Media Flaws

Cape Town.
Saturday.
23 degrees Celsius.
Partly cloudy.
Sun shining nonetheless…

... Instead of nursing a hangover I’d instead committed myself to presenting a paper on Art in Contemporary SA Media at the Iziko SA Musuem. I’ll post full paper during the course of this week.

But first.

When time came for me to present I felt like a preacher about to lambaste his congregation for ignoring the light (media in this case). No, really Sean O’Toole, Nadja Daehnke and Bettina Malcomess had done an excellent job at swaying away from conventional I’ll-speak-you’ll-listen strategies as they presented in interview-styled techniques, fictional novelistic readings and casual engagement with the audience. Hand-in-pocket and trying to avoid my script I then embarked on a 20-minute talk.

Thereafter we sat and fielded questions. The first was rather tricky as it required me to explicitly state what art means to me. No. Never. The young lady who posed that question would have to forget getting a proper response on that. I am trained never to give such a direct opinion on my chosen subjects. That’s like me speaking objectively about Jacob Zuma and then you go and ask me how I feel about Jacob Zuma? I mean imagine if I’d told the lady “Actually art means nothing to me, thank you!”

But I’d be lying. For someone who was born by an artist-cum-high-school-art teacher I’d be lying. My interaction with art extends beyond my dismal high school Still-Life drawing attempts. Beyond sitting with a Tando Mama uncle, who half the time, we never understood what he was up to – until the media actually catapulted him in a ‘listen fools this is what your uncle has been doing all along’ manner. Oh.

Now in the midst of the Iziko audience sat an editor who’d earlier mentioned that there was a lot of art in media. Good. A bit vague on which media featured art a lot (international or local?), but that was cleared up straight after my talk during the Q&A session. Gabriel Clark-Brown (editor of Art Times) should have kept it all to himself as he immediately discredited himself as a media practitioner in my eyes.

You see earlier - and you’ll read this in my paper when I post it here – earlier I’d mentioned that South African artists need to start operating in a manner that takes cognisance of the media environment they operate in; start finding ways of adapting their work for the media, polish up their pitching skills, etctera. I used radio as one such example and intentionally chose uKhozi FM (6.6 million listeners) and Umhlobo Wenene (4.6 million listeners) as public service broadcasters with a potential to carry art programmes whether on an art educative drive or sound art exploration. Now. Clark-Brown here gave a firewalled response along the lines of those radio stations will never listen to you if you come with art, blah, blah, they want soccer and so forth. WTF?

“Have you ever listened to these stations!?” I thought. Clearly not – these two station carry the most educative content and still feature radio dramas which were long declared dead on other radio formats. In fact if any stations were to have art talks or slots it would have to be these two chosen ones because there are thousands or rural kids with an artistic ability being exploited to paint ‘Coca-Cola’ or food menus on the walls of general dealer cafés for R20 or so. Art as something big is not a reality for them because the media ignores them as an audience. Radio gets people talking in rural communities - heck those fruit and veg ladies near the Thafalofefe hospital in Centane - who were, in my going rural days, the most up to date due to their blarring 'FM stereos' - are probably discussing Carl Niehaus as I write this.

So my annoyance grew with every utterance Clark-Brown made from his backrow audience seat as he continued to genureflect on his art-rebutted/rejection experiences with other media. Make no mistake sonny lack of skill or a rat-like cunning to sell ice blocks in Antartica doesn’t mean it can’t happen or the media will not accept art because you couldn't sell it.

Let me explain a branch of the media game for Art Times and the likes.

Selling an idea to an established media house (one that does not necessarily attract an art audience) is as daunting as paying hell a visit with the sole intention to convince Lucifer to buy electric heaters. Lucifer already has paraffin heaters, wood-fuelled fireplaces, braai stands and a generally warm environment which seldom experiences winter. You, the salesperson or journalist will regardless of these pre-conceived ideas of hell, go ahead and sell your heaters to him at any cost PROVIDED YOU ARE CREATIVE ENOUGH.

Let’s paint this picture for Clark-Brown on this blog canvass:

You: Good morning Lucifer! Firstly I’d like to commend you on the HEAT you’ve got going here!

Lucifer: Why thank you. Just the other day we were grilling Joost vd Westhuizen on his 38th birthday.

Y: No, no. I didn’t mean that HEAT – I meant the souring table-mountain burning temperatures here.

L: Oh. Yes. That’s us yes. So how can I help you?

Y: Well, I’ve come to sell you electric heaters!

L: But it’s warm enough here.

Y: Yes. And these heaters will go well with your theme. They illuminate three bars and create an excellent three-bar shadow with 100% stainless steel frames. Above all, these can hang on walls and enhance your charcoal décor.

L: Mh-mm, let me think about it.

That’s the first step towards selling an idea to the media – it will be partly plagued with the editor’s or publications own bias but if you’re good – you’re good.