LIVERPOOL Biennial first realised the power of social media when it launched Richard Wilson’s now iconic sculpture in Moorfields, Turning the Place Over, in June, 2007.
A passer-by took some video on a camera phone and uploaded it. A Google alert picked up the stunning news that, even before the work had been officially launched, 25,000 people had watched it on YouTube and within weeks this had translated to hundreds of thousands. A year later and over 600,000 views had been recorded.
Liverpool Biennial had seen the potential for social media without having planned it. The question now was: “Could it be made to happen again?”
Fast forward to 2008 and Biennial had a Twitter account, a Facebook page and a sense that using one of its international exhibition artworks could have a similar effect.The Arbores Laetae video (of the rotating trees in Parliament Street) was part of the trailblazer launch for MADEUP and, while contributing to strong media coverage, it did not achieve anywhere near the same results.
Twitter in 2008 was still new and, to be honest, we barely used it, concentrating instead on our Facebook page and loading Flickr, Youtube and Vimeo content. What we didn’t do was build our online community.
