by Esma Kurbegovic -

How to- Fundraising for Creative Projects

I am currently in the phase of looking for money for my ProWorks project and I thought it would be a great idea to share what I have learned so far in preparation of the campaign launch (which is coming in about 1-2 weeks after this post). This is no easy task- fundraising will eat away at your time due to having to promote yourself so heavily in order to attract investors. Here are the general steps that you can take, as well as tips for each of them.

  1. To get investments, you need to have an established platform

Here is the biggest reason why so many campaigns fail- the authors did not have a platform large enough to attract sufficient investments. Now, I’m not saying the only way is to be an influential figure online- you can play it smart. If you have no following of your own, why not borrow someone else’s? Here in thinking of platforms that promote campaigns, as well as people that you might possibly have in your professional/friend network. Do you know anyone who has a big platform? Or who knows other big online personalities? It’s very important to think about these things years ahead- you need to have already formed friendships with “important” people in order to have the necessary support- and not have to pay for promotion. Other than that- I would definitely mix in a little bit of a paid promotion type of deal. Find Instagram pages that have a large following and a lot of engagement from followers. Make sure they are relevant to your project. There are probably a lot of accounts dedicated only to promotion of fundraising campaigns, and I’m sure some of them also have a specific niche they want to stay within.

2. Choose the right platform for you

There are many platforms out there, but I would suggest sticking to those that are the most popular, as they will have the biggest number of visitors, thus increasing your chances of being seen. I would say in most cases it’s enough to be on just one platform. The most popular ones are KickStarter, IndieGoGo and GoFundMe. Now, you might have to compromise and pick a platform based on which countries they support. Unfortunately, most of the platforms don’t support my country of origin (Bosnia), but luckily my project partner is Austrian, so we decided to open a KickStarter Campaign through her. Pick a platform based on the type of project you are fundraising for. Kickstarter is best overall, for almost any type of campaign, which IndieGoGo is best for independent project and GoFundMe is for personal fundraising (e.g. emergency surgeries, college fund, etc).

3. Most importantly- make sure your project is interesting/good enough to warrant investments

The hard truth is that you can have all of the above, but if your idea is bad, nothing will help! So be honest with yourself and try to gauge how useful/creative/interesting the project is. Ask everyone you know to give you honest opinions and conduct anonymous questionnaires online to get aa better idea how much success the project could potentially result in.

4. Bonus tip- create a Ko-Fi account

This is not necessarily tied to fundraising for a specific project, but rather just a platform where people can either donate to you one time or subscribe. Ko-Fi is always good to have, in order to collect some small amount of funds over time and being able to use then as extra investment money for one of your future projects.

by Esma Kurbegovic -

How Everyone is Capable of Making Synaesthetic Correlations

Synaesthesia has already been thoroughly described in my previous articles pertaining to my ProWorks Research. But today I want to present something fun and engaging in hopes that I will provoke you to explore your mind more.

Believe it or not, even people who have no synaesthetic tendencies often still subconsciously make multi-sensory correlations. Plainly put, perhaps we can say synesthesia has a big spectrum of intensity, and a lot of it is learned and acquired throughout our lives, through conditioning and cultural norms.

After going through this article, even if you feel like you still don’t relate to the examples shown, it is important to note that synaesthesia can be to some extent induced by meditation, practising and training oneself. Before reviewing the examples listed below, you should perform the synaesthesia test on the following link. Even though this type of test is a scientific method, the website discourages its users from self-diagnosing. This is because even if you test well or not, this test does not cover all types of synaesthesia. You might have some other form that is not being tested by this quiz.

If you performed the test, you should have your suggested result and now you can proceed to check these examples. There is something called the Kiki-Bouba effect, which describes a form of ideasthesia- where we assign names and miraculously even personality traits to shapes. Below are 2 different shapes- if you assign them the correct one, you successfully relate to ideasthesia. So, which one is Kiki and which one is Bouba:

The correct answer is Bouba and Kiki respectively. Here is another one, just to drive the point home. Which one is Takete and which is Maluma:

Correct: Takete and Malouma respectively. What if I told you that 80% of people can correctly assign all these shapes a personality trait as well? The word Kiki is usually associated with the following words: happy, clever, small, tall, thin, young, unpleasant, nervous and upper class. This test also demonstrates the fat-thin effect (with most people stating Kiki is thin). This might be coming from a slew of popular Characters, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Asterix and Obelix, etc. 

by Esma Kurbegovic -

The Synaesthetic Experience of Music

Music is a big part of almost everyone’s life. We all listen to at least one song a day. So, why do we choose specific songs over others and add them to our playlists? Of course, it mostly has to do with personal taste, which is shaped by our life experience, culture and what we emotionally resonate with. 

When we listen to music, we often generate multi-sensory experiences that come from the stimulation of our creativity. Most often, people yearn for a visual output for music, hence why we created visual shows. Good visuals make music even more gripping and stimulating to the senses.

So, what role does synaesthesia play in the perception of music? In its self, it’s an interesting concept, but once put into practice, it makes music much more attractive for listeners.

 

Synaestietic musicians see notes as colors or vice-versa. Chords can also each have their own specific colour.

Many famous musicians say that they have a form of synaesthesia, which makes a lot of sense. Synaesthetes build their art around their multi-sensory experience and thus make music a bit more unique.

An example of how synaesthetic music is different is when an artists “hears” colour and integrates this experience into their work. The synaesthetic experience is slightly different for each person, which leads to different musicians producing different interpretations of their conditions. Someone might see music in colour, like Mary J Blige, and someone, like Billie Eilish, might first start making music and then connect it to colour.

Why does music produced by synaesthetes have a competitive edge? Jamie Ward (cognitive neuroscience, University of Sussex) explains that synaesthetic music can have an impact on the listening choice in non-synaesthetes. He has observed how people always seem to prefer a synaesthete’s work over a non-synaesthete. Most people simply find their work “more aesthetic”. The following video gives more details about this phenomenon.

Resources:

Gordon, Eden Arielle Gordon Arielle. “15 Iconic Musicians with Synesthesia.” Popdust, 6 Jan. 2020, www.popdust.com/15-iconic-musicians-with-synesthesia-2643790427.html.