Tate Liverpool - www.TheOneThatSpokeToMe.com -
16 Sep 08

The editorial and production goals of the piece
We wanted to reflect and strengthen the emotional link between the people of Liverpool and the works on display at the Tate Liverpool art gallery. We also wanted to create an emotional link between those works and the visitor to the Tate Liverpool website.

Creative techniques used to achieve these goals
We created a website called "The One That Spoke to Me". Using this site, people can write about their feelings for specific works on show at Tate Liverpool. You can read hundreds of these comments on the site today, creating an environment where debate and conversation is encouraged, and everyone’s opinion about art is valued.

We took some of the most interesting comments - and videoed the people who made them.  But we didn’t just make simple linear videos of them talking about their favourites. Instead, we used interactive video to make it feel more like you're actually in conversation with them.

Each speaker asks you which, out of three works on show beside them, is the one that means the most to them. If you don’t click anything, they’ll tell you to hurry up. If you click the wrong work, they’ll usually say they don’t care about it – or, in some cases, actively hate it. This use of interactive video dramatises that these people don't just politely like everything in the gallery - instead, there is one particular work which speaks to them. And if you click on the “right work”, they tell you all about it. In some cases, the reasons are very personal and emotional – and change the way you look at the work as a result.
              
We then used interactive video to let the website visitor explore the artworks online. Apart from the thumbnails, there is not one single photo on the site: the featured artworks are shown using 262 separate videos – some looping, some linear. All interlinked with buttons, timers and hotspots to create an experience which is much more like looking at art in real life than is possible on normal text and jpeg websites. This helps build an emotional link between the website visitor and the works on show.

The video has the life and vibrancy of a linear video documentary on TV. But this site is more like looking at art in real life than a TV documentary. Because a documentary inevitably suffers from “the tyranny of the edit”: the director and editor decide what you look at and for how long. But here, you can explore those works you are interested in, for as long as you like.          
It’s still not like seeing the art in real life. But of course, there are of course some advantages to viewing the art online, rather than in real life. It’s available at your desk anywhere in the world, whenever you want it, for as long as you want it: no crowds, no need to physically go to Liverpool to see it. And each featured work goes with a commentary from someone in Liverpool for whom it is "the one that spoke to me".

Importance of the subject matter
The works discussed and explored in detail include some of the greatest works in Tate’s collection: piece ranging from Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych to Rodin’s The Kiss, from Picasso’s Weeping Woman to Degas’ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

Impact of the site
The site was launched in Sep '08, and was an important factor in helping to push the visitor figures for www.tate.org.uk up to 1,672,897 unique visitors for the month - a 34% increase year on year - with an average dwell time of 14.05 minutes per visitor. This helped make tate.org.uk the most visited website in the UK in the category "Entertainment - Arts" for 2008: http://hitwise.co.uk/awards/uk/index.php