It’s painfully obvious when arts organisations use ChatGPT to write their Open Call descriptions and social media captions. 

– Carmela Vienna

Sticky Teeth’s micro-interviews ft. words on the intersection of arts and writing. 

  

Carmela Vienna has a name with enviable syntax. And her copy does, too. Why? Because she understands the importance of cultivating voice wherever it pops up (even social media). 

 

Recently, I stumbled on LinkedIn’s cute capacity for community. It’s counter-intuitive to hang out here, but there’s something in the air, and I’m often lurking on this once musky platform with other arts professionals. Carmela is one connection turned familiar digital face, often popping up on my newsfeed with her insights from wrangling words at Round Lemon and Zealous Co.

 

It’s fab to dig into her perspective some more in this micro-interview. We chat about art world social media – particularly the overreliance on AI and need for better content – and treating marketing more seriously within arts orgs in general. 


Hopefully, this is a useful one, and you can take Carmela’s ideas into your own practice, work or life.

 

xx Tahney

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Colliding the worlds of art, marketing, and dance teaching, she is Co-Founder of Round Lemon, Marketing Coordinator for Zealous, with freelance artist social media management soon to join her repertoire.

 

Tahney: What writing issues are you seeing popping up in arts marketing? 

Carmela Vienna:  I haven’t observed this issue in arts journalism YET, but this is certainly an issue I observe daily with my background in marketing and social media. It’s the AI problem.  

It’s painfully obvious when arts organisations use ChatGPT to write their Open Call descriptions and social media captions. The same repetitive phrases ‘Let your creativity shine’ and ‘Let your creativity flow’ are the giveaways. Another irritating one is ‘This is the announcement you’ve all been waiting for’ followed by some random uninteresting news. 

This speaks to how undervalued and overlooked social media and marketing roles are, in general. It screams, “I don’t have time to write this post”. 

Many arts organisations cram 3+ marketing and social media roles into one due to funding cuts and other squeezes on their time and resources.

I might sound like a hypocrite because I use AI too. In fact, I used it to clean up parts of this text you’re reading right now. Using AI to support your arts writing can be a game-changer, but only if used correctly. It’s great for brainstorming ideas, checking mistakes, and improving readability. Artists and practitioners can even experiment with AI as a tool in their practice to create interesting outputs.  

Please, please, please, DO NOT copy and paste whatever ChatGPT spits out. Instead, edit it and inject your unique voice back in. Being a writer is a gift, and we shouldn’t let our authentic voices dissolve into the AI abyss; It should act as a speedy assistant, so long as it doesn’t strip away your creativity.

Who is someone in the arts working with language that we should look up to? 

At the risk of this micro-interview bleeding into a macro-interview, I’m going to highlight two! 

Jenny Holzer was the first artist whose use of text in her work really stood out to me. I first encountered her work in 2019 at the Tate’s Artist Rooms exhibition, and I was taken by her ‘Truisms’ – her simplicity, boldness, and personal touch seemed to transcend art for me. Her short provocations made me question everything, and I’m sure that anyone on this planet could look at her work and truly be moved.  

Abuse of power comes as no surprise – Jenny Holzer

Following on from my point on using your authentic voice, I think that Birmingham-based artist Leah Hickey has truly nurtured her own. Reading her text feels like tracing your fingertips across smooth velvet; it has an intimate and endearing quality, romanticised by her tender language. Her writing resembles poetry across all spheres—her art, her newsletter ‘Emotional Outbursts,’ her research references, and her publishing venture Tentative Press. Even her choice of typography blends seamlessly with her work. Her practice is beautifully cohesive, like a curated package wrapped in pretty pink paper with a red bow.

Writing or otherwise, what have you been up to lately? 

 
This project has a special place in my heart: Round Lemon collaborated on a learning and engagement project with the Barber Institute, focusing on the Gender Gap in gallery collections. The representation of women artists in the Barber’s collection before this project took place was a significant concern for me, personally. I had no idea how many works were made by women artists in the gallery and there was no access to this information anywhere. 
 
Upon discovering only 9 artists in the collection, we conducted research, profiled these artists, and created a zine to educate people on the gender gap in art whilst celebrating the Barber’s women artists. The zine features key statistics on the gender gap in art, along with provocations and questions designed for use as a resource in other gallery settings. 
 
Throughout the project, we ran zine-making workshops and led a gallery tour, but my favourite part was extending this project into schools.  We held a workshop session at George Dixon Academy with year 8 students, where we discussed the Gender Gap and channelled into their lived experiences of the gender gap in their own lives. I felt so emotionally overwhelmed at the end of the session because the project felt so much bigger than this collaboration. 
 
We were directly making a positive impact on young people’s lives and transformed their perspectives on art and culture and its relationship with gender issues. 
 
Nowadays, the writing I do for myself never seems to crawl its way out of my notes app. But I do write a few collaborative articles with my friend Bethan for our roles at Zealous. The emphasis is always on helping creatives, and our last one included tips on how to thrive from rejection in the creative industry
 
I’m currently thinking of ideas for a piece on juggling art alongside a full/part-time day job, as this seems like a taboo topic that’s actually way more common than artists think. It’s the norm, not the exception. 

 

Any other art texts you’d like to share?

Read: Easy Read Artist Contract by Jack Tan (so useful and interesting project)

Listen: Love Letter to the Art World by Gabrielle de la Puente (then write your own. What would you say?)

Subscribe: Leah Hickey’s newsletter Emotional Outbursts

Hey! My name is Tahney. I design words that fill the space between you, your creative project, and your audience.
August 21, 2024

David Willis: “It is my personal mission as an art writer to strike a balance between critical rigour and concise readability.”

July 25, 2024

One night in bed, I decided to stop saving tattoos on Instagram. The more I saved, the more ads popped up, each increasing my fear that most tattoos are badly chosen and badly executed, as if all rules of visual art and even aesthetic pleasure usually policing other artforms are irrelevant.

June 30, 2024

Carmela Vienna talks about the overreliance on AI in arts marketing and social media, and the need for more inspired, well-edited content, as well as treating arts marketing more seriously within arts orgs in general.

May 28, 2024

Too, with the Venice Biennale as a whole, in this unearthliness, the curatorial was a blur of impact and thought. I wasn’t sure if it was possible to achieve anything cohesive. I’m still not sure if it’s possible to look at, en masse like this, the variety of mediums, ideas, and cultural contexts and get it and not just be overwhelmed, weary, and clueless.

April 25, 2024

Haneen Mahmood Martin talks about shared accountability and diverse perspectives in the arts industry, matching words with actions—i.e., more POC in leadership positions—and the use of clear, accessible, but impactful language.

March 18, 2024

Liv Collins has an infectious energy rare in an industry of pretension. I’m really excited to feature her in this sticky teeth micro-interview for her truths about writing education at art school and some hot insider arts reading suggestions.

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