Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ARTIS (Art and Research on Transformations of Individuals and Societies)
Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2023-07-31
ARTIS is a first-of-its-kind consortium of research institutions in social sciences, art history, education, and cultural policy with the aim of addressing, and—for the first time—systematically assessing, applying, and informing better policy regarding, some of the most persistent yet undefined aspects of art’s role in human society. We argue that the arts can be transformative. They may have the power to move us, to make us feel better (or worse), to make us reflect, to educate us, to question accepted narratives; to change our attitudes and behaviors. The arts can also foster an exchange with points of view different from our own, inspiring mutual understanding, and are indeed open to all cultures and people. However, in order to actually address the question of the potential efficacy, the limitations, and the potentialities of art to address societal challenges, it is necessary to build a systematic, multidisciplinary, evidence-based program that combines empirical and theoretical methods for capturing, assessing, and harnessing impacts of the arts. It is further necessary to combine with perspectives of artists, art educators, and other stakeholders. Only when we understand how art can change us or transformations can come about, or what the measurable effects of art interaction could be, can we create actionable and bottom-up policy, understand art’s role in culture, and truly debate art’s potential or its limitations. These challenges are the ARTIS aim, with four general objectives:
CAPTURE the scope and the unique nature of our art experiences as well as their transformative potential at individual and societal levels in a systematic, multi-disciplinary series of empirical investigations. This involved our objectives to empirically assess and quantify the transformative power of art (art’s ability to create change at the levels of the mind, body, brain, and attitudes or behaviors) as well as to map the general scope of art engagements. This will create a first-of-its-kind foundation for understanding and operationalizing art experience, with actionable answers for policy, stakeholders, and artist-led interventions. This objective will further be achieved across a representative sample of perceivers and artworks in museums, urban spaces, and in personal (at home and at work) relationships, using a mix of empirical approaches.
CONNECT to the wider social and political context, identifying attitudes and conditions regarding art’s use and assess historical, political, and cultural contingencies hindering or promoting transformative art. We also aim to identify especially the political implications of art for democracy from an art historical perspective.
APPLY the empirical/theoretical work via co-experiment with artists and curators. In a series of workshops and co-investigations with art university partners, we relate our findings to specific contextual factors and aesthetic and design decisions, as well as co-creating artworks and art interventions.
PROMOTE and create specific actionable tools through bottom-up collaborative policy making involving stakeholders throughout a range of sectors involving art, providing techniques and strategies, based on our co- experimentations, dialogue, and the results of empirical analysis, creating outreach to the wider public, media, government officials, academics, and arts- stakeholders communicating the importance, the quantified impact, and the transformative potential of art.
CAPTURE the scope and the unique nature of our art experiences as well as their transformative potential at individual and societal levels in a systematic, multi-disciplinary series of empirical investigations. This involved our objectives to empirically assess and quantify the transformative power of art (art’s ability to create change at the levels of the mind, body, brain, and attitudes or behaviors) as well as to map the general scope of art engagements. This will create a first-of-its-kind foundation for understanding and operationalizing art experience, with actionable answers for policy, stakeholders, and artist-led interventions. This objective will further be achieved across a representative sample of perceivers and artworks in museums, urban spaces, and in personal (at home and at work) relationships, using a mix of empirical approaches.
CONNECT to the wider social and political context, identifying attitudes and conditions regarding art’s use and assess historical, political, and cultural contingencies hindering or promoting transformative art. We also aim to identify especially the political implications of art for democracy from an art historical perspective.
APPLY the empirical/theoretical work via co-experiment with artists and curators. In a series of workshops and co-investigations with art university partners, we relate our findings to specific contextual factors and aesthetic and design decisions, as well as co-creating artworks and art interventions.
PROMOTE and create specific actionable tools through bottom-up collaborative policy making involving stakeholders throughout a range of sectors involving art, providing techniques and strategies, based on our co- experimentations, dialogue, and the results of empirical analysis, creating outreach to the wider public, media, government officials, academics, and arts- stakeholders communicating the importance, the quantified impact, and the transformative potential of art.
In this second reporting period, we have again made exciting progress. This built from our previous work, and also the spontaneous adjustments made in the first reporting period, which had been driven by the need to opportunistically react in the face of lockdowns and restrictions from the Covid-19 pandemic. We have now returned to some of our originally planned foundational projects. Empirically, this has involved the large-scale collection of a representative sampling of individuals’ art experiences, with over 2700 unique reports with a range of 30+ artworks, made in 10+ institutions across Europe. This not only provides an important tool for understanding art experience, it is also important for policy and museums, allowing us to anticipate and apply the impact of art. We can then also build on these experiences to discuss what kinds of artworks, context, or personal backgrounds might lead to the highest chance of certain outcomes, and also how outcomes connect to specific impacts. Similarly, we have used experience sampling techniques to track over 900 people across Berlin, and soon to be followed by other cities in Europe, with over 19,229 datapoints, looking into how they report feeling, how they rate their surroundings, and whether they are in the proximity of art. This also will open key insights and a baseline for future work on when and where people engage art in the city and their homes, and how this relates to feelings and behaviors. We also added important additional empirical work, expanding on our understanding of specific artist motivations, reactions, and exhibitions. We have also now opened new explorations on the relation between art and politics, and moved into a second stage of working with art school partners to explore art as a vehicle of transformation and to co-creation activities, as well as to discuss how we might translate many of these activities into forthcoming exhibitions, collaborations, and policy, with this integration and look to the ‘big picture’ the aim of our final period.
Once again, with the rise of COVID-19, worldwide disruptions in everyday lives of people, but also with new interest in alternative approaches for adjustment, health, wellbeing, the importance of the arts and wider culture are only becoming more salient. We have been in a unique position, thanks to this EU mandate, to create some of the first structures for testing and applying art to many of these initiatives. ARTIS has shown great promise, for the first time revealing the scope and nature of art experience and its implications. This will provide stakeholders with specific quantifiable effects that may be brought about by art. It will help them to connect these to specific types of experience and modulating factors. This will give policy makers actionable tools and knowledge to promote the importance of art for societal challenges. It will also provide a framework for actors to discuss art initiatives from a quantifiable, efficacy-based perspective.