Marina Abramovic Institute: Fundraising & Marketing

Have you heard that Marina Abramovic Institute is going to open soon?

Marina Abramovic purchased a building in Hudson (NY), located about two hours from New York city, to create the space to archive and host long durational performances. At the NY Museum-Techs Revolutionizing Public Experiences of Design & Art meetup two team members of Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI) talked about the development of the Institute before its opening. This blogpost is about the physical space of the Institute and the online strategies for visitor engagement implemented during the development of the project.

Physical space: a bit about MAI

Have you ever been to a long durational performance (lasting for hours)? How long or rather how many hours, do you think, you could stay at one performance? In the creation of the physical space of the Institute, the team of MAI decided to first introduce the visitors to what long durational performance is all about. As the visitors enter the building, they are invited to proceed to a preparation course before they start their visit. The visitors are obliged to check-in all of their devices that remind of time and get the lab coats on in order to start the experience. The course is made up of three parts, at the end of each part the visitors will receive a “contract”. In this “contract” visitors are asked to write how many hours they intend to stay at the performances they are going to see. This is a visitor's guarantee to him/herself about acknowledging the new experience of time. Three labs are planned to be located at the MAI: time experience, space experience and sound chamber.

The fun thing that MAI team came up with are the rolling chairs which serve to pull the visitors away! Considering that during a 6-hour performance some visitors may fall asleep, they created the chairs that visitors lay in when they come to a performance. In case they fall asleep, the guard rolls them away into a special niche where they can rest.

Virtual space: How did MAI engage audiences without an existing physical space and things to show?

Priorly to the opening MAI tests everything, multiple times! Currently the prototype of chambers is traveling in Europe. Marina Abramovic and the team spend a lot of time prototyping elements of each lab in-house. Besides the physical prototyping, MAI also tests and prepares people to its concept via social media. Here are some good points for any start-up to remember and try their own approaches. So these are three main strategies MAI team has utilized:

1. Started conversations with people on social media platforms. For instance, they simply asked for opinions: “what do you think about . . .?” The team states that it gives them feedback, engages and intrigues the online potential audiences about the project. Continuing the online engagement – MAI team asked its existing audiences for a hand-written feedback that could be easily shared on Tumblr. Hand-written feedback is a good idea – can easily snap and publish an image of the hand-written thought on a social media platform. Moreover, it is more personal than typed!

2. Opened discussions about their ideas on their Kick-starter campaign. At the time of project development Kickstarter was the resource which contained the fullest information about the prospective project and it was still in the development stage so the team could make changes and improve the aspects of the project as they were getting the public's opinion. They stated that the feedback was very helpful.

4. Utilized Pippin Barr - online game creator. MAI found a game created by Pippin Bar and thought that the nature of the game aligned with MAI's concept and mission. The point of this game is to wait in the queue to finally get into the MoMA museum. If the player doesn’t pay attention and doesn't stay on the game's page (i.e. starts opening other ages in the browser) waiting in the queue, the player is kicked out of the waiting line and is thrown back to the end of the queue. MAI approached Pippin Barr with an inquiry to create a similar game for the Institute - "The Artist is Present".

I came to the museum too early before the opening hours and still did not find out what is waiting inside! So it is up to you to discover.

Also MAI asked to develop Pippin Barr a game representing the online experience of the visit to the Institute: "The Digital Marina Abramovic Institute".

Check it out! It is more dynamic that the MoMA game and is more fun!

Approaching the entrance to MAI. Navigate the error keys to enter.

Entering MAI and starting a conversation with the information desk representative. The lady gives you some basic information about the visit and a lab coat. At this point you are asked to sign the contract if you plan to visit the experience part of the Institute.