Arts matters:

From Toronto’s Creative Trust:

The results of Creative Trust’s Audience Engagement Survey – a first-time, collaborative initiative by Toronto’s [small to mid-size] creative performing arts companies – were released today and are available on our website [PDF here]. The survey made it possible for 20 participating companies to hear directly from their audiences on what motivates them to attend and what helps them connect more deeply with the work they see on stage. The initiative brought music, theatre, opera and dance companies together to learn how to design and plan programs and activities – both individually and collectively – which intensify the impact of their audiences’ experience and stimulate attendance

(via Survey of 3,662 Toronto audience members released today)

This is cool – museum use of QR Codes:

QRATOR will create new models for public engagement and informal learning in museums using handheld mobile devices and new interactive digital labels.

The project will create small printed tags (QR codes) for museum objects, linked to an online database. These will allow the public to view curated information and, most notably, to send back their own interpretation and views via their own mobile phone or interactive digital label. Their thoughts subsequently become part of the object’s history and ultimately the display itself via the interactive label system, allowing the display of comments and information directly next to the artefacts.

The project will be based around technology developed at UCL’s [University College London] Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis and the Tales of Things site, which has developed a method for cataloguing physical objects online which could make museums and galleries a more interactive experience. QRATOR takes the technology a step further bringing the opportunity to move the discussion of objects direct to the museum label and onto users’ mobile phones, allowing the creation of a sustainable, world-leading model for two-way public interaction in museum spaces.

Related: this post from September describing arts organizations’ possible application of QR Codes, encouraging public engagement, deepening relationships with patrons; and an earlier post regarding story-telling and -sharing (involves Tales of Things).