about
Imagine...
You are standing in a neutral space.
In front of you, at a certain distance, you see a single point.
You approach that point little by little and, as you move forward, you realise that it is not one point, but four.
You keep getting closer until those four points become sixteen.
And so on, it's infinit.
The closer you get, the more complex and extensive the image becomes.
So, you pause, breathe, and contemplate the immense, simple complexity.
After a few moments you start to move backwards.
And as you move away, the image begins to fold in on itself and becoming simpler and simpler.
Until the image returns to sixteen interlocking dots.
Then four.
And finally, one.
STARTING POINT OF THIS RESEARCH
To set up a matrix to measure the impact of arts and culture, following parameters that combine qualitative, quantitative, comparative and eco-sociological aspects under the same common conception.
Each creative process is unique and unrepeatable, artists have different and specific requirements that change according on the project they are working on. Therefore, cultural spaces and institutions dedicated to artistic creation must focus on having open, available and flexible spaces, capable of creating appropriate conditions and establishing a fruitful and constant dialogue with the environment in which they operate.
Cultural policies must be able to respond to changes in society and thus encourage new practices and ways of life. Consequently, citizens should propose transparent and accessible institutions, and demand that cultural institutions take the lead on being the architects of this transformation.
In this active participation it is essential for cultural agents to be able to explain our work in a different way, with new parameters, they must construct narratives to help people understand that culture is an essential and transversal element in life.
Quantitative audience parameters are far from showing the reality and scope of programmatic proposals, nor real results of the transformative work current cultural institutions have been promoting. The usual evaluation reports reflect less and less the praxis itself, the amount of times dedicated, the development regarding distribution of resources, and they do not manage to transfer, at all, the multidimensional impact of Culture on societies' spectrum as a whole, underestimating its power when defined by the mechanisms of measurement in use nowadays.
We face the clear need to build a methodology capable of attributing value to the multiple variables that are not being considered today. We need a new MEASURE approach where praxis - the lines of programming and action - break the logic of the cultural industry according to the established model, where the object / work is not the whole, and the audience scales are not the only key to success.
GENERAL OBJECTIVE OF THE RESEARCH
Valuing culture as a key element in our ecosystem for social transformation, through the creation of new applied metrics capable of attributing value to our cultural projects, focusing on the reformulation of future policies, public and private, towards a multidimensional paradigm shift.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
1. Create a common language for a new methodology to create, manage and evaluate cultural and artistic projects.
2. Form a research unit on metrics that articulates qualitative and quantitative parameters in their true resonance.
3. Create a template - matrix to analyse cultural projects through a shared methodology.
4. Introduce the metrics to different institutions with the intention of establishing a prototype to be applied and researched.
FARO
FARO, Fluxonomy Applied to Organisational Redesign, develops tools to create, manage, train, evaluate and orient projects and institutions. An Innovation Laboratory to research new metrics and methods to calculate the value of culture as an axis of social transformation. A learning community of people and institutions specialised in multidimensional strategic cultural management, that has developed a system of indicators and metrics based on the Fluxonomy methodology, and applies it to programmes and projects in order to understand, identify and enhance those key points that hinder the necessary dynamic flows between different aspects and components of cultural initiatives. It involves 14 cultural initiatives (5 cultural institutions, 2 festivals, 5 independent projects, 2 self-managed projects), from 7 different countries: Spain, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, France and Cuba.
RESHAPE
RESHAPE developed and tested an experimental bottom-up method to construct new narratives and instruments pertinent to the transformations of the arts sector and the society. By increasing knowledge, competences, reactivity of intermediary organisations and artistic experimentations, it aims to influence public policies by rethinking its instruments and collaborative models. The Prototype Evaluation — Actors, Values, and Metrics, considers Reshape’s objectives as follows.
ARTISTIC AND SOCIAL INNOVATION
Innovation is a process that modifies existing ideas, practices and regulations, improving them or creating new ones, to positively impact the realm of ideas, the physical world, the world of relationships, the world of transactions - or several of them at the same time - promoting change towards the common good.
FAIRNESS AND GEOGRAPHIC BALANCE
We could affirm that inequality is multidimensional and multifactorial. When it comes to exercising our cultural rights, our zip code seems more important than our genetic code. Evidence has shown that living in a certain territory affects our cultural rights, not only because we find ourselves with fewer cultural facilities, resources for production or opportunities for public decision-making, but also because the living conditions in these contexts directly influence the exercise of cultural rights.
RESHAPE’S EVALUATION PROPOSAL
Reshape was about experimenting and producing tools to change imbalances of the art world. So, how did it correspond with its communities? Did it facilitate certain processes? Where is it pointing to? Concentrate on Reshape as a process, we are evaluating its implementation and results and you can share experiences from both, personal and general points of view.
Reshape as a project is reaching its final stage. After experimenting on producing a prototype for evaluation, our goal is to co-produce knowledge about the process we’ve been experiencing all together for the past 2 years. This is a continuous experiment of the Fair Governance’s Evaluation sub-group and FARO. Evaluation is not an event or a method : it is considered as a transformative attitude towards change that is adopted as a collective state of mind. The idea is to go beyond the usual indicators to work on a 4D Fluxonomy Matrix based on fractal thinking, involving thinking about Cultural, Social, Environmental and Transactional dimensions of our project.
The methodology is based on 4D Fluxonomy theory developed by Lala Dehenzelin and on the evaluation prototype developed by the Fair Governance Evaluation sub-group in partnership with FARO - Learning Community during the RESHAPE process as one of its main tools.
Main elements of the process
- Online tool that features detailed presentation of the 4D methodology as well as a scalable surveying tool (that can be used independently by organisations/initiatives).
- Individual Interviews with main actors of the Reshape Universe (the online tool will be used to process the interviews).
- Group formats with 2 variations : Horizontal Forum gathering everybody present at the Final Conference. Focus Groups gathering groups of main actors of the Reshape Universe.
Evaluation Team
Reshape :
- Katarina Pavic, Eduardo Bonito, Claire Zerhouni
FARO :
- Livia Diniz (coordinator)
- Isabel Ferreira (interviewer and analyst)
- Lala Deheinzelin (speaker, interviewer and analyst)
- Mónica Pérez Blanquer, Silvina Martínez, Cristina Alonso, Iara Solano, Fernando Garcia, Elena Carmona (researchers)