goes into it , you know , yeah , more nuance .
AshYeah , if I can , I'll put a link to the report in the notes for this episode . But I think what's perhaps important as well to know is the last time we spoke , you did say very clearly that when you joined the opera house sort of was it four years ago you weren't starting from scratch . You know there was a trajectory and upwards trajectory , and investment in digital buying from leadership is sort of understanding share to a greater or lesser extent across the institution that this was , or could be , more than , in inverted commas , just marketing and more than sort of invertecom is just revenue generating . Yes , and I think that is important context as well to be mindful of .
StuartYeah , and maybe just to kind of riff off of that , one of the longest endellers at the house as far as digital or screen is concerned is our schools program , which has now been sort of delivering workshops and tours and I can talk about it .
StuartWe don't have time to go into that in detail , please have a look at the website but essentially there's been delivering to schools for best part of 12 or 13 years and what's interesting there is that you know that's interactive , so it's two way a lot of the work , although last year you know we got a lot of feedback from teachers saying we love the two way but you know it just doesn't quite sync with our timetable .
StuartSo now we've got as much kind of on demand material as we do live and interactive , although that one demand material is sort of designed in a way that encourages kind of pausing and participating as you go .
StuartIn the last year we reached 300,000 school kids through that digital program , which is a phenomenal number , and so when you then think about you know so we need , when you're coming off , that discussion about what is the value of digital and the social value of digital particularly , and they say , well , part of what digital does is reach 300,000 school kids every year and to them , you know , taking work that broadly sits within you know , the STEM or STEAM categories and introducing them to you know kind of our concepts and ideas and artists that they just wouldn't have access to you know . So that's getting into remote areas , regional areas . This is , you know , that we're really , as far as the strategy goes , pushing outside the metropolitan areas and you know , delivering work there . So we're really proud of that whole area of endeavor . It's really it's vital to what we do and it's vital to how the organization sees digital as part of the mix because of what it does there .
Principles and Challenges of Digital Programming
AshI mean , we've talked about so many different types of digital work here . You know everything from , I suppose , easily understood capture of live performance all the way through to , you know , ais assisted work that's delivered to in-person and remote audiences . From your perspective as a programmer , as a commissioner , are there principles or elements or ways of thinking that are always or commonly present in the more successful digital projects that you're working with , or are they all outliers ? I'm just trying to get a sense of a framework people might be able to pick up .
StuartYeah , well , you know , maybe it's not that surprising , but if you're talking about , you know , a cohort of artists that are the younger end of the spectrum , you know , who , as we've said , are largely genre-less , but they are also digital natives , and so I think one of the kind of strands that runs through all the projects is that , you know , technology or digital screeners are inherent from the conception of the idea , and the idea could not be achieved or executed without it , rather than let's do a crazy version of Big Meph with TVs , you know , like it's , it's , it's this work kind of realized without you know , and so that's .
StuartI think that's probably intrinsic , in that you couldn't see this work in the absence of that through line of technology or digital . But I love that kind of agnosticism , though , because it's not to say that every artist we're working with works with technology all the time . You know a lot of artists that I have discussions with . They say , yeah , I'm doing this , I'm doing that , I'm doing that . There's more and more traditional , I'm doing an installation or I'm doing a performance or I'm doing whatever , but I do have this idea for X , and that's when you know , that's when it comes into it , so it isn't a given that it's technology all the time , but if you know , there is an idea of which digital is there and it's conception , that's the thread that we want to pull on .
AshThe last two questions , we will finish , although I could talk to you for hours .
AshSo you know , as I was saying to you , I think before we hit record , the opera house is quite mature and it's digital thinking , particularly around digital programming . I think , even in the couple of years since we've spoken , it feels like you've taken further steps along that journey , Whereas that's not true of every institution that did some digital experiments through COVID , for a variety of completely legitimate reasons . For folks that are working in organizations that are grappling with this idea of what their digital work could look like , should look like how to work with artists , how to find these artists , you know , do you have any words of wisdom based on the experience you've had over the past three or four years at the opera house ?
StuartI don't know that programming for this area is any different to programming for any other . You need to be connected into the community of practice that is both local and international , which is true of anybody you know who is programming or curating . I mean , I think you know the slight latitude that I have , that perhaps some other areas don't have , is that , you know , one of the joys of curating is to be able to put two or more things together that maybe have never come together before , obviously , you know , and to create to see that collision . Now , yes , you can do that in other art forms , but it does seem to be more opportunity within this space to be able to conjoin things that otherwise have seemed , you know , have never come together perhaps in that configuration before , and that's and I really appreciate it and enjoy that aspect of it . So , yes , I don't think it is any more difficult , but , like , maybe the flip side to that is because of that multitude of opportunity and that it could go in so many different directions . You know that does give us a possible thought now and again in terms of which of these multitudes of directions to be running .
StuartBut I think there was two things that you know sort of keep a lid on the anxiety which is the change is a constant . You know so , no matter which one you choose , it is not a definitive answer and the paradigm will change , irrespective of which direction you're running . And once you kind of embrace that , and particularly if you're kind of moving with that kind of test and learn semi prototype mentality , then nothing you do is invalid because everything is an experiment essentially . You know so , having that idea that you know change is a constant , you're never going to get a definitive realization of whatever it is that you're trying to achieve . That it's always going to be , not that it's compromised , but it'll always go in a direction that you didn't expect , which is great , you know , which is part of the joy again of it . So , yes , I'm not wanting to try and move the work towards a predefined answer or a predefined solution . Actually , kind of trying to avoid that entirely is what gives it its potency . And look , the other part to be real is that some of the challenges that we faced when we last spoke still exist and I've actually been , I think , exacerbated , and that is the .
StuartYou know , the opera house is now not quite performing at pre pandemic levels , but we're certainly closer to that than we were in the other direction , and that has got a lot to do with international tourism returning to Australia as much as anything else . There's lots of great fascinating work being done in Australia around . You know audience responses , audience engagement , post pandemic the Australia Council for the Arts , now called Creative Australia , just released one last week which the National Audience Participation Survey , which is a terrific read . That really talks about some very nuanced responses to our attendance anyway . But you know we're performing at high capacity and you know we are somewhat unusual , perhaps in so far as not unusual , but you know we sit within , we're performing our center . Yes , there's a commissioning producing arm , but that represents about 50% of what you see on stage and so therefore it's high turnover , high box office target .
StuartAnd so when Stu comes along with his weird ass project about AI and he wants to do it in this space over here that's never been done before and he wants to do this way and contract artists in a way that's never been contracted before , then you know it's understandable that people are like please , enough . Already . I've got a million other things on my plate that I need to worry about because this is a major performing arts institution that has seven venues and we operate 364 . Nights a year . So I understand where we sit in terms of prioritization , but also in marketing , because you know , like marketing is so driven by the need to put bumps and seats and get your ticket in return that when I say can you please put my weird thing into our channels , I can understand the difficulty and I can understand some of the reticence in doing so , because you know we've got to prioritize . So I don't think a lot of that has actually changed dramatically .
StuartMy relationship to that has changed a lot . You know , sort of it's not that I'm not worried about engagement and views , but I'm less worried about it , I think , than I mean , you know , for people who didn't listen to last podcast , like before I got into programming I was in marketing and so my head was still very much in that mindset and I've become less , not all driven by that and I have sort of made a bit more peace with where we sit within the prioritization and therefore what views or what engagement we could reasonably hope to engender because of our relationship to the rest of the institution . That's a really . That's a really . That's a daily meditation in terms of , you know , yeah , making peace with your relationship to the institution and because you know I'm a , you know , contrary , difficult agitator often , and I've tried , and you know now perhaps my learning of all these last two years as to how do I maintain that mentality whilst at the same time not pissing people off who are just trying to do the jobs . That's the daily challenge .
AshAnd on that point of existential calm I think we'll finish . Thank you so much , Stuart . Thanks Ash , Much appreciated .
StuartThank you .
AshAnd that is everything for today . Thanks for listening . You can find all episodes of the podcast , sign up for the newsletter and find out about our events on our website , thedigitalworks . You can also find us on LinkedIn . Now that Twitter is a total garbage fire , our theme tune is Vienna , beat by Blue Dot Sessions . And , last but not least , thanks to Mark Cotton for his editing support on this episode . See you again soon .
