5 Case Study 1 - Leicester Research Archive - University of Leicester

the producers have orientated themselves around news and documentary
programmes as offered by Radio- or TV stations. Talking to Samis and Pau,
though, revealed that this was not the case. Rather, they explained that the
‘ArtCasts’ came out of a three-stage development. In the first stage they based
the format of the programme on that of audio guides. The outcome of the second
stage was ‘a more generalized tour’ with audio recordings from artists’ writings.
The third was the audio zine, which is known as the ArtCast.” In these stages of
development the SFMOMA did not try to copy any existing genre or type of
programme. Much rather, this process was one of experimentation and they
“followed what [they] felt was successful and what wasn’t.” 287 Samis further
elucidates that
“It’s always like that; you try something out without knowing what
the problems are going to be. You bring your equipment to the
gallery and at first you don’t know all the problems that are going to
come up. We felt like we are reinventing the wheel of how to make
an audio tour. Then we thought that this is not something that we
liked. With the Robert Adams we realised that it’s more successful if
we disengaged the visual track from the visitor’s itinerary through the
show. We were making it more by having users in mind, who are
sitting at home on their computers.” 288
Pau adds that they “wanted to say something that could enhance the visitor’s
experience, even for an audience which is not in front of the artwork. That
approach was less didactic and allowed us to provide a more creative perspective
about the works on view.” Wesemann also sees the independence of the audio
programme and the exhibition as an opportunity rather than a problem.
“It allows us to talk about themes, which are related to the exhibition
or the collection; yet offer a totally new perspective, a different kind
of approach. This in turn can impact the exhibition and in the best
287 Peter Samis and Stefanie Pau in interview with author, June 2006.
288 Ibid.
181