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Chloe Veltman: how culture will save the world

#LostWarrior
February 13, 2013 by Chloe Veltman

Figuring out how to combine different media into a compelling arts

communications campaign isn’t easy. Most organizations settle for texts with
accompanying video / audio clips and photos. Maybe a little tweeting is
encouraged. Very little thought is given to what media best suits a particular
message and how to create something that uses media in an integrated and
compelling way.

That’s why I’m extremely impressed with the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s current campaign
around its upcoming Terracotta Warriors exhibition. It combines video, text, performance art, interactive
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mapping, gameplay and social media to create an experience that’s fun and deeply immersive.
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The museum’s project centers on a conceit concerning one of the famous Terracotta Warriors who’s lost
his way in transit between China and San Francisco. The befuddled soldier is now wandering around The
Bay Area and needs help with finding his battalion again.

A recent missive I received in my inbox explained the situation with playful gravitas:

The Asian Art Museum needs your help. One of our terracotta warriors is lost, and we have to find him
before China’s Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor’s Legacy opens on February 22. What we know is
this: a small group of terracotta warriors journeyed from their home in China to the museum—but
somewhere along the way, this one took a wrong turn and is now missing. He’s 2,112 years old, about
5’ 5” tall, mud-colored, and doesn’t speak English. If you spot him, please post a photo on Twitter,
Instagram, or our Facebook wall and tag it with #LOSTWARRIOR so we can track his whereabouts
on this map. Even if you don’t have photos, share and tag your tips and leads with #LOSTWARRIOR.

The Asian Art Museum campaign also includes fun, short videos by a variety of local figureheads such
as the museum’s director Jay Xu, San Francisco Giants’ player Sergio Romo and restauranteur Martin
Yan urging people to join in the search for the lost warrior.

I love this campaign because of the way it seamlessly integrates a variety of media in an organic way
that doesn’t seem clunky at all. The maps work really well with the social media and performance art
side of the project. And the videos add an extra dimension to the story as well as a touch of celebrity
endorsement, which will doubtless help the museum to sell tickets.

I also appreciate the thought that there’s a guy dressed up in Terracotta Warrior drag wandering around
the Bay Area having his photo taken by passersby. It’s a wonderfully offbeat way to merge experimental

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performance with publicity stunt. And there’s something quite interesting, metaphorically-speaking, in
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the notion of aABOUT
soldier that’sAJBLOGS ARTSJOURNAL
wandered away from his army — it contrasts cliched views about
Californian individualism with Chinese groupthink.

It’s interesting to me that the Asian Art Museum would devote so much creative energy (and resources, I
imagine) to organizing a publicity campaign of this level of intricacy, when an exhibition as high profile as
this one is most likely an easier sell than many of the institution’s other offerings. But perhaps that’s
precisely why the museum feels able to invest so much in this endeavor.

In any case, I am looking forward to keeping one eye on the interactive map and another on the streets of
San Francisco, panning the horizon smartphone at the ready for a short Asian dude in late third century
BC Chinese military garb.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Tagged With: Asian Art Museum, China, San Francisco, Terracotta Warriors

CHLOE VELTMAN

...is the Senior Arts Editor at

KQED (www.kqed.org), one of
the U.S.'s most prominent
public media organizations.
Chloe returns to the Bay Area
following two years as Arts
Editor at Colorado Public Radio (www.cpr.org), where

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she was tapped to launch and lead the state-wide

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bureau. A former John S. Knight Journalism Fellow
(2011-2012) and Humanities Center Fellow (2012-
2013) at Stanford University, Chloe has contributed
reporting and criticism to The New York Times, The Los
Angeles Times, BBC Classical Music Magazine,
American Theatre Magazine, WQXR and many other
media outlets. Chloe was also the host and executive
producer of VoiceBox, a syndicated, weekly public radio
and podcast series all about the art of the human voice
(www.voicebox-media.org), which ran for four years
between 2009 and 2013. Her study about the evolution
of singing culture in the U.S. is forthcoming from
Oxford University Press. Check out Chloe's website at
www.chloeveltman.com and connect with her on
Twitter via @chloeveltman. [Read More …]

LIES LIKE TRUTH

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doollally headmaster in Forty Years On astutely puts it,
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