Tafterjournal n. 121 - GENNAIO - FEBBRAIO 2023
Instability of the imaginary and media power between old new cultural industries
There is a strong perception of insecurity in Italy because of various more or less recent phenomena such as terrorism, immigration, unemployment, and then again, an economic crisis, a pandemic and an unexpected war that never seem to end. Events responsible for serious social instability that, if not well imagined, communicated, and managed distributes cultural and political power to old and new consumer products (re)transforming society into a spectacle perhaps already seen. Faced with this, no institution seems to have the right tools and an adequate political-economic plan to re-establish an acceptable level of social security, or at least to make citizens perceive this. Urban sociology in these cases speaks of ‘social disorganisation’ and this is often followed by ‘individual disorganisation’. The evolution of society, the new electronic and digital media, the phenomenon of globalisation, political-economic changes and the constant and daily representation of crime and violence by the mass media, have strongly influenced human interactions, radically changing the way people relate and communicate, construct and perceive their identity and reality. It is these processes that characterise social transformations and the growth of human egoism, ‘where individuals, in order for violence to be effective, act strategically by striking each other in emotionally favourable conditions’ (Collins, 2014).
Reinventing the wheel: why museums should learn more about their visitors
Have you ever wondered why everybody underlines the relevance of private information and privacy policies? One of the most astonishing answers could be that personal information is important to those who want to sell you a product or a service. Maybe simple. Still, it is everything but simple for museums, apparently. In Italy, there is very poor knowledge about museum visitors, and there is still less knowledge about cultural consumption. In our country, there are always too many reasons that could be suitable to justify a specific condition, and this case is no exception. This lack of knowledge could be the effect of the lack of funding, or, the consequence of the lack of adequate software, or even the organizational structure of the most important Italian museums, where private companies manage all those services where visitors’ data could be collected (such as ticketing) and this condition could cause issues related to the privacy of visitors or give to those operators a commercial advantage. Actually, none of those reasons is decisive: lots of museums have spent, in recent years, significative economic resources to realize research about their visitors; no special software is required to collect basic information about visitors and their cultural tastes and consumption; the realization of a common database could avoid any commercial advantage, and the data-anonymization process could come in handy to protect visitors’ privacy. Since the lockdown Italy strongly prompted the digital development of public services: we’re running digitization projects in almost all the most important spheres of our lives, such as health with the realization of the Electronic Health Record, a database with all our health data, or digital identity, with the so-called SPID (Public System of Digital Identity), which already provides citizens with numerous e-government services. So why we do not have an Electronic Cultural Record? Perhaps it is not such a priority for our museums or policy makers, but it could be a strong tool for both public and private players. Analysing Cultural Consumption Data, private enterprises could produce a more attractive cultural supply, addressing specific products and services to the right audience, and this could increase the overall volume of cultural consumption. Tanks to the potential growth of private revenues, public institutions and other organizations could focus on those “taste-niches” that cannot reach a proper market dimension. Furthermore, cultural organizations could reach the right audiences, strengthening engagement and improving sense of belonging. There are several ways to realize such a system: one of the most intuitive is a specific tax-deduction policy for all the personal expenses related to cultural and creative themes that are paid by a specific debit-card. This kind of system could enable the realization of a specific AI developments, thanks to which, when a person comes to visit a specific museum, the AI could suggest specific guided-visits based on his or her past purchases. It is sad to find that traditional cultural systems are abdicating to the digital supplies all the potentiality of data: in our everyday lives we’re surrounded by services displaying us how likely it is we could appreciate a book, a restaurant, a tv-series or a tv-movie. It could be useful for us to understand how likely it is we could count of such a service also in our physical experiences: going to the cinema, exploring a city, evaluating theatre or music events, or choosing an art – exhibition or a museum. It’s quite simple to understand. Still, it is everything but simple for cultural systems, apparently.
Large-scale urban regeneration threatening historic urban landscapes. The Liverpool Waters development and the loss of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The city of Liverpool has undergone repeated processes of urban transformation and urban regeneration over the last half a century. The city has been a test bed for urban experimentation with mass clearance, housing, and relocation schemes in the 1970s followed by culture, event, and heritage-based regeneration strategies from the 1980s through 2000s. Following the perceived success of the 2008 European Capital of Culture and city centre Liverpool One development, an even larger, longer-term, and more expensive development was proposed – Liverpool Waters. Yet unlike its antecedents, which were consciously woven into existing urban fabric and combined multiple strategies and funding schemes simultaneously, the Liverpool Waters approach envisioned a tabula rasa disconnected from its surrounding context and which would also introduce new building typologies to the city – the skyscraper. This article examines the long-term history of urban regeneration in the city and nearly ten-year process of negotiations and redesigns of Liverpool Waters that ultimately led to the deletion of the Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City site from UNESCO’s World Heritage List. This case provides valuable lessons for cities seeking to implement large-scale urban regeneration schemes and the need for strategic and contextually sensitive approaches.
Tafterjournal n. 120 - OTTOBRE - NOVEMBRE 2022
Giving new function to heritage building, and it is still a failure?! The case study of an unsuccessful transformation of a historic house to a multifunction cultural center in downtown Budapest
Change is essential to sustaining heritage sites, enabling them to meet new uses and evolving expectations, goals, and requirements. Rehabilitation for reuse is one of the steps to be considered in order to safeguard architectural heritage. [1] In this context heritage means only something from the past without any connection to UNESCO’s [2] or the European Commission’s [3] heritage notions and institutions. The category of architectural heritage, including both buildings with defined cultural heritage and the ones that are worthy to save for next generations due to their historical-documentary or artistic value, is a comprehensive set of buildings and consequently it is a considerable variety of characteristics, values and constraints. The reuse must always be investigated thoroughly, because it is the highest form of restoration. Such project unites past and present assuming the respect for environment, historical memory, identity and local culture as basic parameters in the final outcome of the architectural resolution. [4] Accordingly, the existing building is seen as a container in which new units should be placed that are defined by contemporary lifestyle. In a process of proper protection and conservation there is an ongoing challenge to search for balance between structure and shape or old and new. The aim of this challenge is to respond to the needs of modern men and women in the limits of the existing structure. [5] For this reason many questions have to be asked and discussed regarding for instance the management of economic sustainability, integration and hybridization of uses as well as absorption capacity or compatibility. The present case study introduces the most recent phase in the life of a historical building on one of the liveliest street of the Hungarian capital, Király utca (King Street). The building had been in a very bad condition due to the destructions in World War II and the neglect since then. A private company bought it from the municipality in 1999 and got transformed to a multicultural building complex. The grand opening happened in 2007 and it operated successfully at the beginning. More than a year ago, in January 2015 it got closed down and has been stayed closed and empty since then. It is unquestionable that there are multiple effects, human falls and outside circumstances that together lead to such a tragic end of an initiative and the building but such storyline is unquestionably not unique hence it is worthy to investigate it thoroughly to find out and to propagate the prevention of these causes in the future.
Contemporary art and enterprise in the suburbs of Milan. The emergence of artistic geographies?
How do artistic geographies emerge in certain territories? How does the entanglement of art and enterprise reflect the artistic geography of a territory? These are some of the research questions that this article aims to address by focusing on the urban shape of contemporary art enterprises which determined the rise of certain “art districts” in a metropolis such as Milan. An analysis of the urban space demonstrates that there are cultural institutions which can be identified in a certain number of areas that serve as not as mere examples of static contemporary art attractions, but are in fact active triggers of a new vision of a city that provoke the re-defining its character and shape over the course of a number of years.
How sublime theory could teach us when an urban renewal project could really work
In 2005, in “A discussion between two architects”, Gharib Abbas and Bahram Shirdel, defined the expression “post-contemporary”, as a “forward-looking aesthetic philosophy distinguished by a re-constructive, global, human ethos which posits that the aesthetic experience is universal to humanity and that this experience can inspire understanding and transformation”. Although a comprehensive definition of post-contemporary society is yet to come, in this still preliminary framework, culture plays an almost ubiquitous and multi-faceted role: from economics to sociology, from arts to mathematics, robotics, and engineering. Narrowing the reflection on the relationship between culture and territory, in a certain sense, culture, today, seems to play the role that was played by nature in past aesthetic and philosophical theories. Like nature, whose capability to conquer rubble and ruins was interpreted as a vital and re-shaping force, culture is asked to intervene in our post-contemporary human-built-landscape in order to re-shape and re-vitalize the rubble and the ruins of our modern and post-modern eras. From Bilbao then on, culture has been chosen as one of the key drivers of the urban renewal phenomenon. There are many reasons that could illustrate why culture is so important for this kind of project: to somebody culture plays a greenwashing role in real estate, useful to communicate such investments as attempts for social development, while others underline the importance of culture as an essential social glue enabling the overall development of a peripheral area, and avoiding the specter of gentrification processes. Regardless of this kind of evaluation, there is, maybe, an even more important question to which analysts try to answer: why do cultural-lead urban renewal projects sometimes greatly succeed while on other occasions they’re just a flop?
Tafterjournal n. 119 - APRILE – MAGGIO 2022
Connected refugees: (liquid) surveillance or computer management of migration?
In the time of covid-19, a lack of data can mean social invisibility, the cancellation of fundamental rights, and death. In the current political and pandemic climate, in Italy, in Europe, and other countries around the world the migration discourse still creates huge public debates and conflicts between institutions and citizens. Despite this, for some years now, there has been discussion about the addition of new digital identity systems that would promote a more effective policy of collaboration and management of the migration phenomenon. What is needed is a knowledge base on the technical and bureaucratic dangers, the difficulties of defending privacy and obtaining full and informed consent, and the challenges of identity data protection for all actors in the ecosystem. Institutions and stakeholders can use this knowledge to ensure that adequate technical and organizational safeguards are in place before digital identity systems are developed, implemented, and integrated. This is the only way to realize the benefits of trusted socio-technical systems and at the same time protect the fundamental rights of vulnerable and marginalized populations. The new challenge for institutions today is to manage, also digitally, the phenomenon of international migration. Through an in-depth analysis of the international literature, we investigated the relationship between digital infrastructure, migration management, and surveillance, and possible technological, identity, and cultural risks.
Framing the socially invisible: a transdisciplinary gender analysis of two documentary films on jazz
The article focusses on the analysis of two documentary films by Ramon Tort: A film about kids and music. Sant Andreu Jazz Band (2012) and Andrea Motis. The silent trumpet. A story about the suc-cess of simplicity (2018). The first film allows for an analysis of the Catalan jazz band as an agency of degendered socialization, teaching school-age boys and girls how to play jazz while being part of a group and building the self-confidence also allowing them to envisage a career as professional mu-sicians; the second film, on the launching of the international career of one of the previous ‘kids of the band’, shows the relation between socialization within the band and the successful breaking of the invisible barriers hampering women’s access and career-making within occupational fields still conceived as a male dominion – as in the case of jazz. The integration of standard tools of social re-search with an audiovisual methodology allows to identify the logic and dynamics of the cultural work framing a creative space, grounding both the educational and occupational experiences con-sidered and their documentation, where the relation between jazz and gender is articulated follow-ing egalitarian principles.
Culture and War: more than an aristocratic pastime
In this number of Tafter Journal, we will not cover war reflections neither we will talk about the claimed relevance of culture within the overall geopolitical equilibrium. We’re rather covering reflections and stories about two of the main derivative topics that war probably will generate, and that will dominate the EU public debate after War will come to an end, and they both relate to culture in a straight or broad sense. On one hand, Casula and Cosci investigate “the logic and dynamics of the cultural work” stressing how, “In artistic worlds, more than in other fields, educational and occupational choices are often seen as following the presence of exceptional individual talent, conceived as a natural gift. This notion tends to cover the structural nature of gender inequalities in music and to present women’s marginalization within jazz worlds as a personal matter related to sexual differences, rather than a social issue to be redressed.” On the other hand, the essay of Buoncompagni is addressed understanding the contemporary international framework of “digital identity”, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable sectors of the global population, and, above all, refugees. Both of the articles reveal insights that we should all take into account, especially in the next 6-12 months: as the reading of Casula and Cosci suggests, the first element we should consider when we look at the near future is that culture has real impacts when we talk about of “practiced culture”. Everyday culture has on our lives an impact that is far stronger than institutional or red-carpet culture. Thus, when we the war will be finally finished, EU is expected to address the communitarian investment efforts to the realization of multiple everyday culture actions, despite the realization of flagship interventions. This means that, banally, the EU should invest in the creation of new and several cultural and creative industries, with or without profit purposes, enabling natural and endemic cultural growth processes. Furthermore, the reflections of Buoncompagni remind us that we should keep in mind how the most important purpose of “refugee or migrant” population management, is to realize for those people a social inclusion program. European Union, nowadays, has the opportunity to demonstrate, to its citizens as well as to the other countries, a European Model of migrants management: a model that encourages the creation of a relationship between migrants and citizens, based on the awareness that both, migrants and inhabitants, need a profound connection, the firsts for survival reasons, the latter for social development needs. In this sense, the current number of Tafter Journal tells us three different stories: the trends about “degendered” development practices within the jazz world, the need for a more profound cultural awareness in the usage of digital identity tools in order to avoid the threats deriving from incorrect usage of the same technologies we’ve built in order to protect the most fragile persons within our global society; and the need to understand how cultural research, and cultural practice, should be no longer conceived as an exercise in style. Culture is not an aristocratic pastime anymore. Culture is an industry, and in the meanwhile, it is a powerful asset with which we could and maybe should improve our conditions, empowering our identities and strengthening our capabilities. Museums and institutional culture have a key role, in times of peace. Everyday non-institutional culture comes in handy when actual problems need to be addressed.
Tafterjournal n. 118 - FEBBRAIO MARZO 2022
“γνῶθι σαυτόν” Technology as tools for inclusive museums: Liquid museum experience
The accessibility is one of the most important stuff for museums and often is replaced with “inclusion” because involves in holistic way all museum life in general. Thanks to digital accessibility the museums join the visitor’s technologies behaviours and improve the knowledge sharing on site and on the web with usable and responsive website and digital library. “Museo archeologico nazionale di Cagliari” liquid museum experience has its foundations in the awareness that the accessibility, in all forms, is a part of global museum strategy.
What Big Data Is and How Can We Use It
In recent years, we have witnessed an exponential growth of the amount of data we are generating. As an example, consider the numbers depicted in Figure 1, that shows what happens in one minute in Internet, for both the years 2016 and 2017. In a single minute, approximately 150 million email are sent, 350 thousand new tweets appear in Twitter, and 40 thousand posts in Instagram, both in 2016 and in 2017. But the figure allows us also to see the impressive growth, in a single year, of some statistics: the search queries in Google raised from 2.4 to 3.5 million, video views in Youtube jumped from 2.78 to 4.1 million, and Uber Rides almost triplicated, from approximately 1300 to 3800. WhatsApp messages exchanged went from 20 to 29 million. There is an explosion of data, and the natural question is whether we can use it to improve our daily lives. We already witnessed some examples in which we can exploit the data: Google Maps has real time information about traffic data, and suggests us the fastest route available according to this info. Amazon knows what we bought, i.e., what we like, and can suggest us similar items based on shopping preferences of people that have similar tastes. Apple (and other companies) can recognize our friends in the pictures, that are geolocalized thanks to the built-in GPS in our smartphones, and helps us in retrieving and organizing them. We choose restaurants and hotels based on the feedback of thousands of customers in Tripadvisor. Big Data is already in our lives. In the following section, we will try to provide a better picture of what Big Data is. Then, the natural question become “How can we use it?”
Culture is coming, maybe.
It’s clear that in the next years, our society will experience a great technological shift: there is plenty of great-new-things next door, and most of them are based upon one word: “content”. It is the case of the metaverse or the case of the NFT evolution, but it is also the case of the IoT protocol or the home automation: as a society, today we are called to produce and consume an amount of content never seen before in our human history. Content, however, is not culture. Content is content, as well as information, are information. Is for this reason that reducing the gap between content and culture should be one of our most important concerns. It is a huge challenge, that deserves to be more acknowledged because the difference between “content” and “culture” hides profound cultural idiosyncrasies and generational gaps. Looking at the inner structure of our society, it clearly emerges that those institutions which should be train citizens in developing awareness about the “vision of the world” carried on by new technologies are the institutions that most of all should be trained about it. Educational systems, as well as cultural institutions, look at the digital transformation mostly as a “communication display”: they’re more involved in understanding how to promote their events using TikTok than understanding which kind of knowledge should be developed in order to foster independent thinking amongst new generations. It’s not a “fault” since these kinds of institutions are structurally unprepared for this. We should simply face the facts: most Italian institutional museums do not provide visitors with an informatic ticketing system or do not use CRM to register information about their visitors in order to interact with them. So, on one hand, we live in a world grown with paper and pen, and on the other hand, we have generations growing with metaverses and blockchain.
Tafterjournal n. 117 - SETTEMBRE - OTTOBRE 20'21
Music Industry: between indie productions and innovative startups
In these times we used to talk about every kind of art expression as performative acts: for visual arts and also for music. Like all performing art, also music introduces itself as a theatrical experience, an all encompassing and communal experience – the involvement of spectators for first, feelings, the emotional power from the rituals surrounding these shows, the experience. In this cultural landscape, in our times, two things seems in opposition, but they don’t: on the one hand, the introduction and the diffusion of new technologies creates open space to experimental form, sort of mash up between music, video and interactive systems ( it results from the tradition of the experimental music from 1970, with personality as Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Robert Wilson, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno and many more), even introducing AI (artificial intelligence[1]) or VR (virtual reality), the simple streaming vision of a live show, and also more relevant implications for music business. On the other hand, economic crisis put every musicians in the necessity of embracing new ways of sharing, creating and selling music. This necessity often is a translation of a new kind of diy (“do it yourself” practice) for musicians, producers, promoters, helped by digital technology: this is not valid only for live events (different places from the institutional ones, as record store, Blutopia [2] in Rome for example, or clubs, different tour management or self-promotion with the use of social media and video sharing) but also for single musicians, emerging bands or labels and associations. As an interesting article writes about music business – which we can extend also to music and musicians in general: “the music business has been through a number of changes in the last fifteen years, and has often found itself at odds with emerging technology (…) Decimated by piracy and services like Napster, record companies tried to adapt, first by selling mp3s and then finally agreeing to join forces with commercial streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. Those services represent an ever-growing portion of revenue for labels and artists, but one big problem remains – they fail to make up for the loss of income due to declining CD sales. Fortunately, there are a number of new technologies that will bring major changes – and significant financial gains – to the music business.[3]”
Enabling Culture in enabling development
This number of Tafter Journal reflects on “music”, and “music industry” as two distinct but, after all, clearly connected phenomena, by highlighting the mutual relationship between “contemporary cultural content” and “contemporary cultural industry”. Since human beings became citizens of a world bigger than them, they understood the need for production and distribution systems in order to reach any kind of goods and services. Culture makes no exception. In this sense, when we look at cultural production, both in the sense of professional production of contents and in the meaning of active consumption of culture, we should fix our attention to the fact that culture need industrial means to survive. This kind of relationship is even clearer in music production, where the organizational aspects are part of the of the production itself. This kind of relationship should be clear when we look at music market data. Focusing on a small-sized country such as Italy is, it is possible to understand it in an easier way: when we discover that, among the 20 Italian regions, two of them, and namely, Lombardy and Lazio, host the 40% of music distribution companies, the 40% of music management companies, the 37% of record labels, the 31% of music events and concert organization agencies, and, the 41% of audience expenditures, we’re not describing only the geographic distribution of music production, we’re defining where, and how, our cultural contents are developed and disseminated. We can detect the effects of this kind of geographical distribution, or, this sort of this “cultural mechanics” in both the article of this number. Clementina Casula, in her article, focuses on how artistic and cultural production are key aspects in processes of enhancement of a more inclusive and egalitarian social fabric, by discussing the results of an “empirical qualitative research on two Italian female brass bands, emerging in quite different territorial and organizational contexts, but both contributing to challenging those gender biases, prescriptions and practices still hampering women’s full participation both to music worlds and social life in general”. On the other hand, the article of Limongelli, that we’ve chosen to re-publish in this issue, reflects on the strong relationship between the rise of innovative start-ups in the music industry and the number of artists involved in the creation of cultural content addressed to niche audiences. Together, the articles could define a “connection” that should interest many territorial administrators: while most of the music consumption (not including concerts or events) is managed through online platforms, music production still remains an enabling “engine” for territorial development. This implies further several reflections in the strategic development of our cities: digital marketplaces can be today intended as one of the main distribution channels of music content, and, today, there are more and more young artists starting their careers by simply uploading their works on a social network. By promoting not only cultural active consumption, but also cultural production, territorial administrators could lead our city in reaching both, the social desired effects that culture produces, and the economic development of a “little music industry”, which could help territorial emerging artists in carrying on their passions without the need to “leave” for the “big city”. By interpreting our territories as “spots” of bigger networks, our cultural production (music production in this case, but also artistic production could be shaped in this way), could show interesting features also for the development of a production system better fitting also for the exportation of cultural goods and services. The web taught us the potentialities of networks. We just need to understand that networks work also in the “real world”.
Boosting gender equality through music production. A case study on two Italian female brass bands
The new centrality of the cultural and creative sectors in the socio-economic development of contemporary capitalist societies has brought to acknowledge arts and culture as a fundamental asset for territorial development. The debate has mostly focussed on the potential role of artistic and cultural production in boosting the attractiveness both of cities acting in a competitive global scenario as well as relatively remote locations neglected by standard tourist routes. Less attention, however, has been paid to its transformative action in the social fabric, requiring the analysis to include an ethical dimension within discourses on socio-economic development. In this article I will adopt the latter perspective, considering the potential contribution of artistic and cultural production to the process of enhancing democratic and inclusive morphologies in local territories (UCLG 2021). The discussion will be based on an empirical qualitative research on two Italian female brass bands, emerging in quite different territorial and organizational contexts, but both contributing to challenge those gender biases, prescriptions and practices still hampering women’s full participation both to music worlds and social life in general.
Tafterjournal n. 116 - LUGLIO - AGOSTO 2021
IVIPRO: Narrating Italy through Videogames
Videogames can become the way to discover the world that surrounds us: this is the premise of the Italian Videogame Program project. IVIPRO is a national and cross-regional project, working closely with all local institutions. On one hand, we are mapping Italy from a videogame-oriented perspective, to identify locations and stories that are more suitable for virtual worlds; on the other hand, we entertain a continuous dialogue with software houses, local institutions and museums, in order to understand their needs and help them in discovering how to promote the Italian heritage inside videogames. The core of the project is the recently launched Places & Tales database, available in Early Access. A tool – based on four different categories: Locations, Themes, Characters and Objects – which can give developers inspiration for the narration of their video games, offering in-depth analysis of Italian places and stories. The article will focus on: an overview on the Italian videogame industry and cultural context; IVIPRO and its goals; an in-depth analysis of the database, plus some concrete examples of games set in Italy and of fascinating locations and stories.
The medium does not equal the message
While Europe is involved in facing the social and economic difficulties heightened by the pandemic, there are several innovations that are ready to be implemented and to be part of our daily lives. Among them, public debate pays great attention to the enormous possibility that 5G could represent for our development. It’s out of doubt that 5G, and the subsequent development of IoT technologies, could be one of the “next great things” of the very next years. As well as it is out of doubt that this technology could sensibly transform many patterns in cultural production and consumption. Nevertheless, there is a huge risk that the cultural and creative sector could misunderstand the real potential enabled by this kind of technology: a major understanding of non-technological needs. The very real potentiality is not only in the development of new and powerful technological platforms. Neither it is only in the creation of new social platforms. It is in the possibility to connect human beings with “cultural products and services”, it is the possibility to give human beings a more profound understanding of the place where they live and to engage with their own territories. On the other hand, new tech-introduction could give new perspectives about how people react to specific cultural stimuli, prompting us in a data-driven interpretation of reality. In this framework, however, the threat is that cultural and creative professional, organization, and public administrations could be only attracted by the Wow effect that often this kind of technologies produce, and, thus, interpreting it as a sort of a contemporary Wunderkammer developed in a global scale. The possibilities of this new kind of technology are far greater than this: but to reach the real potentiality, we need to develop knowledge and competencies that could enable us in structuring a new system of thought. A system of thought that uses tech to reach humanity, to understand cultural needs in an effective way, in order to understand how to better engage with cultural targets. A system of thought where tech is just a production factor into the wider cultural and creative value chain. After all, as most of the people who love culture know, the famous McLuhan phrase claims that The medium is the message”, and not that the medium equals it.
Tafterjournal n. 115 - MAGGIO - GIUGNO 2021
Museum’s self-financing capacity: axes of development to increase Italy’s 1.737 billion euros worth cultural heritage self-generated income.
In Italy, performance measures linked to museums’ self-financing capacity have been systematically disregarded, as cultural heritage has been traditionally considered as a sector incapable of being a State’s profit generating asset. This article aims at outlining innovative revenue streams that museums could develop in order to increase their self-generated income. France’s public cultural institutions’ management is analyzed and considered as an example proving it is possible to have the cultural heritage sector financing its own growth.
When a company becomes a book. A glance at the phenomenon of corporate monographs in Italy
The paper investigates the phenomenon of company books, published by enterprises and other kind of organisations to narrate their corporate history and activities. Such publications, conceived according to several possible disciplinary standpoints, narrative approaches and expressive languages, represent a very singular literary and communicative tradition in the Italian context. A preliminary analysis aims at framing in brief the historical origins of the sector, its characteristics, development, and contemporary exploit. In such a review, a special attention is devoted to corporate monographs – company “history” or “anniversary” books – representing the primary and most refined genre within company literature. Then, an overview is proposed about specialist libraries and documentary centres dedicated to corporate books in Italy, with a special focus on the “BiblHuB” project, promoted since 2018 by the Sapienza University of Rome.
Reality calls to a new interpretation of culture
In Italy, one of the most widespread interpretations of the cultural role in our lives and societies, affecting also the interpretation of cultural heritage and production, tends to create a visible division between the role of public bodies and private entities. Indeed, this kind of interpretation, still relevant in various contexts, today appears quite anachronistic, weakly reflecting the real state of the art. Largely diffused in the second half of the 20th century, this kind of interpretation claims for a strong differentiation between an ascetic-like approach to cultural heritage, mostly led by public entities in the name of the “public good” nature of culture, and the opportunistic, marginalist, profit-based private approach, in which private entities are represented as a sort of commodification agents, whose interest in culture is only led by profits and egoistic interests. Despite the public debate draws this kind of interpretation with more euphemistic words, undoubtedly this kind of approach still remains in the background of the cultural debates: on one hand, there are plenty of laws and rules focused on limiting the role of private agents in cultural fields; on the other hand, there are even more examples of public interventions calling private agents to an only fundraising role within the cultural context. In response to this kind of approach, together with the non-always-brilliant results in terms of cultural heritage management that are visible in our country when we go far from the Superstars (Colosseum, and so on), it is growing a more and more widespread public dissatisfaction, mostly in younger generations of professionals which would like to work within the cultural heritage sector. Paradoxically, this kind of tiredness could help growing another extreme approach to Cultural Heritage, in response to the conservative attitude that, in fact, governs our cultural heritage management.
Tafterjournal n. 114 - MARZO - APRILE 2021
Communicating archaeology to everyone.
Cultural Heritage does not represent a value in itself, but it rather embodies a relational value: an archaeological site, for instance, is whatever value the civil society and the community of reference give to it. The communication of the meaning of our heritage to the public of is hence a duty that belongs to the professionals of Cultural Heritage: archaeologists at Poggio del Molino (Populonia, Italy), in a global archaeology approach, have sought to open the research to the public using digital technologies, thus making operations open and accessible to everybody, on and off site.
Versus the superstars
In discussing the general influence of economic progress on value, Alfred Marshall wrote: The relative fall in the incomes to be earned by moderate ability… is accentuated by the rise in those that are obtained by many men of extraordinary ability. There never was a time at which moderately good oil paintings sold more cheaply than now, and… at which first-rate paintings sold so dearly. A business man of average ability and average good fortune gets now a lower rate of profits… than at any previous time, while the operations, in which a man exceptionally favoured by genius and good luck can take part, are so extensive as to enable him to amass a large fortune with a rapidity hitherto unknown. The causes of this change are two; firstly, the general growth of wealth, and secondly, the development of new facilities for communication by which men, who have once attained a commanding position, are enabled to apply their constructive or speculative genius to undertakings vaster, and extending over a wider area, than ever before. It is the first cause… that enables some barristers to command very high fees, for a rich client whose reputation, or fortune, or both, are at stake will scarcely count any price too high to secure the services of the best man he can get: and it is this again that enables jockeys and painters and musicians of exceptional ability to get very high prices… But so long as the number of persons who can be reached by a human voice is strictly limited, it is not very likely that any singer will make an advance on the £10.000 said to have been earned in a season by Mrs. Billington at the beginning of the last century, nearly as great as that which the business leaders of the present generation have made on those of the last.
Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage
In the wide framework of cultural resources present on a territory, there are still instruments and assets that, for multiple reasons, do not enter in traditional mixed offer of a city or a region. Ecclesiastical cultural heritage is often part of the structures that public administrators let slip. For Italy, it seems like paradoxically. While an important part of the art history and of cultural heritage is related to the history of Church, and while there are almost no cultural itineraries that do not include an ecclesiastical reference, the so-called “ecclesiastical museums” are still a marginal part of the policies realized to improve cultural, social and economic growth of our territories. In this article, we will discuss both the theoretical implication and the concrete opportunities that the empowerment of the ecclesiastical museums could generate for Italian territories, in terms of the touristic, cultural, and spiritual offer. As occur for “secular” ones, the ecclesiastical museum expresses a set of differentiated values that we need to take into account: the economic and social values are, therefore, specific consequences of the intrinsic cultural and historical values represented by the artworks that the museums store and protect. Furthermore, ecclesiastical museums present an aspect that every kind of consideration needs to take into account: the relevance of the spiritual and religious values and the role of the artworks as an important tessera in the wider mosaic of evangelization function.
Tafterjournal n. 113 - GENNAIO 2021 - MARZO 2021
The emerging industries in our complex scenario
In 2019, the European Panorama for Cluster published the report “Emerging Industries: Driving strength in 10 cross-sectoral industries”. Even though the social and economic conjuncture changed rapidly for the Covid-19 pandemic, this report highlights some structural features of our economic scenario that could be useful to discuss. As stated by the title, the report focuses on emerging industries and, more in detail, it aims at expressing the relevance that 10 “new industries” play for our entire economic system. The reason why these clusters are so interesting for the European Observatory for Clusters and Industrial Change is that the companies active in these sectors show, among others, two main characteristics: first, a business model that could generate significative results in terms of gross added value and, second, they’re working on products and services that could lead to a cross-sectoral innovation among different industries. The clusters included within the macro-area of the “emerging industries” are 10, and among them, there are at least three clusters that interest us closely: the digital, the experiential, and the creative industries.
R&D in creative industries: some lessons from the book publishing sector
Introduction Creative industries (CIs) deserve an ever increasing interest in recent years. Opportunities of economic wealth, growth and jobs creation at local level are identified as key factors (Henry, de Bruin, 2011; Piergiovanni et al., 2012) and recent research has been developed specifically on the strategic and economic dimensions of CIs and their business models (Throsby 2001; Howkins 2001; Benghozi, Paris 2007; Lyubareva et al. 2013). Several papers highlight the innovative dimension of CIs. Yet the papers dealing with such issue are all thinking about innovation as a means to develop new creative contents. One very important issue is surprisingly neglected: this is the characteristic and the management of R&D in CIs, especially in the cultural sector. Even the few studies that aim at investigating the potential of R&D to support the CIs do not provide any analysis of the processes and/or technologies adopted. The general absence of investigations on R&D activities in the CIs is due to a biased vision of the real relevance of these assets for creative companies. In other words, the main reason for poor investments in R&D is usually linked to the specific size, skills and capitalization of creative companies. Actually, disruptive technological innovations come from outside and creative firms are not really able to control their evolution. Creative firms conceive the new product development as the development of innovative content and never as technological R&D activities. Consequently, the main disruptive innovations in the CIs have always taken place outside these industries: this was the case for sound movie, for instance, invented by General Electric in the early XXth, for the innovative devices in music (K7, Walkman or CD), created in the 70s and 80s by Philips or Sony, and more recently, for the MP3 and Appstore in music. Within this context, our research perspective aims at understanding where R&D actually takes place in CIs, how the articulation is made with content and development projects, which economic actors are taking charge of it, where they are located in the value chain, how they are articulated with content producers.
Intercultural and institutional sociology. Attempts at integration within the information society.
In a global modernity, individuals and communities from different parts of the world are now able to build new models and aspirations at the same time thanks to the opportunities offered by new communication tools that constantly provide resources for the definition of individual and collective identity. What we call “globalization” today is mainly characterized by machines: industries, institutions, ideas, images, news and values have developed around the new technologies. The media-migration relationship is today one of the possible keys to scientifically interpreting modernity, as it interpenetrates much of the contemporary characterization of sociality, of the traditional boundaries within which we manage memberships and differences.
Tafterjournal n. 111 - AGOSTO - SETTEMBRE 2020
Price-fixing models for art fairs: reflections on sustainability.
The contribution highlights the main insights of my M.Sc thesis’ research conducted in 2019. It focuses on the widely debated art market issue of the ever more unsustainable costs for the small-medium sized galleries to attend art fairs. Even though their centrality for the galleries’ growth and market affirmation, something has started to change. In fact, the involved actors have denounced an art fairs’ scenario whose participation costs increased at the point for which it became almost impossible to obtain valuable economic results. The situation is exacerbated by the existing booths’ purchasing system. According to this and to the standard art fair’s format with different sections where the galleries are included, the actors in the same section spend the same amount per square meters/feet not considering their effective heterogeneity. Then, they are forced to sustain costs not proportionated to their real economic capacities. Despite the adoption of some progressive measures, the art fairs still seem unable to develop a system reflecting the participants’ diversity. Thus, the research aims to dwell on the art fair business model with a focus on the booths’ purchasing system, hypothesizing the introduction of a pure progressive mechanism for which each one would pay according to what it has. The study has been conducted relying on a review of existing literature about the business model and its application in the Creative and Cultural Sector (CCS). Then, it has been done interviews to 3 selected art fairs’ directors, aimed at reconstructing the art fair business model, and to 4 contemporary art gallerists, evaluating the proposal and discussing the art fairs’ functioning. The directors’ interviews have been done submitting the questions via mail, while the gallerists have been met personally. The study hopes to lay the foundations for more structured contributions in this field and to stimulate the debate on the way to do business in the art fairs’ environment.
How the art market should look like?
COVID-19 affected numerous dimensions of our lives, and, among them, it affected the cultural and art market too. In every place of our planet brilliant minds are considering the proper reactions to the pandemic-crisis under every aspect of our economic and social systems. Although, we also need to reflect on the cultural market, including the art market, and the way we attend events, or we visit monuments, and we appreciate artworks and exhibitions. COVID-19 generated and still generates both direct and indirect impact on these markets, but it has also underlined some “market fragilities” that we should acknowledge: the opaqueness, for example, is a structural characteristic of the art market, fully analyzed by many authors, as well as the difficulties of cultural market in adopting the innovations coming from the technology sector are fully acknowledged. COVID-19, it is worth noting, imposed in this sense a new pace: galleries, museums, and even hyper-institutionalized organizations adopted new ways to communicate with their audience and to disseminate their contents. We should treasure this new approach and maintain this attitude even when the alarm will be switched off. This number of Tafter Journal investigates how the cultural and, more precisely, the art market could be after the pandemic. The contribution of Colangelo deepens the results of a new wage of “must-be-online” among cultural players, by interviewing the CEO of Kunstamatrix, a company who provide users with 3d online exhibition spaces, and that knew an important growth during the lockdown period, being used by different kind of organizations, such as museums, galleries, and even art fairs. The art fairs market is the very focus of the article written by Medaglini, looking at a new possible pricing model for this market. The number of new art fairs grew consistently during the last decade, and now the market is living a new phase of its life-cycle and it is still looking for market equilibrium, with the competition generating both a critical mass related positive effect and a negative effect, related to the competition exacerbation.
Kunstmatrix: online platforms to support the art market
What are the real ef fects of this global crisis on art galleries and all of the art market players today? Is it prolonging their online activity by the use of platform and digital tools? What we were expecting was perhaps a normal resumption of offline activity and a slow abandonment of digital, but it’s not like that. Art companies that once were in competition with each other are beginning to create new f orms of collaboration. Digital platf orms are not seen as an enemy of the offline anymore. Indeed, many protagonists of the art industry are using them as engine tools to promote their offline activity and as a new path to have trasparency, amplify the knowledge of art and get new targets. This is confirmed by the Art Market Reports 2020 highlighting how challenges in the art market are often supported by technology. It’s not a coincidence that technology is always been a very versatile medium with a f luid and creative component that is able to raise awareness and amplify the perception of users. Online platforms are increasingly being used by artists, art galleries and auction houses as stagecraft solutions to create virtual exhibitions of their artworks. Kunstmatrix it’s a clear example of this digitalisation process. Kunstmatrix is an online platform, founded in Berlin in 2010 by the architect Crhistoph Lauterbach, that builds connections and publishes works of art in order to create 3d exhibition spaces to impress art lovers and collectors. It has grown exponentially during the lockdown and its targets have diversified and amplified: day by day, it increases its collaboration with artists, art galleries, art fair to support their activity. Even more, the company starts working with profiles and figures that it didn’t expect to reach, such as embassies, universities and schools. We decide to interview Christoph Lauterbach, co-founder and Ceo of Kunstmatrix, in order to know more about its current online dynamics and how it approaches with the art leaders.
Tafterjournal n. 110 - GIUGNO - LUGLIO 2020
Museums and Storytelling: From the last trends to the future
In 2010, Kelly found that museums’ adult visitors were deeply aware of their learning preferences and that they wanted experience both educational and entertaining. On a more general scale, LaPlaca Cohen “Culture Track Report 2014” reveals how the meaning itself of what a cultural experience is like, expanded to activities more related to nature and entertainment. According to this report, audience values a TED talk or a visit to a Botanic Garden just as culturally engaging as going to the museum or attending a theater performance. The public is more demanding and wants to satisfy more than one need at the same time, pursuing activities that are educational, entertaining, interactive and customizable. This expanded notion of culture is on top of the priorities of professionals, as it challenges them to find continuously newer and more unique attractions, able to deal with a much wider range of competitors to the public attention. In order to address the increased uncertainty, museums reshaped their programs to include more and more extra-ordinary events, such as family days, curators’ talks, nocturnal exhibitions, and so on. On the one hand, special events are successfully flourishing and tend to be more participated, to have a wider impact on social media and to be more easily sponsored than ordinary programs. On the other hand, it seems that museums would be struggling at actually improving the ordinary visitors’ experience, which is a much more radical transformation affecting deeply each department, from the Curatorial to the Visitors’ Services and it is often extremely costly. In this gap among special programming and ordinary visit, the organization Museum Hack has found a fertile environment for its growth.
Does storytelling kill stories?
Just a few years ago, the word storytelling in the Italian cultural world was barely acknowledged. In recent times, however, this term knew an unquestionable success, soon becoming a “must do” for every practitioner or academic researcher in cultural related disciplines and organizations.This kind of approach has been kind misunderstood by many Italian […]
The future art of storytelling: Future Fabulating in Madeira Island
The practice of predicting the future has a long history, ranging from personal consultation in the patterns of coffee grounds to global computational projections derived from vast sums of data. The longing for a vision of the future offering some certitude seems to cross cultural boundaries. Engineer Alan Kay stated that “the best way to predict the future is to build it”. There are people who are doing this today. The Future Fabulators (FFab) [1] is an art and research project funded by the EU Culture Programme (2007-2013) in co-operation with the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency. Future Fabulators is led by the Time’s Up [2], Linz based, art collective, in collaboration with FoAM [3], M-ITI [4] and AltArt [5]. As principal investigator at M-ITI, in this article I will describe the research and artistic developments of FFAb mainly from the M-ITI prospective although the project had been a thigh collaboration, where we often came together, confronted and challenged ideas, inspired and helped each other in many ways. The Future Fabulators intent moves beyond words and statistics to make possible futures tangible. Future Fabulators develops storyworlds in which the public can see and experience predicted and imagined futures in a way that they, as individuals and groups, might live them – replete with the beauty and banality of everyday life in an alternate world. Storytelling and story-listening have always been intertwined ways of understanding, explaining and creating the world. In this project we share these stories with trained futurists, storytellers and the public, our experts of everyday life, integrating their stories into experienceable narratives from which we all can learn about different visions, prejudices or habitual patterns that influence how we see the world and thus how we imagine our future. FFab uses techniques from physical narration, context-aware narrative, and future pre-enactment to translate future scenarios into storyworlds, which are built as immersive situations in public and private spaces and designed to be playfully explored and enacted by a broad population. In particular Future Fabulators at the Madeira Interactive Technology Institute focused particularly on conceiving, developing and evaluating mobile, context-aware, multimedia, and transmedia stories. We investigate the contemporary panorama of creative media and translate stories of the future into artifacts of the present. Our goal, in close synergy with our FFabs partners, is to unfold the potential of technology and storytelling, blending tangible narrative, interactive technologies, and future forecasting.
Tafterjournal n. 109 - FEBBRAIO - MARZO 2020
Tech-derived knowledge could help our cities
Obviously, this is not a new idea. Since years, We daily hear about new technologies could help us in creating a better environment, through the analysis of data that users generate. Big data, small data, data harvesting, data mining are concepts that are widely acknowledged, today. Still, there are not sufficient implementations to surely affirm that the usage of the knowledge that this huge amount of data provide, is truly helpful in designing new urban policies or other interventions at the city level. More in detail, we could affirm that, today, in Italy, there is a significative lack of connection between the R&D improvements of these years and the Public Administration or the governance of big enterprises. In other terms, while on one hand there are several tech-innovations created by start-ups run by young entrepreneurs, on the other hand we have not enough implementations within the urban context. Though, without implementations, research is a sort of an artwork. So, after the art for the art’s sake, we created research for research’s sake.
*UrbanSensing: listening to the digital city
*UrbanSensing is a two year funded European Union project, it involves six European Partners, that all contribute their specific expertise and skills in the fields of the project. The project will bring a new product to the urban design, city planning and urban management market: a platform extracting patterns of use and citizens’ perceptions related or concerning city spaces, through robust analysis of User Generated Content (UGC) shared by the city users and inhabitants over social networks and digital media. The platform will allow to analyze users’ perceptions related to specific geographic areas and understand how population reacts to new urban policies within participatory mechanisms.
Tafterjournal n. 108 - SETTEMBRE - OTTOBRE 2019
Culture and Wellbeing
People’s happiness and wellbeing are undoubtedly at the center of today’s modern life – we could even dare to say that our generation is obsessed with the pursuit of happiness, with finding the perfect balance between our inner desires and the lives that we actually live. Nevertheless, we know very little about what truly makes a human being happy. We read tons of self-help books, we go to courses, and we talk to counselors. But the truth is – we very rarely dig deeper into the scientific causes behind human happiness and wellbeing. We may even be surprised to know that, in fact, there are very solid scientific causes. And among those causes, culture lists as one of the main ones. In order to better understand this, we need first to define what we mean by wellbeing and by culture. What is scientifically defined as psychological wellbeing – and more commonly referred as happiness – is a very complex, subjective feeling, made up by a series of multiple interactions and by a long list of factors: first of all, our physical and mental health, along our age, our yearly income, our profession, our education, the lifestyle that we have, our family life and many others. If we want to make sure that communities and populations thrive, we first need to make sure that the general level of wellbeing is high. To do so, we first need to understand how much every single factor named above contributes to the general wellbeing of individuals. To name a few, we can easily understand how lifestyle is one of the main contributors to psychological wellbeing, since unhealthy lifestyles can deeply influence the quality of our lives and therefore will influence our physical and mental health. Family life is also very important: we bring our own lives into our families, and when even one individual within a household is affected by stress, this can easily be transferred to other family members. We can’t obviously forget about the social sphere – this is where everything converges. We can have happy populations or unhappy populations, with real waves of wellbeing affecting a specific population in a specific time. And what about culture?
Fragmented We Stand
Rephrasing the famous quote can sketches the picture in which Western world has found itself recently, especially Europe and the Americas. Since the end of 2016, a wave of political and social fragmentation has been sweeping at least two of the most important continents in the world, giving way to a culture of populist nationalism. Often people are not aware of the multiple interconnections affecting their lives, impacting on our own happiness and wellbeing. Nor we realise the “butterfly effect” each of these interconnections has on the other around the world. In their restricted landscapes of the last three years, are the people of these continents happier, freer, richer than they used to be? Do they, do we, have a deep understanding of what make us happy or are we functionally illiterate even about it? Few, basic items contributing to our happiness and well-being are: freedom and respect of other people’s freedom, work, healthcare, the outcomes of good politics and the effects of stable and growing economics, the possibility of living in a friendly environment, both on a psychological point of view and where the effects of the climate change are limited. Social and societal interactions, safe and affordable mobility, broad and uncensured communication. To which, finally, it can be added what anyone considers to be good. In an individualistic culture as the Western one has transformed, declaring that anyone can decide what it is good for him/herself can be considered really the base of the fragmentation we are observing recently, the right anyone claims to have not to homologate or not to be submitted to the law and common rules: “one is one” is the claim that anticipate “first my people”. What kind of culture is generated by all this?
Taxation and the Art Market
The Italian art market grows poorly and, in any case, more slowly than the world market. One of the reasons for this stagnation is undoubtedly the presence of an anachronistic tax legislation that seems to respond to mere revenue logics. By contrast, an equal and forward-looking tax system of the art market could be instrumental in making a significant contribution to circulating works of art and offering new growth opportunities. Tax policies may be an effective instrument to support the cultural activities of individuals or entities by means of incentives and a favorable tax regime. If the main purpose of a tax system is to earn revenues, this does not prevent the governments from lawfully pursuing objectives not having a strictly fiscal character but rather a social or an economic nature at the same time. The tax regime of the art market gives origin to different issues in accordance with the diversified nature of acts and situations (purchases, supplies or possession of the works of art) taken into consideration by the legislator as well as with the legal form of the interested parties (natural or legal persons, VAT taxpayers or not, and so on). The main issues concern VAT, inheritance tax and income taxation.
Tafterjournal n. 107 - LUGLIO - AGOSTO 2019
Culture is Complex, and we must have strategies.
There is no doubt that cultural development requires a strategic approach. Worldwide, urban areas are experiencing a process significantly different from the merely expansive path that public administration and private investors have longly prompted over the XX century. Nowadays, growth is not only an economic concern: it is, indeed, the result of different innovation processes related to various aspect of the democratic and the economic life of our Countries. These processes prompt for a new urban planning philosophy where a team of experts should coordinate different topics. Urban planners should take into account cultural, economic, infrastructural, social, and technological instances. Today, the goal in urban and regional planning is to achieve a better quality of life. Such an objective calls us (public administrations, private investors, and experts) in defining growth patterns able at improving the economic conditions of citizens while improving social liveability, social cohesion, and cultural consciousness. With the rise of Cultural and Creative Industries, the cultural sector acquired a central role within the urban planning activities.
Impact of Urban Regeneration on Housing Satisfaction: A comparative study in Iran and Turkey
This paper investigates housing satisfaction in regeneration projects and emphasizes on the fundamental attributes which mainly influence inhabitants’ well-being. In this respect, two urban regeneration projects in Tehran, Iran and Ankara, Turkey were selected and a qualitative approach was used to explore dimensions of human-environment connections in these projects. Accordingly, a model consisting of seven variables (housing-related features, accessibility, housing environment characteristics, facilities, safety and security, social ties, appearance of housing environment) was applied. In order to collect the necessary data, in-situ observation and questionnaire, addressing 80 family units in both projects, were conducted. The results of the study indicate that the factors which affect the quality of the life are different in two neighborhoods regarding the distinct socio-cultural and economic background of the residents and the diversified urban qualities. It is found out that residents living in Dikmen Valley to some extent are more satisfied with the quality of their living environment. Among seven attributes of environmental quality, residents are more dissatisfied with facilities, and safety risks in this neighborhood. In Navvab project, the extent of dissatisfaction is higher. They are highly dissatisfied with housing environment characteristics, facilities and the appearance of the housing environment variables. Analysing these two urban regeneration projects reveals that paying few attentions to the social needs of inhabitants, lack of opportunity for creating place attachment, designing spaces that does not convey any sense of congruence with residents’ social and cultural status, designing spaces with poor environmental quality and poor urban physical features decrease neighborhood satisfaction and reduce inhabitants’ involvement in their urban space. It ultimately can result in higher insecurity, higher migration rates and social and physical segregation.
Commercial Districts and Corporate Planning: an international review
The literature review aims at representing the different applications of the concept of the Trade District by comparing similar experiences on an international level (North-America, Western Europe, South Africa, Japan). The framework of the Trade District, globally, is acknowledged in different ways. Thus, this framework is not directly adopted in all the case histories analyzed by this paper. This is acknowledged in Table 1 where the describer is “commercial and economic development model”. Today, the reflections about the District intend the territory of the District as a sort of protected area. In this perspective, the District becomes a circumscribed area in which transactions are linked through proximity. Considering that the distributive value is influenced by characteristics acting in a context of variable geometry, e. a. proximity and contiguity, it is necessary to re-thing the District in its whole. In such a perspective, indeed, the District represents a planning tool able at interpreting the quality of territorial dynamics (cities and societies) also in relation to the digital component.
Tafterjournal n. 105 - MARZO - APRILE 2019
Local Conflicts and the NO-TAP Protest
This paper is about the local conflict which emerged in Apulia, and more exactly in the province of Lecce, as a form of opposition to the major project known as TAP (Trans-Adriatic Pipeline), aimed at transporting Azeri natural gas to Italy and Northern Europe. Reflecting on the question of TAP requires first of all a theoretical background against which we may set our empirical observation. In this paper, we will try and trace images and narratives so as to identify the history and features of a movement that, although young, may be intended as a litmus test useful to understand the new and sometimes invisible cleavages that affect today’s society. By choosing the TAP case as a model of a new kind of movement, not reducible to the characteristics of the “Nimby” phenomenon, we will try and study the somewhat invisible political and economic relations, which legitimize some processes of territorial control, as well as the practices by which the state or private bodies can implement it. Although the TAP protest is just a case-study, it is quite complex. This implies that, by narrating its history and describing its characteristics, one may better understand, on the micro level, the processes that convert collective heterogeneity into an active homogeneity, and, at the macro level, the national and international strategies (both political and economic) behind this major project. This may eventually contribute to a less generic definition of local conflicts (sometimes known as territorial conflict). In modern scientific literature on territorial movements, one interesting reference is Luigi Bobbio [1]. With Bobbio, it can be said that territorial conflicts have by now outnumbered both in qualitative and quantitative terms other types of social conflicts. Moreover, Bobbio considers as a characteristic of these kind of conflicts the fact that they are no longer the output of a two-dimensional clash between the dominant and the dominated class, but are the expression of the multiple segregations that contemporary society has produced. The plurality of exclusion has paradoxically produced a flattening of society in which fear and risk tend to drive the dynamics of social action. At a first and careless analysis, Bobbio would seem to promote a depoliticized vision of society, in which class conflicts disappear to be replaced by the new tendencies of late modernity. The political scientist underlines the main characteristic of these conflicts, namely: “The common feature of these protests is the fact that they are promoted and run by ad-hoc citizens’ committees, which propose themselves as non-partisan and authentic representatives of their community. Participants often receive the support of environmental associations or political groups, but try to claim and maintain their autonomy as an expression of the territory and of those who live there.”[2] The emphasis placed by Bobbio on the aspect of self-representativeness allows us to overcome the “idealtipical” image of territorial protest as a “shapeless mass”, in which individual interests converge without any aggregate logic, as if mere action was sufficient to structure solid social networks. The fact that the participants receive support from associations and groups of autonomous individuals underlines that a foundational element of the action of local movements is a strong awareness of collective interests. This awareness is relevant in the process by which a specific territorial group defines its objectives and structures its identity. The social networks which issue from local conflict are therefore expressions of the values through and against which the movement defines its own autonomy. Multiple networked social relations are essential to any territorial conflict and represent the product of a collective choice of distinction (or of taking a position) which legitimises a collectively shared habitus. The collectively shared habitus is the key to understand the social mechanisms of action and distinction (both external and internal) that allow a group to structure its collective heterogeneity as an active homogeneity. Moreover, the single movement is never isolated, as it is the autonomous component of a network of local movements, which makes territorial vindications the integral part of a much wider conflict.
Museum Archaeological Collection Storage: reassessing needs and priorities
A museum does not survive if it does not preserve its works. The tools and places essential for preserving the works are the storages (Mottola Molfino 1991). Unfortunately, despite the ever-increasing attention paid to museums, the storage plays a marginal role: an invisible (or almost invisible) resource for the community, whose potential is often little explored and/or valued. In Italy, the awareness of the importance of museum collection storage is a relatively recent achievement that has experienced a considerable delay compared to other countries (Fossà 2005). Recognising the storage – in the same way as the exhibition spaces – a dynamic and multifaceted role linked not only to conservation, but also to research and development (Rémy 1999; Della Monica et al. 2004; Beaujard-Vallet 2011), today constitutes a fundamental challenge for museums, if they want to preserve their role as centres of knowledge at the service of the community. This challenge becomes even more difficult and problematic for storages of archaeological material, which undergo a continuous and exponential increase (Marini Calvani 2004; Shepherd and Benes 2007; Papadopoulos 2015). What is the situation of archaeological museum storage? What problems do they face? In 2014-2015, a statistical survey was conducted by the writer during her doctoral research project at the University of Ferrara, in collaboration with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and with the National Association of Local and Institutional Museums (Muttillo 2015, 2016, 2017). The purpose of the survey was to create an updated and comprehensive mapping of the archaeological museum heritage not exhibited, collecting information on the management of goods in storage, mainly on: a) inventory and cataloguing; b) preservation: safety and control of risk parameters; c) structure and organization of storage; d) professional figures involved in the study, care and management of the collections; e) valuation of storage, in terms of accessibility, visibility and use. Archaeological museums[1], both state and not state[2], have been investigated through a specially designed questionnaire, also available online [3]. The survey has allowed to identify critical elements and priority areas of intervention.
The dark sides of culture
Barbara Kruger, in one of her famous artworks affirms: When I hear the word culture, I take out my checkbook. This provocation well evokes a wide range of associations related to culture: theatres, music performances, artworks, and so on. Another well-known quote says: “Whenever I hear of culture, I release the safety on my Browning”. This quote, misattributed to various Nazi leaders, is included in a Hanns Johst play “Schlageter”. Following recent interpretations, with this statement, the author well describes a common feelng related to what “Kultur” (the word used in the original play) represented during the ’20s and the ‘30s in Germany. In German, in fact, the word Kultur refers to what we could define as “high culture” in contemporary interpretation. This kind of culture was a privilege of the coeval elites. Kultur was often “a way of legitimizing the preferences of one group, and delegitimizing the preferences of another”. On closer inspection, these quotes have much in common: in both cases the word “culture” induces a reaction, and in both cases the “reaction” is in some way “violent”. The difference between the two interpretations is just in the weapon that Kruger (checkbook) or Josht (Browning) use.
Tafterjournal n. 104 - GENNAIO - FEBBRAIO 2019
When quality measures the distance between valorization and commodification
There is a shared vision which wants that every kind of good and service can be transformed in a product. It doesn’t matter what kind of good or service is. This perspective is not so bad as it could sound to many, and above all, looking at our daily lives, it is not so far from the reality. We use and consume every kind of good and service, whether it is a cultural good, a relational good or an industrial good. Though, when we talk about cultural goods, the setting-up of a value-chain or a value-system, obviously scares humanists. Indeed, there is a point that we need to fix and to underline: there is a huge difference between valorization and commodification, and the measure of this difference is named quality. Quality of the processes trough which we transform cultural or non-cultural assets in cultural products. Skilled human resources, clever investments and proper management principles lead to a high-quality deliverable that, despite its market-driven approach, could improve knowledge, culture and social value more than a pure-cultural-driven approach. It is the same difference that measures the distance between “territorial development” and “territorial marketing”. Having a look at both the definitions remove any doubt about it. While “Territorial marketing can be defined as a process whereby local activities are related as closely as possible to the demands of targeted customers” the “Territorial development designates development that is endogenous and spatially integrated, leverages the contribution of actors operating at multiple scales and brings incremental value to national development efforts”. However, looking at the cultural sector, despite the glaring differences between these definitions, the output of these approaches could appear very similar. Both the approaches, indeed, produce cultural services, cultural goods and touristic goods that third-sector organizations, enterprises and Public Administrations offer on the market. So, what kind of variable should we use to interpret a cultural or touristic good as the result of a marketing approach or, on the contrary, of a territorial development approach? Once again, quality could be the answer.
Sociology of dissent: American Beatniks and pre-sixty-eight Europe
In the Fifties of the XX century, American provincial and urban roads were occupied by “groups of vagrants”, who theorized an unusual “on the road” culture with their own ethics and their own “way of life”. The assault on culture was the characteristic of this group of “beatnik”[1] poets, artists and literary men, which, retrospectively analysed, becomes an archetypal condition of XX century avant-garde. Historically the beat movement has been considered the first outcry phenomenon prior to an increasing movement of teenager opposition, holding the key points of what will prove to be a radical breakup of an all-embracing and absolutist system. Its rebellion came out of a widespread feeling of clear, visible refuse towards the dominant power, so that the beat alienation from the “system” was to be understood as a real revolutionary process rooted in the Self and directed to the liberation from any oppressive power. Sympathetic towards the present, narrated as it presented itself to their own eyes, the various “Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs – Goffman wrote- avoided the direct participation to some of their hipster friends ‘desperate excesses, preferring to observe and express solidarity.” They could understand and identify themselves with Bill Cannastra, who danced on the broken glass and on the mouldings, who once lost his challenge with the death while climbing the window of a New York subway car. They offered comfort and shelter to Herbert Huncke, a heavy drug addict who used to get money pilfering in Time Square. An extraordinary performance, a kaleidoscope of images and sounds from the underground, through which the beat wanted to give a violent shock to the romantic views of civil society, to the routine and usual ways of observing and analysing the real world, the one represented indeed by “Cannastra’s death, drug addicts and street thugs who passed by the windows of a diner in Time Square, where they spent…their time with Huncke”. These desperate lives represented to the beat writer the evidence that “we were detached from the official perspective of history and reality”. An unconventional socio-political context mixed with an idyllic, raw and releasing language, used to eviscerate the American low-lives: it is here, among run-down premises and dump houses, that they were involved in the lives of dropout hipsters, developing a literary identity marked by independence and experimental research. Without any directional structure and without any organization to embrace the whole movement, the key aspects of the beat generation, besides the change and subversion of linguistic models, were the absence of a fixed commitment, the non-violence, and the absolute freedom, which prevented the emergence of any centralized and hierarchical structure. In fact, as Holstein writes, we- the beat- “before the links of a society characterized by any structure, recognized the tribal links proper of a primitive communitarian feeling, directed to mutual help, hospitality, refuse of property, friendship and solidarity facing the world outside.”
Tafterjournal n. 103 - NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2018
The Ministry Organization after the introduction of the recent reform
The law number 5 of 29 January 1975 instituted the Ministero per I Beni e le Attività Culturali e Ambientali[2]. Its original tasks were related to the conservation and valorization of artistic heritage and natural beauties. In 1998, the denomination of the Ministry has been changed in Ministero per I Beni e le Attività Cultural[3]i. In 2013, its denomination changed again in Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del Turismo[4] and once again, in 2018, with D.L.[5] 12 July 2018 entered into force on 13 July 2018, the Ministry came back to its previous denomination, with the transfer of the touristic competence to the Ministero delle politiche agricole, alimentari, forestali[6] This intervention is just one of the latest provisions with which, since 2004 (year of the entry into force of the Codice dei Beni Culturali), the legislator started a significative re-organization of the Ministry. Such intervention deals with both the need to adapt the Ministry to the overall provisions adopted in Italy in terms of spending review, and also with the widespread need of redesign the functional and structural organization of the Ministry in order to solve its main disfunctions and deficiencies. The MIBACT, indeed, was characterized by a substantial structural disorganization, an insufficient organigramme and the overlapping of hierarchical lines between the central and peripherical administration. These weaknesses hindered the development of proper investment and resource allocation policies, preventing an efficient management of cultural heritage. The Reform has been thus realized in order to solve the cruxes that were indicated as the main causes of a substantial inadequacy of the Ministry in interpreting and acting coherently with the Article n. 9 of the Italian Constitution referring to the safeguarding and the development of cultural heritage and of the landscape. Therefore, the reform introduced a series of legal instruments that succeeded in sparking several debates in these last 4 years, as also demonstrated by the number of legal provisions adopted in order to update and correct the Reform contents.
Cultural Heritage between administrative organization and non-for-profit initiative
Italian Cultural Heritage is worldwide acknowledged. Artworks, Archaeological Sites, Museums and even whole cities are by now part of the collective imaginary. In spite of this, there are several criticalities characterizing Italian Cultural Heritage. Most of them are the results of an anachronistic interpretation of the role that Cultural Heritage could play in our daily lives. Following this interpretation, Cultural Heritage should not be associated with (direct or indirect) private intervention because private intervention is only targeted to a “profit” and the “profit” is a great enemy for the public interest. Regardless of how unreasonable it may sound, this has been, for long, the unexpressed belief of many Italian Cultural Operators and decision makers. This interpretation led several consequences that could be summarized in an almost completely public management of Cultural Heritage, performed regardless to the results of the activity run by the public administration. Fortunately, in recent years the “cultural establishment” acknowledged the need for a change that was widespread invoked by cultural practitioner and civil society. Obviously, this “switch” is also the result of the substantial evolution that has characterized the Cultural Heritage Management globally as well as the transition from an industrial-led economy to a knowledge-led economy. The main effects of this change are in everyone’s eyes: never in history as today, museums are, in many countries, the living center of the society. Cultural Heritage and Activities are at the very heart of urban development and, most of all, it has been finally acknowledged that Cultural Heritage and Activities could be one of the key economic sectors for the development of entire regions or countries.
Tafterjournal n. 102 - SETTEMBRE - OTTOBRE 2018
Three ideas for further reflection from ICCPR 2018
This article discusses some thought-provoking papers presented at the ICCPR2018. It looks first at the use of digital technologies in the art sector, with regard to data visualization and open data policies, identifying a huge untapped potential. Secondly, it opens up a space for reflection on the very notion of arts marketing both as a practice and as an academic field, proposing a renewed emphasis on audience enrichment. Finally, it takes into consideration the vexed question of defining cultural value presenting an exploratory research conducted in Australia using contingent value methodology to include also a measurement of cultural value among non-users.
Made in Italy between «invention» and tradition. The hi-storytelling of past advertising and communication campaigns in the context of corporate historical archives and museums
Abstract The paper discusses some explorative research investigating the creative re-use of past advertising and communication campaigns in the context of corporate historical archives and museums. From a preliminary literature review, the research analyzed in the field the experiences promoted by four historical Italian companies, contributing to the visual tradition and heritage of the so-called «Made in Italy». Their own corporate museums and historical archives were examined in depth in order to focus the specific patrimonialization and management processes addressed to reactivate – even in forms which are different from the original ones – the communicative function played by historical advertising billboards, television and radio commercials, photos, packaging, corporate movies. 1 – Advertising and corporate communication from past to present The explorative research presented in this paper investigates the creative re-use of past advertising and communication campaigns in the context of corporate historical archives and museums. The phenomenon of company historical archives and museums is not new in the international scenario (Coleman, 1943; Danilov, 1991, 1992), but rather unique in its genre and strongly emerging in Italy. Indeed, from the nineties and especially in the new millennium, those corporate centers have seen a real effervescence in the country (Amari, 2001; Bonfiglio-Dosio, 2003; Bulegato, 2008), designing a network which has no equal worldwide for the capillarity and relevance of its expressions (Amari, 2001; Bonfiglio-Dosio, 2003; Bulegato, 2008; Gambardella, 2013), contributing to an already copious Italian heritage of archives and museums.
Tourism as a driver of cultural vibrancy in lesser known destinations: a link yet to be explored?
In recent years, culture and creativity have captured the attention of city-focused policymakers, managers, and academics due to their (still much argued) capacity to contribute to local economic prosperity. “Cultural vibrancy” (or “cultural vitality”, here used as synonyms) is a term that we often come across when looking at the abundant literature on the topic. The reason why scholars and practitioners care about such vibrancy is clear: if culture embraces the distinctive traits that characterise a society (UNESCO, 2001) and can take either tangible or intangible forms (Throsby, 2001), cultural vitality is an all-encompassing term that tries to capture the ways through which culture and creativity are actually expressed, every day and everywhere. More concretely, I would argue that cultural vibrancy relates to all those activities through which culture is actually “animated”, “promoted” and “participated”, and its cultural, economic and social value therefore enhanced. Urban cultural tourism is probably one of the most likely outcomes of cultural vibrancy.
Tafterjournal n. 101 - LUGLIO - AGOSTO 2018
Art Market in Western Balkan
Western Balkan as the art market space presents an abstract construction in the cultural policy discourses of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Macedonia and Croatia, approaching this concept in a relativistic way and changing the relationship between arts and economy depending on the socio-historical context. Thus, during the 1990s in the countries of the region prevailed cultural policies fostering the idea of national identity and based on the instruments mainly focused on local artists and their position on the national art scene. Beginning of the 21st century brought a shift: opening of national cultures to the world of art trends and building cultural policy between the need to support universal art projects and those shaping an environment of national cultural existence. Balance between the hidden nationalism and openness, primarily towards the European Union marked the first decade of this century. The Western Balkan’s art market has not experienced major transformations, remaining marginalized in the public policies’ discource. The period from the late 1980s and early 1990s was characterized by a significant share of state firms, co-financing the most important events in visual arts, and creating large state-owned collections of exceptional artistic and historical value too (JAT, Invest Bank, Jugobanka, Beobanka, Dunav Insurance Company, INA, etc.). Art market was encouraged with purchases made by the state, and significant demand was created by representatives of the higher middle class who have followed exhibition policies of major galleries in Yugoslavia and had a decent knowledge about the art tendencies.
Is culture “the new black” or the “last ideology”?
Europe is, nowadays a little weird concept, that assumes, day after day, everchanging Non-Euclidean shapes: Brexit, NGOs, boundaries and immigration are at the top of the Agendas of a Union that would have preferred pursuing objectives such as the “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. In this widespread confusion it seems that Culture should be the new philosopher’s stone or, adopting a more common language it seems that Culture should be the new black. There are no serious public interventions that do not underline, at least once, the role of culture for the development of a town, of a country or of the European Union in its whole. Indeed, according to our policymakers, culture is: a) The key for a new “multicultural” Europe; b) An important economic sector that could prompt the development of backbones territories; c) The next new-thing of financial market and, finally, d) The real answer to both the immigration challenge and the brain drain phenomenon. There are no doubts that culture could play an important role in all these processes but a more realistic framework is needed.
Towards more open information : digital media as moral, civic and multicultural environments
In the new information society ,living in a global space, ideas, technologies, people, products are intended to move from one place to another, but remaining interconnected within an ambient where cultures increasingly more dynamic contact What emerges now is the need to enhance the identity, the differences between individuals and this is only possible through the comparison and exchange with the other, as an opportunity for learning and of encounter. The development pervasive media influences and approaches our daily experience to the global world, understood as a space mediated, new, defined by relationships themselves, where they build the frames of our civilization. It is precisely starting from the social and moral responsibility to which the media are called in a multicultural democratic society which would constitute a responsible information and quality as a foundation of democracy and a common good.
Tafterjournal n. 100 - MAGGIO GIUGNO 2018
Tafter Journal Number 100
In recent years the world has totally changed. Many are still the persons who disbelieved the power of culture as a strategic tool for the development of entire economies and territories. Many understood it. Many have made of their lives, an instrument to change their territories through culture and the production of culture. Every day we go on it is increasingly clear how cultural economy is a more mature market. Now everyone asks that new and specialized skills are needed: being able to design cultural projects is no longer enough, now those who have the task of providing services in this cluster must be able to finance projects or make them sustainable in the short-term period. This is the proof that shows how we are experiencing a great change in the market. This type of change occurs when a sector moves from an emerging phase to a consolidation phase. In these 100 numbers, Tafter Journal has been involved in the representation of a world that changes timelessly, and this number will not be an exception. The functions required by culture are, to date, extremely varied: now culture is related, among other things, to social cohesion, entrepreneurial mentoring, innovation, cultural heritage and trust building activities. Day by day, recognizing the importance of the value of culture, culture is necessary to solve any kind of social challenge. Furthermore, there are groups and activities that need the set of skills that culture can provide, even if they are not exactly definable as part of the cultural and creative industries. I’m talking about the experience industry, and more specifically, I’m talking about tourism, and the way in which cultural and tourist phenomena share efforts to consolidate an image of territorial branding (which has direct implications on the economic, social and urban complex). I’m talking about technology and the way new disruptive innovations could change our lives and, above all, the ways we think, we design, we project a territorial cultural offer. These evidences call us for change: we need culture, it is true, but we need energy, committed professionals and academics who want to share their experiences and studies in order to foster debate and provide readers with practical tools and knowledge. But above all we need a political class capable of intercepting emergencies and knowing how to interpret change strongly.
Big-Data to understand touristic and cultural dynamics: a fractal framework.
The Big-Data revolution has been immediately accepted in several industries, in particular the military and defense industries, by various economic and social actors, usually linked to multinational corporations, as a fresh source of innovation. In the cultural sector, these new technologies acceptance has been less common met some oppositions. These oppositions have been mainly due to a general lack of competences on the new technologies and on advanced data analysis by most of the actors in this sector. Lacking the needed competences, these actors have often been unable to grasp the opportunities that Big-Data could have opened to them. In this paper, we propose to highlight the main results and main positive effects coming out from the first stages of Big-Data utilization in the Cultural Heritage sector using a fractal model.
The Right to the city by Henry Lefebvre and tendencies to the anti-coercion of its exchange value. Reading hypothesis and analysis.
I believe that it is possible to carry on Lefebvre’s thought trying to fix the coordinates of a possible political economy of the metropolitan space, where there are some contrasting subjective regularities that restore the difference between isotopy and heteropia in the contemporaneous metropolitan paradigm. From this basic assumption, the path of the speech is turned to the synoptic observation of the control and exclusion systems of specific social classes (voluntary and spontaneous isolation, H. Lefebvre, or. 1967, tr. it. 1968); finally, assumptions can be made on how some fragments of the territory can be transformed by fractions of population, whose desires, turned into patterns, originally, conflicting with the normative-symbolic order, must be found in a series of initiatives aimed at the re-appropriation of a physical space, with an increase in subjectivity that redefines the role of space in the metropolis. Although the Right to the city takes its place between a Keynesian, Taylorist, Fordist system and the advance of a Toyotist paradigm, Lefebvre catches the origins of the socio-urban changes in conformity with the fast ratio (space compression, reduction of time with the automation of the production processes combined with the new communication and transport technologies), where several systemic strategies are simultaneously carried out to eliminate the topographic city differences; therefore, Lefebvre establishes new urban development needs in the reconversion of the capitalist pattern, with procedural effects on the territorial planning and on life in a broad sense. With the more and more new cybernetic systems and outsourcing services, the factory, the production as a theatre of struggle and social aggregator, at least in the late-capitalist West, gives way to a conflict that is increasingly centred on the space category and not on the reduction of time to the owner’s authority. In a “two-dimensional decomposition of the everyday life”, (cf. G. Cersosimo 2017, 15,) focusing on a socially organized time and a relatively free time, which is always related to the capitalist organization of production and work, the key to conflict is, nowadays, the re-appropriation of means and resources to enjoy the spare time in a society with no producers recording a clear decrease in employment, with flexible working hours and moments where it is possible to record a higher involvement of the lower classes.
Tafterjournal n. 99 - MARZO APRILE 2018
Ecclesiastical Museums: an important opportunity for cultural networks and territories
In the wide framework of cultural resources present on a territory, there are still instruments and assets that, for multiple reasons, do not enter in traditional mixed offer of a city or a region. Ecclesiastical cultural heritage is often part of the structures that public administrators let slip. For Italy, it seems like paradoxically. While an important part of the art history and of cultural heritage is related to the history of Church, and while there are almost no cultural itineraries that do not include an ecclesiastical reference, the so-called “ecclesiastical museums” are still a marginal part of the policies realized to improve cultural, social and economic growth of our territories. In this article, we will discuss both the theoretical implication and the concrete opportunities that the empowerment of the ecclesiastical museums could generate for Italian territories, in terms of touristic, cultural and spiritual offer. As occur for “secular” ones, the ecclesiastical museum expresses a set of differentiated values that we need to take into account: the economic and social values are, therefore, specific consequences of the intrinsic cultural and historical values represented by the artworks that the museums store and protect. Furthermore, ecclesiastical museums present an aspect that every kind of consideration needs to take into account: the relevance of the spiritual and religious values and the role of the artworks as an important tessera in the wider mosaic of the evangelization function. The article will therefore discuss three main aspects of the Italian ecclesiastical museums: first chapter, “From religious to spiritual” will briefly deal with the theoretical dimension of the role and the relevance of ecclesiastical collections and their inclusion in a broader cultural dimension. The second chapter “Ecclesiastical Museums and services” will analyze services and main characteristics shown by ecclesiastical museums in Italy. Third section will finally introduce the potentiality of the introduction of ecclesiastical museums in different networks, considering the recent growth of cultural and spiritual products or services.
Non-hype instruments for territorial development
As occurs in almost every branch of human activity, our sector is often influenced by trends that condition the work of academicians and practitioners. Today as yesterday, we assist to the explosion of tools whose impact could affect both the cultural and economic development of territories. Yesterday it was the case of festivals, today is what occurs with Blockchain and smart contracts. Nevertheless, following these fashions we leave behind tools or assets that could be very helpful in the construction of a territorial policy for a culture-based development. This number of Tafter Journal is dedicated to two instruments, highly differentiated, that nowadays are not as cool as big-data or the AI applications, but that could concretely concur to the diversification of territorial cultural offer contributing, at the same time, to the specialization of cultural and economic production of a region or a city. Who’s involved in day-by-day working on territory knows that are plenty of resources (as much as obstacles and difficulties) that need to be managed: historic buildings, contemporary production, cultural associations, natural heritage and so on. Properly, our role is indeed to underline further opportunities that could extend that set of assets, and show how these new (or old) tools work or they could do.
Tafterjournal n. 98 - GENNAIO FEBBRAIO 2018
L’Ososphère: Popular Music, Temporary Uses and Planning in Strasbourg France
This article focuses on the temporary activation via popular music of former industrial buildings awaiting redevelopment in Strasbourg, France. The renting out of lucrative areas for certain periods of time, either for continuous use or one-off events, to cultural entrepreneurs, artists, NGOs and small businesses is increasing. In relation to popular music, temporary uses work in relation to one-time live events and yearly festivals attracting crowds to former industrial areas, the creation of affordable rents for rehearsal spaces, studios and clubs, and other experimental uses. These processes increasingly develop durable effects in cities, both on the spatial and on the socio-cultural level. This article analyses in particular Les Nuits électroniques de l’Ososphère festival, which has taken place in Strasbourg France since 1997.
Does arts and culture have value? And which is it?
Should art be considered as a luxury and should artworks be considered as luxury goods? And, at the other end of the spectrum, should popular culture be understood as a scarce – and, therefore, costly – good? In general, we shy away from using the terms “goods and services” when applied to the arts and culture. Nevertheless, today, we might want to reconsider this perception: is it not only an expression of the ill-conceived idea that art and culture have a stand-alone signification in society and that they have a value that, per se, justifies their existence and recognition? Before the Romantic revolution no one would have dared not consider the artworks as goods and the work of artists as services. Rather, artists were considered as professionals who carried out a very specific task the result of which was given recognition – or not – by society thus directly establishing its value. Furthermore, many of the masterpieces that have survived until today are the result of, also, a taste for betting on this or that artist’s work. This down-to-earth notion has, in the last two centuries, been disrupted in favor of an approach by which artists and their work is understood as, primarily, the expression of their creative power and the fruit of a tormented existential process with a value of its own, irrespective of its recognition and acknowledgement by society.
Taxation, a driver for the Art Market
The Italian art market grows poorly and, in any case, more slowly than the world market. One of the reasons for this stagnation is undoubtedly the presence of an anachronistic tax legislation that seems to respond to mere revenue logics. By contrast, an equal and forward-looking tax system of the art market could be instrumental in making a significant contribution to circulating works of art and offering new growth opportunities. Tax policies may be an effective instrument to support the cultural activities of individuals or entities by means of incentives and a favourable tax regime. If the main purpose of a tax system is to earn revenues, this does not prevent the governments from lawfully pursuing objectives not having a strictly fiscal character but rather a social or an economic nature at the same time. The tax regime of the art market gives origin to different issues in accordance with the diversified nature of acts and situations (purchases, supplies or possession of the works of art) taken into consideration by the legislator as well as with the legal form of the interested parties (natural or legal persons, VAT taxpayers or not, and so on). The main issues concern VAT, inheritance tax and income taxation.
Tafterjournal n. 97 - NOVEMBRE DICEMBRE 2017
Users or Audience?
It’s sure. No doubt about it: this is the user’s era. This is what we daily learn when we try to understand how We’re trying to build our future. This is true when we talk about soft-industries, such as software industry or audiovisual industries (just think at the House of Cards’ case history), but it’s also true when we look at object-centered industries. This number of Tafter Journal presents two specific declination of the complex relationship between user and provider in two different sectors. On one side this number presents the research proposed by Sağlar, Garip & Garip that shows the results of a wider research project about Flexible User Centered Design Model for Social Housing Units, illustrating the development methodology through which the interior design could create customized housing units. This model could represent a valid solution to a wide social need, inasmuch, as affirmed by authors, “although there is a great variety in social pattern in big cities […] the response of architecture is extremely standard”. On the other side the article written by Gobbi and D’Ambrosi analyzes the Web communication strategies used by corporate museums, proposing a 5-scale evaluation for seven of the most important design corporate museums in Italy, such as Alessi, Bitossi, Kartell, Molteni, Mumac (Cimbali), Poltrona Frau and Rancilio. The results of the analysis are not so positive: authors show how design corporate museums are not as active as they should be, or at least, as active as we should expect they are. Going beyond the single researches, the proposed results underline an important issue for Cultural and Creative Industries: in fact, this two articles allow us to glimpse the differences in the value chains when the beneficiary of the production process is represented by a user or, on the contrary, is represented by the so-called “audience”. Even though the two articles analyze the same manufacturing sector (interior design), in one case we have users of the objects that this sector produces, while in the other we have an audience that experience a cultural product.
Corporate Museums and design: Web communication strategies
Abstract The content of this article is the analysis of Web communication strategies used by corporate museums. The main goal of the research is to analyze the Italian corporate museum’s communication in order to first review the digital identity and the reach and engage operations used by them. Through several indicators, the study highlights both strengths and weaknesses of the online strategies used by those samples, which have been selected among Museimpresa partner museums operating in the commodities sector of design.
A Flexible User Centered Design Model for Social Housing Units
Dwelling is the most important spatial need for everyone and the basic determinant of dwelling is its users. This paper aims to underline the importance of human needs in determining the basic living environment by discussing the design methodology developed for standard social housing units in Istanbul, TOKI Başıbüyük Housing Settlement. The design model is characterized by a flexible expert system that leads to different spatial variations by multi parametric layout generation based on parameters determined by user needs. The spatial variations embrace different interior modules answering to different activity sets concerning the basic activities that take place in living environments. The study also includes the prototyping process of basic modules and the design of an interface that contains the proposed alternatives with their material and cost estimations. The proposal of such a modular system that can be mass customized and mass-produced has the potential to be implied to different existing housing settlements in different geographical contexts. It also gives the possibility to reuse abandoned spaces by donating them with interior solutions that can answer to the needs of different users such as refugees and people who are in emergent need of dwelling. The modules can also be reconfigured and reused according to changing needs and changing users, which can also be economically very sustainable. Insights offered by this work aims to create a value that overcome the specific case as it tries to develop a flexible model that create a variety of interior solutions based on user needs.
Tafterjournal n. 96 - SETTEMBRE OTTOBRE 2017
Treasure Hunt as a strategic tool for audience development
“To the Congregation of the Oratory in Naples 250 ducati and for you, Dionisio Lazzari, at completion 1000 ducati as this much you have spent for marbles, mother of pearl, precious stones and more and in labor to build the steps with the pedestals for the High Altar of the church. 9 September 1654” This is the transcript of an old credit certificate (Bancale) and its reason of payment, one of the documents preserved in one of the biggest archived collection of bank items that exists in the world and that dates back to 1573 up to our days, it is held in the Historical Archive of the Banco di Napoli [1]. For many years this Archive has been frequented by archivists, students and researchers of economic and financial history, a magical place however, difficult to access, example of a lack of knowledge that characterizes the urban experience of Naples. An inaccessible place, just like madhouses, prisons and factories during modern times, finally retired and refurbished, with the construction of common use goods. At 9:30 am of 10 June 2017, a group of people equipped with smartphones gathered outside the Historical Archive of the Banco di Napoli to participate in the first digital Treasure Hunt of the Bank.
Audience development or audience empowerment? Let’s be contemporary.
As the President of the European Commission, Mr. Juncker stated in his State of the Union speech of Sept. 13th, Cultural Heritage is one of the pillars on which the new European House must develop. The opening of the House of European History in Brussels last May and the launch of the European Year of Cultural Heritage next year are the signs of how much Europe has started considering the values Cultural Heritage can vehiculate. Of course, in order to make Cultural sites, parks and museums – not to say of cultural landscapes and performing arts – keystones of the citizens empowerment, people working in the sector and all the institutions involved have to stand up and ask for more and continuous attention and investments and if our political institutions are not able to provide us with a strategical plan and a middle-long term vision of what can be done in the field, it is our duty to work for submit it to them and make it become a committing document. If that could be done at European level, the better. But to achieve this goal, that might bear an increase to the one percent of the EU budget for Culture, we must overcome some of the cliché we are not able to get rid of yet. Meaning that we must start, once and for all, to look around and outside the local or national borders, to make comparisons not in a copy/paste way among the different models of management, organization, participation and use of our Cultural goods; that we must start from a given threshold and avoid talking and looking always to the past. If museums must be considered “liquid” they must be contemporary in the way they communicate, in the way they approach their public, in the way they build they cultural offer. Some figures i.e. accessibility (cognitive and physical), experience-storytelling, multidisciplinary, audience development must be given for stated. We must start building on that to promote empowerment of the visitors through Culture.
Tafterjournal n. 95 - LUGLIO AGOSTO 2017
When the Greeks Loved the Germans: The Political Economy of King’s Otto Reign
In 1832 Prince Otto Wittelsbach of Bavaria was appointed King of the newly founded independent Greek state. Otto’s reign was a momentous period for Greece, initially under Regency then under Otto as an absolute ruler and from 1843 as a constitutional monarch until his expulsion in 1862. Using the historical record the paper focuses on three political economy questions, namely, the rationale for the foundation of a state, which relates to the provision of public goods and rent distribution, the constitutional order of the state regarding the choice between monarchy or republic, and the emergence of democracy by revolution or evolution.
Quantifying Dance in a Capitalist Society
The ongoing debate on the social value of art and culture has been with us for some decades now. In the United States, this debate has taken place mostly within the art world itself, and in related political and administrative circles. In the mainstream, writes economist Marilyn Warring, any economic movement has always been towards the “market.” That is, there continues to be the assumption that the only way in which work can be visible or valuable, is if you treat is as if it were a market commodity, or a market service you attribute value to. This underlying need to pass goods through the GDP makes the intangible performance art even more challenging to quantify. What is striking about the current debate is how the underlying assumption, that the added value of public expenditures on art and culture, is negative. For many, government support for the arts and culture is not considered a valuable investment for either economic or cultural development; rather, it is perceived as a leak in the economy. Any empirical evidence of a positive spin-off for culture or the economy is simply neglected. Perhaps one of the reasons why this assumption has remained unchallenged, is in fact rooted in attitudes within the art world itself: proponents of creative and artistic endeavors are reluctant to embrace the argument fully, since the dominant discourse is still based on an antagonistic relationship between culture and economy. Therefore there is an urgent need to open up the debate, in order to better understand the contemporary dynamics within the arts, the creative industries, and cultural policy. As arts funding is at risk of shrinking from federal granting agencies, the question of arts valuation extends to two very differing camps regarding metrics: quantify so that value can be assigned and worth can be determined, this is a viable way of assessing funding opportunities. This approach believes in the quest for an infallible metric system, and while we might not be there yet, the holy grail does exist. And the latter, intrinsic value is both indefinable and ultimately damning.
Changes are afoot
Changes are afoot politically: rising tides of nationalism and populism, stunning election results, and loads of analysis to decipher when and how these movements came to be. Months after the Brexit vote, Britain now considers the specific and practical realities of exiting the EU, as well as the governmental and economic effects. Likewise, in the United States, the Trump administration faces the practical challenges of governing a complex nation, a stark departure from the fluidity of making campaign promises. Trump’s administration—as well as many other conservative politicians over the past three decades—has publicly discussed the complete elimination of U.S. federal agencies that support arts and culture: the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. Although U.S. federal support for the arts is quite small in comparison to many other Western countries, and although the combined budgets for these agencies is insignificant in relation to total U.S. spending, these threats are often successful in rallying support from conservatives who value limited government.
Tafterjournal n. 94 - MAGGIO GIUGNO 2017
Ecclesiastical Tourism and the Paradox of Happiness
At the first glance the following two contributions look rather diverse – hardly related. Alfonso Casalini writes on the role of catholic and religious cultural heritage and the need for the implementation of modern management tools, especially in the organization of ecclesiastical museums. Timo Airaksinen writes on “Desire and the Socratic Paradox of Happiness” – a philosophic paper as its title clearly indicates. It is triggered by the observation that a lucky person will prefer his good circumstances regardless of the fact that he is and remains unhappy – which is in contrast, but not necessarily in contradiction, of Socrates’ dictum that a virtuous person is always happy, regardless of his circumstances. Are desire and desiring the keys to unlock this paradox? Airaksinen’s desire theory of happiness says that you are gratified and happy when you are able to satisfy your desires. As a consequence, he concludes, “life’s conditions are crucial to the quality and value of happiness.” Alfonso Casalini would argue that, for many people, religion and ecclesiastical culture are essential dimensions of their life’s conditions. He points out that there are between 300 and 330 million religious tourists, yearly, who generate an estimated turnover of 18 billion dollars worldwide. Do these numbers reflect a desire? Casalini’s assumption is that the “Religious Cultural Institutions” of the Catholic Church are called upon to contribute to satisfy these desires – and his claim is that this has to be done in an efficient way. A precondition is the application of modern management technics. He focuses on ecclesiastical museums to illustrate the problem and demonstrate the need for reforms: “a more economic (but not necessarily monetary) approach is needed.” There are still too many of these “ante-management” museums which “are devoid of website, do not have a social network activity and do not have revenues (or do not indicate them).”
Desire and the Socratic Paradox of Happiness
If you are able to satisfy your desires you are happy; this is one of the many theories of happiness. The Socratic Paradox says that a virtuous person is always happy, regardless of his circumstances. An enigmatic proposition follows: You can be happy even in the worst circumstances if you can satisfy your relevant desires. This sounds strange but I will argue that it is a plausible view. However, a lucky person, that is a person in good circumstances, may be unhappy. Let me suggest a Switch Test, namely, we ask whether an unhappy but lucky person would like to change places with a happy but unlucky person; the answer is in the negative. The lucky person will prefer his good circumstances regardless of the fact that he is and remains unhappy. Therefore, the happiness of Socrates is not what one should aim at. But to maintain that happiness is not desirable sounds paradoxical. The Socratic Paradox can be resolved but it then leads to another paradox of happiness.
The role of Catholic and Religious Cultural Heritage in an ambiguous era.
Today, we live in an ambiguous era. This is true under almost all the perspective we want to assume, but it is particularly true when we analyze the relationship with the religious and spiritual aspects. On the one hand we live in a laic world, characterized for a technological and web-based development. On the other hand, religious wars are increasing, and the terroristic attacks are more and more frequent. In this context, Religious Cultural Heritage is called to play not only a religious role (representing the values of a specific faith) but it is called to play a cultural activity (representing cultural relevance of the spiritual sphere of the humankind). It is crucial, in this difficult and fragile equilibrium, for Religious Cultural Institutions, to adopt management criteria in order to run this peculiar institutions with efficiency and efficacy. The article will provide an overview of the main fields in which a more economic (but not necessarily monetary) approach is needed, with a specific focus on catholic cultural institutions.
Tafterjournal n. 93 - MARZO APRILE 2017
What will remain of the Days ?
Free entrance to museums on the first Sundays of each month seems to have been a great success till its launch in July 2014. It has seen the average increase of visitors throughout Italy of some 260thousand units per month in 2016. More or less as half the yearly visitors in region Marche museums for the same year, following the data of the Mibact or as if the same number of population of the Greater Milan area visited museums or archaeological sites and parks during the twelve free Sundays. Surely it looks like a great success. Overall, it demonstrates that museums arise interest and curiosity in a large number of population. But these numbers don’t tell us anything about the people they represent or about the related “visitors’ journey”. What is the level of loyalty to these events? Are the same people traveling throughout the country planning a free visit to the Italian museums or is mainly a locally-based phenomenon? Can the visitors be profiled at least on the basis of the traditional demoscopic categories? Above all, these numbers don’t say anything about the kind of experience the visitors live and what remains of it, to both actors involved: visitors and museums. It should be time for the national cultural policies to clarify the meaning of success pursued, since the investment required for running the Sundays free entrances or similar openings (i.e. last March 8th ) on national or local level is significant for the public administrations and since lately it has been replicated in other sectors of the cultural production. In facts, the trade-off of this kind of operations is highly worthy if they can help defining further cultural strategies in audience development and in cultural production, and if they can collect valuable feedbacks and data on which cultural institutions can improve their cultural offer and develop new creativity.
Museums’ visitors in Italy
In a country where cultural participation generates alarming negative numbers (in 2015, 68.3% of the Italian population has never entered a museum [1] ), it becomes crucial to understand the new public and study suitable strategies for a cultural proposal able to better reflect their interests. Indeed, although this percentage is on the rise compared to the trend of recent years, there is a kind of cultural impoverishment, which concerns not only the museum, but also publishing, theater, music and dance. The 88.3% of the total population of our country in 2015 has never attended a classical music concert, 78.8% have never seen a play, 51.9% have never read a newspaper, 56.5% has never opened a single book [2]. It has often been attempted to reduce analysis of public museum culture to a series of data, more or less accurate, more or less exemplary, rather than to a basic theory that you intend to demonstrate and posit as a significant idea and a related cultural marketing strategy. It will be to demonstrate, id est, with the data, the validity of an idea, sometimes deforming the correct reading and interpretation. What is sometimes forgotten is the exact opposite: the need to gather facts on a phenomenon under investigation, and then let the data talk, so that a sense can be drawn from their links and their possible interrelationships. In his “L’analyse des données”, Jean- Paul Benzecri, founder of a scientific discipline related to data analysis, wrote: «The model must follow the data, not vice versa [3] ». It is then the daunting task for the researcher to find a connection, if any, between numbers which may be sometimes discordant or present apparently low affinity.
Tafterjournal n. 92 - GENNAIO FEBBRAIO 2017
Gamification Tourism
The tourism experience during a holiday or a trip is surely an amazing situation and, for some aspects, it could be compared to the gaming experience. Both of them, in fact, are characterized by the combination of positive emotions and pleasant moment. These common peculiarities are fundamental for the application […]
Tafterjournal n. 90 - SETTEMBRE OTTOBRE 2016
Abecedario. Come Proteggere e Valorizzare il Patrimonio Culturale Italiano
Abecedario is the new book written by Roberto Cecchi, architect and former Undersecretary of the Italian Ministry of Culture Heritage and Activities and Tourism, published by Skira. The book faces topics that are extremely interesting as well as relevant for the future of our Cultural Heritage. For this reason, we have the pleasure to publish an excerpt of an interview with the author about the book, and in a wider perspective, about the future of our Cultural Heritage. I would like to start this interview with a simple question: why you decided to write this book? It’s quite simple, indeed. There are some things in this book that I couldn’t write during my mandate within the Public Administration for both non-disclosure-agreement rules and for communication needs. Leaving the administration, and thus, leaving my direct responsibilities, I’m now again a free thinker and it is in such a role that I speak in my book. Furthermore, many of the arguments included in the book has been the subject of various articles that I wrote in the beginning of my mandate. I tried to change many of the topics but unfortunately I drew a blank.
Tafterjournal n. 92 - GENNAIO FEBBRAIO 2017
Culture Change: A neuroscientific Analysis
The art and health nexus has always existed, from art as a representation of healthy and sick body to art as a therapeutic tool, to accommodate an ecological conception of human-environment dynamics and becoming “context” in hospitals and healthcare facilities. In recent decades it has received more attention and art began to be the action of changes which follows the state of health, as it has been defined by the WHO (World Health Organization): not merely the absence of disease and infirmity, but a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing. The growing awareness of the social dimension of experiencing art and participation in culture, generated artistic proposals in illegitimacy areas and they became vehicles for the interpretation and transformation of the human and social reality. Interactions thus generated have opened different paths and contexts of meaning capable of building a new paradigm of reality’s knowledge. Artistic and scientific exploration have contributed to emergence of a culture of health that attempts to overcome the diversification and geographic, demographic and social stratifications of wealth. The Culture conceived in this way is a guide of public and private decision-making process, in which everyone has the opportunity to make choices towards healthier lifestyles. This metaphorical reorientation of the categories of thought and ideologies has placed art and culture as a point of interest, in an international context, of different systems: economic, political, educational, technological. In the Italian, cultural system seems to have fully transposed this paradigm shift, becoming an active subject. In a world in which the arts are increasingly forced to justify their shrinking funding, against public accusations of elitism, it is comforting to take note of insights and planning actions that museums and various cultural institutions are producing as a coherent response of “civilization” to an attentive reading of needs.
A call for a European Model of Culture
Recent events, such as the election of the provocateur Mr. Trump as President of United States, the increasing migrations phenomena or the rise of new forms of terrorism, ask for a concrete answer from Europe in one of most important characteristics of our political history: the role and the implementation of the so-called Welfare State. When we talk about Welfare State we describe a set of policies, services and other actions that the public bodies of a Country set up in order to improve the life conditions of its own citizenship. Among the benefits that European Countries most frequently provide to citizens, Culture represents a peculiar object, not only for its structural characteristics (intangible assets and so on) but also for the different ways that governments are interpreting this important resource for human and social development. The implementation of the welfare state often includes also culture and cultural policies, but in most of cases, there is no a common interpretation of how (and which) culture should be provided: this is, to our point of view, one of the central key tasks for the European Agenda. Briefly, from one hand we have the most important traditions about cultural heritage but, on the other hand, Europe forgets that culture is, first of all, a contemporary matter of concern. Since ’50s Europe left to the U.S. the role cultural leader and from then, U.S. showed to the world the ideology of the western, developed countries. We divided the world in rich and poor countries, and our culture was the medium through which we stated that yes, we were in the right place of the world.
The territory and the small museums: The Case of Piemonte
In the overview of the museum offer, are the “small museums” a separate category? What are the characteristics of a “small museum” and what are the specific necessities? What are the weaknesses and the strengths? The example of Piemonte shows the extreme prosperity of the “small museums” heritage and also their tight relationship with the territory, but it highlights some points still unresolved. The paper enlightens some scenarios on which it is necessary to intervene with specific actions, underlining the profiles on which it is important to reflect.
Tafterjournal n. 91 - NOVEMBRE DICEMBRE 2016
Arts Management Industries and Value Creation
The increasing importance of the management in the Art Industries has focused the attention on the fundamental role of economic skills, but in order to manage a cultural organization a manager has to pay attention to other non-economic abilities. Everyday newspapers and media talk about the renewed interest in culture and tell about new possibilities to make up a business in the cultural sector, but they rarely explore the qualities that are required to be a good and trained cultural manager. Arts Industries, that are a part of the larger sector of CCIs (for more details about CCIs [1]), are a field in which management’s soft skills and attitudes as entrepreneurial, leadership and intuition are as important as managerial issues. This article describes the role of Arts Industries and the role of managers in the creation of value. The importance of cultural management is recent achievement, but in a brief period, this profession has reached a high consideration in the CCI sector [2]. In the first paragraph, the article describes the role of Arts Industries and the role of Cultural managers in the process of value creation, focusing on the double goals that Cultural managers should aim at: the quality of the cultural proposal and the need to create economic sustainability for the organization they’re working for. Paragraph two introduces the kind of values that Arts Industries are able to produce. These are both economic and social, because culture can influence not only business, but also communities and territories. Last paragraph of the article concerns some examples of Art Industries and CCIs that have been able to create profits and jobs or social inclusion and social development.
Taranto: a Social Innovation Lab
Since many years European policies have acknowledged culture as a key factor for the development of cities and regions and as a pillar of innovation and social cohesion (ECIA 2014; EU 2013). Nonetheless, it is not yet clear how to measure the impacts of cultural initiatives, especially with respect to intangible aspects such as sense of belonging, social capital, empowerment, and quality of life in peripheral neighbourhoods and post-industrial cities. The evaluation of the impacts of cultural policies usually refers to economic indicators, such as the increase of employment and the wealth produced by the so called ‘Cultural and Creative Industries’ (CCI) (Symbola 2015; Ernst&Young 2014; KEA 2012), or the contribution of big events, such as the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) to urban regeneration (Garcia e Cox 2013; Palmer et al. 2012, Garcia et al. 2010; Johnson 2009). There are several examples of industrial cities that experienced an economic renaissance and a redefinition of their identity and image thanks to specific cultural policies. Liverpool, Turin, Bilbao, Marseille, Genk are well known cities where culture played a strategic role becoming a real economic sector and a pillar of the new development model. If the results in terms of wealth, attractiveness and tourism are more evident and measurable, it is far more difficult to understand the role of culture as an agent of local development processes. This implies the observation of phenomena when they are still emerging and thus cannot be labelled within traditional classification frameworks or measured by means of statistics. Accordingly, the number of new cultural and creative enterprises or the increase of tourists are not useful indicators to measure the innovative potential and social impact of such initiatives. Instead, it is crucial to map the spontaneous clustering dynamics bringing local actors to aggregate, to develop projects and to cooperate with institutions and public administrations (Comunian 2011). This means to investigate what happens in the backstage to identify the preconditions enabling or impeding the emerging and strengthening of a creative milieu.
The role of Cultural Management and its social and narrative relevance
In his last book La phrase urbaine, the French philosopher and author Jean Christophe Bailly wrote that the city is like a sentence whose meaning we can understand only if we know its grammar. The city is not only a web of functions and services, but also a narrative fabric that needs to be read and told, explained and shared. Every city has its own urban grammar, requiring a common alphabet in order to generate webs of narratives, of humanity, and of cultural action and citizenship. Today more than any other time in the past there is a need to be civis, and sense is created from partaking what it means to inhabit, work and be a citizen, from the shared meaning of education, civil law and civil rights, dreams and needs, values and of doing and being as culture. Culture is the primary building block of meaning man has ever found, and we must start from culture to help citizens find their own sense, as individuals and as a collectivity. Generally things are no different today than 70 years ago, during the age of totalitarian regimes, or 50 years ago, during the age of counterculture. What is different is the relationship with authority. Today one can no longer trickle something down from above and impose it as a truth for it to be welcomed. Present-day authority is no longer recognized as such – it requires consensus for what it does and not simply for what it is. A city’s grammar cannot be generated from the top-down, from the administration or from private institutions, whether they are businesses, universities or research centers. The role of politics is to create time, location and information opportunities so that the city’s residents can build together their vocabulary, and along with it their own narratives, from the bottom-up.
Tafterjournal n. 90 - SETTEMBRE OTTOBRE 2016
Reflections on the use of the territorial data and GIS in tourism: the Italian case
This paper focuses mainly on issues related to digital tourism with connection to the italian context, in an attempt to show the potentiality offered by the GIS for the development of the tourism sector. For this reason, it will be reported exemplifying cases, of which features and purposes will be highlighted. The digitisation represents a new challenge for the tourist offer in Italy. Some studies and proposals promoted by TD Lab (2014) and by the association ItaliaDecide (2014) have highlighted the need for innovation in the italian tourism sector. The digitisation of tourist services therefore offers the opportunity to reaffirm the competitiveness of an industry with enormous potentiality and resources, but that shows signs of criticality and stagnation. Before examining aspects closely related to digital, it will focus on the concept of tourism and its recent developments. The latter in fact, depend on the growing segmentation of demand, pivoted on the search for new experiences and authentic by the tourist. From this perspective it is seen how the tourist promotion is closely connected with the practices of cultural enhancement and marketing strategies, linked to digital communication.
Regaining Spaces and Territories. Reflections about the blank side of Italy
Just few years ago, Italy was a Country with more people than spaces. Nowadays, we’re living the opposite conditions: Italy is a Country full of spaces but without people. In Italy we build 8 meters per second, the urbanization rate grew of the 400% between the Post-War period and the 2000, in the same period, the population grew only of the 27%. Depreciation of real-estate goods, due also to the increment of the supply-side of the market, generated an over-production crisis that, as occurred in Spain and in US, has been the origin of other and more complex difficulties of the entire economic system, generating other structural crises. It is not a case, thus, that this economic phase is lasting since 2008 and that today in Italy we have more than 6 million real-estate goods that are unused or underused (that is two times the city of Rome completely uninhabited). These goods are residential buildings (5 millions), public, semi-public and private buildings as, for example empty factories or abandoned industrial buildings, abandoned schools, buildings owned by mutual aid societies or People’s House cooperatives, Winemaking Cooperatives, colonies, and other closed spaces owned by municipalities (hospitals, neighborhood branches, schools and other spaces donated by private citizens as e. g. bequests), abandoned rail stations, buildings confiscated to the mafia, ghost towns, unused road worker’s houses, and many other cases could fill in the list of the parts of Italy that we let go.
Transforming Historical Cities in Smart Cities by Using Geospatial Technologies
The term geospatial in the Anglo-Saxon world – but also in the scientific and technical Italian elite – is slowly replacing the word Gis, acronym of Geographic Information System. Geospatial is interpreted as a synonym of geographical notions, in a system that can include more than two dimensions, normally represented by the latitude and the longitude, introducing geographical information in a landmark that could be developed in three, or, by now, also in four dimensions. The simplest examples are the google maps, which in the classical plane dimension of the chart sheet have put together the three-dimensional place with a fourth dimension time-slider. The impact of geospatial technology in our daily life has become rather relevant, showing itself as a global reference overview in our environment. The impact of all the innovations that form the Geospatial technology is increasing in our lives. It reached such a relevance to become a key point in our environment. This is particularly recognizable in urban envirornment, as it allow us in using Location Based Sevices technologies, which are able to transform every georeferenced object in a smart object, inserting it in a network of objects through position relationship among which the objects in the network transmit data and information each other. The common use of these networks of objects in our urban environment, could represent the structural network of the Smart Cities. When we use mobile devices in our trips, or when we share our feelings or other personal information on Social Network such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, we communicate also our geografical position (if we allowed it in our privacy agreement). Many of the services offered by search engines, using our position, are able in showing us restaurants, hotels, shops, banks, drugstores and everything we need, even classifying the showed results on the basis of the appreciation of other users. Thus, it is clear that geospatial technology is already present in the very core of our lives.
Tafterjournal n. 89 - LUGLIO AGOSTO 2016
Trust against fear. The Role of Culture and the Future of Europe
In a fragile political and economic framework, the attention to the role that culture can play in creating the bass for the future of Europe is growing rapidly. This paper investigates the impacts that culture create in several aspects of our lives: from the social cohesion to the economic development, from the mechanisms through which culture shapes our cities to the awareness of the sense of our lives resulting from knowledge. Finally, in this paper we would like to point out the links that relate culture, economic development and intangible assets such as feeling of identity and trust. The paper compare the evidence emerging from a recent paper commissioned by the European Economic and Social Committee with the insights provided by several literature reviews and the results of specific projects dealing with culture and social dynamics. In the first chapter, we present the study, comparing several ways to look at the phenomena involved in the process of trust building; in chapter 2 we will underline the relevance of intangible assets such as social cohesion, in Chapter 3 we will analyze, more in detail the necessity of a sustainable economic growth. Our conclusions will show how cultural interventions within the city territory can foster social inclusion, cohesion, and trust.
Culture is Changing…Oops: already done!
Since the 90’s, the world looks astonished at the power of culture as a strategical tool for the development of entire economies and territories. However, in last years, culture, and better said, cultural economics in Italy (but not only in Italy) is really changed. It’s clearly visible: look at the symposium, look in the universities. The great giants of this discipline are fading away, great entrepreneurial groups are changing their focus. Even the group I represent changed its primary market from a consulting to an advisory business model, in order to match the new set of needs that this market is now showing. Nowadays, cultural economics is a more mature market and there is a need for new and specialized skills: be able in designing cultural projects is no longer enough, now, who’s in charge in providing services in this cluster have to be able in funding projects too, or made them sustainable in the short period. This is the evidence that shows how We’re experiencing a great switch of the market. This kind of changes happens when a sector shifts from an emerging stage to a consolidating phase.
Development of marginal destinations: the case of Menfi
Abstract This paper aims to analyse the promotion development of Menfi’s territory. This paper fits the scientific debate about the critical role that Destination marketing and management play in the development of marginal destinations. This paper moves from a geographical approach and, trough a Stake Holders perceptions analysis, wants to emphasise the role of territorial milieu for Menfi’s competitiveness. Introduction To describe the theoretical horizon of this paper, we want to focus on the scientific debate about territory, the proactive space where the society acts (cfr Castelnuovi, 2002; Cusimano, 2003; Cohen et al., 2011; Dematteis, 1996; Farinelli, 2003; Landini, 2007; Loda, 2008; Olsson, 2003; Vallega, 2008). This definition of territory grounds on two crucial concepts of our research: territorial identity and territorial governance, meant as local development drivers (cfr. Buttitta, 2003; Dredge, Jenkins, 2001; Governa, 2005; Healey, 1997; Jessop,1995; Rossi, Vanolo, 2010). We have particularly stressed the strong link between identity – the image of a proper cultural, historical, traditional system- and territory. Territorial milieu (or genius loci) is the synthetic theoretical concept of our research. It represents the strongest element that allows to define a sustainable strategy for local development and to boost the competitiveness of a tourist destination (cfr Caroli, 2008; Carta, 2005; De Spuches et al., 2002 Ercole, Gili, 2005; Giliberto, Panetta, 2009; Haughton, Counsell, 2004; Kavaratzis e Ashworth, 2005; Martini, Ejarque, 2008; Pastore et al, 2002 ; Pioletti, 2006; Valdani, Ancarani, 2000; Williams, Millington, 2004). Tourism represents the social and economical phenomenon that, more than others, is referred to those elements. A tourist destination is bounded in a place (cfr Lozato Giotart, 1999) and represents a specific territorial organisation that needs a proper development strategy and involves the material and immaterial resources of the territory, the society and the inner community (cfr Bramwell, Sharman,1999; D’Angella et al., 2010; Dredge, 2006; Gulotta et al., 2004; Ritchie, Crouch, 2000). We have faced the governance of marginal territory issue (cfr Amin, 1999; Amato, 2014; Aru, Puttilli, 2014): we have chosen Menfi (in Sicily) as case study to describe the development of the tourism destination. Menfi is an interesting territory to be analysed. It has a specific geomorphological connotation, a specific productive branch and its public and private Stake Holders have convergent interests in its promotion and development. In this paper we want to describe the quantitative dimensions of tourism in Menfi and the destination management and marketing policies. We have also wanted to show the Stake Holder perceptions in order to understand how the local offer is going to be structured and to know which possibilities of local development can be implemented. We have supposed that in Menfi there is a shared vision and a strong synergy among the Stake Holders for the local development. The governance of Menfi can represent a good example of marginal destination management. The quantitative analysis has been based on Agrigento’s District data. The qualitative analysis on Stake Holders perceptions (cfr Corbetta, 2003; Hay, 2005; Phillimore, Goodson, 2004) has been implemented with semistructured interviews. The interviews have been copied and interpreted through a comparative approach (cfr Cusimano, Sabato, 2014, 68-84).
Tafterjournal n. 88 - MAGGIO GIUGNO 2016
Arts Equity
Diversity in the arts has been a topic of much discussion for many years and the discussion continues to become more profound, more nuanced, and more important. As Nina Simone stated, “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” The population of the United States, and many countries, has never been more diverse in terms of ethnicity which is typically the type of diversity that is implied in these discussions, although there are many types of diversity worthy of attention and action. In contrast, the history of western art has been dominated by rich white men for centuries, and this is seen in the canon: faces in galleries of European paintings through the Twentieth century are plump and white with rosy cheeks? classic plays, operas and ballets are based on stories of welltodo and royalty, presumably white. It’s no surprise, then, when recent studies show that today’s arts audiences are not diversifying at the same rate as the general public. This is a serious problem for arts organizations. The classic canon, portraying wealthy white people, is becoming less and less relevant to an increasing percentage of the population. When programming isn’t relevant, audiences shrink. When audiences shrink, not only does revenue decrease and threaten sustainability, but many organizations’ missions, which are centered on interaction with community and audience, are also threatened. The issue is compounded by the fact that the leadership of arts organizationstypically, staff and board members is not representatively diverse in terms of ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status. Community voices are, therefore, less likely to be accurately represented in strategic planning and governance decisions that determine programming. In this scenario, the programming does not adapt with changing needs of the organization’s constituency and loses relevance.
Before Web-Marketing. Digital research for cities and cultural institutions
1. Cultural sites Online Visibility Online visibility of a a cultural site can be considered a strong indicator of the institutional ability to activate the cultural heritage. Hand in hand with the spread of the Internet and its penetration into everyday social practices of millions of people, the search for contents relating to a travel destination or a specific monument, has gradually shifted in terms of strategic influence from traditional channels – such as print media, television broadcasts, word of mouth – to online information resources (websites, blogs, forums, social networks). This holds particularly true for Culture and Tourism search, generally conducted by people with medium-high education levels and some experience in the use of Internet. The spread of smartphones and the increased connectivity accelerate such trends, so that an ever growing number of people plan their trips via websites or mobile applications. A study on The Impact of Online Content on the European Tourism [1] highlighted a positive correlation between the presence on the internet, resulting in greater availability of data and information accessible online and the ability to some destinations to attract increasing flows of visitors: Destinations that make greater use of the internet in reaching customers have performed better than their peers in recent years. These destinations have gained market share from competitors, even after accounting for some other factors. Developed markets which have seen the largest gains in market share all have relatively high internet penetration, making good use of online channels to reach customers. Theory […] suggests that this is largely due to improved information flow supporting the market. Greece, Italy and Spain all have low internet penetration and only Italy has experienced any notable gains in market share over recent years (Oxford Economics 2013, p. 17).
Tafterjournal n. 87 - MARZO APRILE 2016
Oro Dentro. Un archeologo in trincea: Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Medio Oriente [1]
As shown by the ISIS attacks to the ancient cultural sites of Palmyra and Nimrud in 2015, cultural heritage in the areas of crisis is still today in great danger. Different reasons can explain why it becomes a fair game during the periods of serious instability. If ideological aspects – that is the will of strike symbols and remove the historical memory of any previous religion, culture or civilization – are fundamental, we should not forget that antiquities are a relevant source of enrichment during the periods of war. So taking into account this peculiar aspect of vulnerability it seems to be clear that the answering to some fundamental questions cannot be delayed anymore. Could we protect cultural heritage in the area of crisis? If yes, how? And who should carry out this task? Fabio Maniscalco has had no doubt. Cultural Heritage must be protected also in the war areas. So who was Fabio Maniscalco? Laura Sudiro e Giovanni Rispoli, authors of “Oro Dentro”, tell us the extraordinary story of “an archaeologist in the trenches”, as they called him.
Big Exhibitions 2010-2014: Institutions, Themes, Circulation. A Global Overview and the Case of Italy
Exhibitions are a central component of the contemporary art system, as one of the favourite tools for cultural distribution, attraction of public and visibility of cultural organisations. Important instruments for the communication of scientific results and new cultural views, they have become an irreplaceable element for institutions like museums, which have strengthened the practice of exhibitions to promote and enhance their cultural offer. At the same time, in the continuous quantitative and commercial development of the art system, museums have begun to resort to exhibitions in order to attract a larger public, and exhibitions have been affected by marketing techniques. The growth of “blockbuster” exhibitions – popular and often low-quality events – is consistent with the measurement of cultural success in terms of “figures”. The most visited exhibitions, as well as the most visited museums, represent cases of brilliant success that involve in a challenge old and developing cultural contexts, giving the possibility, to institutions and entire cities, of national and international prominence. Since exhibitions have become an increasingly important element of the cultural industry, in several cases a growth in the number of these events has been observed. If the escalation of the art festivals and Biennials is a worldwide phenomenon, in Italy the amount of the exhibitions has exponentially increased in the last ten years, producing a trend –observed in France and Germany as well – that has been defined as a real “mania of exhibitions” .
Architecture without Architects: How architecture can improve the development of decision-making skills in childhood
Rational and irrational thought have had mixed fortunes in the formulations of the greatest thinkers, philosophers or science men, the one overriding the other scene perfectly consistent with the historical reality that was there as a background. So the exaltation of sentiment left space to positivist ideology, perfect frame of technological and scientific progress, in order to gain momentum when Freudian treatments emphasized that innovative and modern irrational which resulted irreverent even tangible world of the senses. In recent centuries it seems therefore that the Platonic allegory of the cave has created a constant tension between what can be thought and decided according to the lights of reason, and what instead expresses intention and action favoring instinct and feelings. Thus placing itself advocates rational pole it is estimated that you could make choices and act our freedom only by following the principle of a linear determinism that shapes to his will and imposes its objectives to that part of human nature more pervasive and complex, that staging emotions, instincts and needs acquires fame of a runaway horse that attempts to escape the domination of his squire, overturning the chariot. And in this fight between rationality will and irrationality without hesitation emerges a third, the body, separated from the structure of the psyche so outlined.
Sharing Economy: All of Us in Wonderland
Obviously, innovation is seen as very fashionable these days. With no surprise, we can search for “top innovators under 30”, “top start-ups to watch” and “top-gadgets” that can improve the way we live. These characterize the private sector well as the risk-friendly, creative, and flexible incubator, where the tendency for “ready-to-play” wealthy investors and ambitious entrepreneurs to gravitate to Silicon Valley dreamland has become the driving force for the birth of innovative solutions. Since Professor Clayton Christensen began using the term “disruptive innovations”, which refers to the selling of cheaper products that can eventually disrupt an existing market, it seems that everyone is now “disrupting” and that every day is seen as an instance of innovation. Similar to Professor Christensen, the German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas pointed out that our complex societies are clearly susceptible to interferences and accidents and that these offer ideal opportunities for a creating prompt disruption of normal activities. It seems to be natural, then, that while millions of innovative applications based on principles of sharing have proven to be of high economic value the Sharing Economy platforms predict to generate revenues of 335 billion by 2025, shaking the future of many traditional economic sectors. For example, UBER, the Sharing Economy prodigy child for transportation network, possessing no cars and without officially employing has already managed to disrupt taxi industry in over three hundred cities worldwide, bringing about lawsuits and causing employee protests. Though, in this emerging scenario of disruptive innovations and the Sharing Economy, it is obvious that the effectiveness of the public sector is diminishing, leaving important services uncovered and without innovation hopelessly leaving the sector of society impaired. As described in the latest innovation report on European Public Sector Innovation, the public sector is stereotyped as an “outdated infrastructure that lags behind the needs of modern citizens and today’s businesses”.
Culture and Citizenship
Most Italian cities, both big cities and small cities, are experiencing a sort of identity crisis, which is the result of different but convergent factors. The failure of the urbanistic vision as a virtuous urban development model. The unresolved relationship between historic city centre and the peripheries. The bureaucratic resistance to the implementation of mid and long-term strategic plans. The tendency in concentrating the cultural production only into the main cultural production centres. The distance between the University and the places where the urban change process take shape. The lack of intercultural and intergenerational integration processes. The underestimation of the change potential expressed by culture and cultural and creative activities. These are all issues that affect the real development of a culture-oriented society. Furthermore, there is also another point to underline: the rise of an interpretation of cultural and creative phenomenon as a specific tool of the tourism economy: during last decades, this vision shaped both public and private intervention in culture, realizing processes into a “touristic attractors” perspective. Because of the scarce resources, the touristic addressed interventions the implementation of mid and long term strategies mainly addressed to a change and to a cultural-driven urban renewal.
Tafterjournal n. 86 - GENNAIO FEBBRAIO 2016
Megacities: Urban Form, Governance, and Sustainability
Recently we can see several changes in our society but one of the most important is the transformation of human settlement systems. It is important to consider that for the first time in the history of the human, more than half the world’s population is urban. The megacities are the effect of this […]
A Babel for Children
Reflection moves from the analysis on today’s relations between the art field and science. The dialogue between the two cultures, focused on reciprocity and the plurality of explanatory codes, it tries the emergence of a third culture, founded on knowledge consilience. The epistemological premise on the discussion of the person’s development is enriched by contributions of neuroaesthetics and psychoneuroimmunology. The latest scientific fact highlights how exposure to an “enriched environment” prenatally determine the trajectories of the individual and influences the development of those skills and adaptive behavior needed to have a healthy psychological growth. The art and cultural participation, essential cofactors of this enrichment, rise to powerful motor of modulation of the epigenesis of behavior and embryological processes of maturation. Recent disquisition on the perception of the nature dichotomous of aesthetic object guides us in understanding how is essential to our becoming intentional culture subjects experiencing art since the early stages of life . The interaction between art and science is currently experiencing its environmental enrichment, thanks to the contribution of the cultural industries that not only are interpreters of this interaction, but also a vehicle for new motives of investigation and knowledge.
Poets: Born or Made? About the utility to preserve some doubts
Does the prenatal exposure to arts generates love and attitude for the arts? Individuals, that since the very childhood are used to be in harmony with nature, are more incline to become more interested in the environment topics? People living in a sacred context will become religious? Proximity with sciences will generate curiosity […]
Arts and strategic communication in Italy and Spain: from sponsorship to corporate responsibility
The paper investigates the rise of business communication strategies based on culture and arts in Italy and Spain. As previous researches demonstrate, cultural communication can work as a strategic asset to develop corporate identity and reputation, enabling organizations to cultivate quality long-term quality relationships with their stakeholders. From this scenario and considering the lack of a systematic European comparison, the study presents preliminary data from a comparative research on the evolution of cultural communication models (patronage, sponsorship, partnership, investment), in order to evaluate similarities and original features of the phenomenon in the two countries by means of an explorative and multi-case study approach. Communication management in organizations and private companies stands as a strategic asset and is not immune to a changing context. While the investments tend today to concentrate on digital and social media strategies (Zerfass et al., 2015), there are other trends emerging in some countries and sectors. One of these is the phenomenon of business communication strategies based on and arts, which some scholars define “corporate cultural communication” (Martino, 2010) or “corporate cultural responsibility” (Azzarita et al., 2010): such approaches see a company including artistic activities, programs, or policies in its own strategic communication policies in order to develop corporate identity and reputation.
Playing the Networking Game: Why You Should Know That Artist Residencies Matter
Aspiring professional artists must undergo a tough struggle for the world to recognize them as such. Artists are increasingly required to follow qualifying academic and working career paths and are pushed to prove the originality and the necessity of their work, while demonstrating its consistency and feasibility. Also, not only resources are scarce, i.e. the dimension of the market is still restricted, adequate spaces for exhibition and productions are few and pricey, art production itself is very expensive – but also a great number of artworks saturates the art market. Despite being little known, sometimes entirely mysterious, to the non–?specialized public, artist residencies play an essential role in the artistic and professional development of artists today. As institutions, they are deeply entangled in a network of formal and informal relationships which build up what is called the art world. The benefits residencies generate by taking advantage of such networks have a great impact on artists’ career and is an important reason to know why they matter in the art system.
Tafterjournal n. 85 - NOVEMBRE DICEMBRE 2015
Resilient Cities
Cultural Heritage as an opportunity for south-east European countries. Cities represent one of the most important global actors in the contemporary context. They are the interest point of political, social, cultural and economic forces that shape the built environment. These forces are two-dimensional and represent the contemporary expression of the relationship between […]
Culture and life
Is not possible to start a discussion about culture without mentioning what in these days is scaring Europe: the IS terrorist attack in the heart of Paris is nothing but a menace to all of us. But there is also another reflection that we, as researchers and practitioners of culture, must underline in this act, and is that the choice of the sites point the attention on the very heart of our lifestyle: culture. Since its beginnings IS has attacked with peculiar attention cultural sites: firstly site under the protection of the UNESCO, and then irreverent voices of European Culture (Charlie Hebdo). Now the attack has been addressed versus a theatre, a stadium and versus people who was spending their time in cafès. This should make us consider once more the importance of culture in our lives. The nature of the attack followed the evolution of what has been for centuries intended with the word Culture: first the heritage, then the literature and freedom of expression and ultimately (this is our hope) the music and the sports. I’m not a conflict expert, but to every observer should be clear that IS is fighting its war mainly on two dimensions: the fear and the symbol. Destroying cultural heritage sites has been for century one of the main abused symbols of war, but stadiums, theatres and boulevards are something new. In my opinion it is not only a security level topic, there is something more. There is the importance of our immaterial infrastructure, the knowledge on which we base our lifestyle. Everyone would be pleased to do anything in order to avoid any other attacks.
The Governance of Metropolitan Areas in Italy: a Plan to Enhance Competitiveness
This paper aims to underline the need for a “metropolitan governance” in Italy with particular emphasis on the central area of Veneto region. Following on from a recent work by the authors Corò e Dalla Torre (2015) the “metropolitan issue” is analysed on two different levels: the first level of analysis examines the area’s need for metropolitan governance to increase competitiveness with benefits for workers, companies and citizens. The second level of analysis outlines topics which should be taken into consideration by an agenda for metropolitan governance. 1. Introduction: the difficulties of enacting a metropolitan reform The metropolitan issue is not a new concept in Italy. It has been hotly debated since the 1960s; indeed, the government has proposed laws but all have been systematically neglected. Yet, it is not an insignificant matter: the metropolitan issue is a phenomenon perceived both at academic and administrative level, and above all it is experienced first-hand by workers, entrepreneurs, students and consumers. It is witnessed on a daily basis within an area defined by the network of relationships which go beyond municipalities and regional boundaries. If the existence of a metropolitan area is a real phenomenon, the implementation of its organisation – at least in Italy – is not rational. The need for metropolitan governance has arisen from the awareness of an increasing inefficiency as a result of the misalignment between the expansion of physical and socio-economic structures on one hand with the expansion of political and institutional structures on the other. This disharmony increases the cost of living for citizens and companies by snatching precious resources allocated to investments and expenditures. Despite this endless debate, there has always been a conspicuous lack of any actual attempt to implement metropolitan governance. Among the causes of this absence of attempts is the lack of political willingness to change the Italian institutional structure, which involves not only the metropolitan cities but also the wider phenomenon of fragmentation affecting the municipalities in these regions.
“Open by vocation”: The Museum Salinas 2.0 and the sicilian anomaly in a social key
The archaeolgical museum Antonio Salinas in Palermo, closed for repairs, from a year up to the present has revamped his image thanks to social media and the adhesion to some campaigns as #invasionidigitali – #digitalinvasion, TN – and #museumweek, finding a way to renew the museum’s reputation. Through the analysis of the Museum’s communication strategies, this paper seeks to identify some solutions with the aim to inspire other institutions to adopt cultural web marketing strategies. The Museum Salinas: a 2.0 anomaly in the Sicilian panorama Introductory considerations are essential to understand the meaning of the revolution that we are going to introduce here. The Archaeological Museum Antonio Salinas in Palermo, one of the most important archaeological museum for vastness and prestige of the collection (with masterpieces of the Punic – Phoenician era, Classical Greek era, Etruscan, from ancient Rome and from Sicilian history from prehistory to the Middle Ages [10]) is, for all intents and purposes, a case of study of social museum and the intent of who writes is to present it as a virtuous example of cultural communication strategies.
Museums and Storytelling: From the last trends to the future
In 2010, Kelly found that museums’ adult visitors were deeply aware of their learning preferences and that they wanted experiences both educational and entertaining. On a more general scale, LaPlaca Cohen “Culture Track Report 2014” reveals how the meaning itself of what a cultural experience is like, expanded to activities more related to nature and entertainment. According to this report, audience values a TED talk or a visit to a Botanic Garden just as culturally engaging as going to the museum or attending a theater performance. The public is more demanding and wants to satisfy more than one need at the same time, pursuing activities that are educational, entertaining, interactive and customizable. This expanded notion of culture is on top of the priorities of professionals, as it challenges them to find continuously newer and more unique attractions, able to deal with a much wider range of competitors to the public attention. In order to address the increased uncertainty, museums reshaped their programs to include more and more extra-ordinary events, such as family days, curators’ talks, nocturnal exhibitions, and so on. On the one hand, special events are successfully flourishing and tend to be more participated, to have a wider impact on social media and to be more easily sponsored than ordinary programs. On the other hand, it seems that museums would be struggling at actually improving the ordinary visitors’ experience, which is a much more radical transformation affecting deeply each department, from the Curatorial to the Visitors’ Services and it is often extremely costly. In this gap among special programming and ordinary visit, the organization Museum Hack has found a fertile environment for its growth.
Tafterjournal n. 84 - SETTEMBRE OTTOBRE 2015
The experience of the image in digital media. Reflections on today’s cognitive forms.
A red icon on a blue coloured background. Notification: Tom has shared a picture on your timeline. A ringtone and vibration, the phone’s screen lights up, a message appears: Richard has sent you a picture. The quantity of images that people each second of every day take and spread digitally is an unmeasurable phenomenon. Due to its extraordinary contribution, it is like counting the grains of sand in a desert. Together with the certainly interesting numerical-quantitative data, reflection on the growing meaning of these social activities of taking and sharing images (for the individual as well as the community), is needed. This introduction first of all provides a snapshot of today. A huge number of reports from the most important research institutes tell us about the growing number of uploaded as well as shared images on social networks. (Nielsen, Ericson Consumer Lab, etc.). The reports suggest, more or less intentionally, “how” the analysed data appears in the social contexts by telling us the “quantum” of a given percentage. The “how”, that is the communicative nature of the contemporary digital image, raises many doubts and provides the focus for much research today. The productive growth of images helped by the devices’ dematerialization – a topic worthy of a separate publication – doesn’t just appear as mere quantitative data. It also indicates the cultural, communicative and social growth of activities and processes more and more relevant today. Product together with action.
Bone’s Territories: Territorial Heritage and Local Autonomy in Italian Inner Areas
“Areas in the bone” is not just a quote: it is the metaphor of the load bearing structure of Italy as well as the plastic representation of the marginalization process of the inner areas of the country that started from XX. In 1958, Manlio Rossi-Doria, coined the expression “flesh and bone” in order to underline the profound socio-economical feet apart among the numerous inner areas and the few valleys. His analysis coming from his specialization in agricultural economics was focused on the southern agricultural sector, in a historical phase in which were visible the firsts effects of the Riforma Agraria (Agrarian Reform) and of the investments of the Cassa del Mezzogiorno (Fund for the South) started since 1950. The interpretative framework developed by Rossi Doria can be extended to the entire peninsula, where the differences between urban and rural areas, inner territories or the coasts, mountains and valley grew more and more. Inner areas have experienced a deviation whose principal effects are the depopulation, the emigration, the social and economic rarefaction, the abandon of the soil and the landscape modification.
Museum and Migration
Today is urgent to reflect about the integration of migration history in the museum spaces and narrative. Migration is a “complex condition of our contemporary society and a crucial component in the economic, cultural and social growth in Europe”. Nowadays we see an intensive migration flows with a rapid circulation of cultures, […]
Culture and the Red Queen
Just at this moment, somehow or other, Alice and the red Queen began to run. They were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying ‘Faster! Faster!’ but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had not breath left to say so. The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. “I wonder if all the things move along with us?” thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, “Faster! Don’t try to talk!” And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. Alice looked round her in great surprise. – Why, I do believe we’ve been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was! – Of course it is,’ said the Queen, ‘what would you have it? – Well, in our country, said Alice, still panting a little, you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing. – A slow sort of country! said the Queen. Now, Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!
Made in Italy museums. Some reflections on company heritage networking and communication
Corporate museums arise today as a powerful identity medium for companies and brands representing Made in Italy worldwide. At the beginning of the new millennium, such cultural centers, preserving and communicating the Italian economic history, are extending their presence in most of the country and market sectors. They define a very fragmentary universe (indeed, a still largely underground “dorsal” of Made in Italy culture), but also an investment which could support the cultivation of innovative quality relationships among companies, territory, and society. From this scenario, the paper aims to offer a synthetic overview of the phenomenon concerning company museums and its contemporary evolution within the Italian context, where it appears to be unique for both dimensions and its qualitative features if compared with the international scenario. Indeed, this means also to reflect about the special affinity which seems to exist between museum format and the essence of Made in Italy culture, rising nowadays internationally as a strategic communication discourse.
Tafterjournal n. 83 - LUGLIO AGOSTO 2015
It happens in Turin. From Cascina Roccafranca to the “Case del Quartiere Network”
In the last 20 years Turin has gone through several radical transformations and changes. When we talk about that we can’t forget its passage from “industrial town” to “post-industrial town”, breaking away from its past. From automotive to baby-parking and from heavy metallurgic plants to organic and “from farm to fork” food-stores. But that’s not all. Empty spaces, left by a decaying industry fabric, have inspired requalification initiatives and a social, educative, cultural enterprise everywhere in the city. In this context stems the need for re-appropriating and re-dwelling, through the involvement of the whole town community So, those ready to fill, empty spaces themselves become, in a perspective of recycling and re-use, the perfect container for inclusion, increased participation and for offering possibilities, events and moments of social aggregation. Here was the most fertile “humus” to create new special structures: the Case del Quartiere (Houses of Neighbourhood). Common spaces, multipurpose cultural hubs, social laboratory – all at the same times. In an House it is possible to propose events, to organize or attend a workshop or an artistic atelier, to discuss about common themes or simply use services provided. They are friendly places, where a person is not only a guest, or a resident, but above all is a citizen.
Nudging, Gamification and Paternalism
Paternalism assumes an authority that tries to influence the behavior of people under its guidance in order to improve the wellbeing of the latter. This can be implemented by more or less strict regulations limiting the set of alternatives to choose from and thus reducing the freedom of choice. Alternatively, “libertarian paternalism” does not constrain the freedom of choice but takes advantage of the imperfections in decision-making abilities to push people to make choices that are good for themselves. This kind of pushing people is called “nudging” and a means of pushing people this way is called a “nudge.” Those who get nudged are sometimes called “nudgees,” and “nudgers” are those who “nudge.” When it comes to paternalism then the nudger is an authority, the State, the parents, etc. While, in principle, paternalism proper is coercive, nudging leaves the nudgee’s set of alternatives unchanged. Thus, nudging is a means to achieve the authority’s ends without, in principle, restricting the freedom of choice of decision makers, but make the decision makers decide what the authority is in fact aiming for. Paternalism based on nudging is also referred to as “soft paternalism.” Whitman and Rizzo (2007) elaborate on the warning of a “slippery slope” that leads from soft paternalism to “hard paternalism,” a non-libertarian paternalism implying regulations, legal constraints, and a reduction of freedom of choice, and thus represents a threat to their libertarian worldview. They write “soft paternalism – even if initially modest and non-intrusive – has the potential to pave the way for harder paternalism, including some policies of which the new paternalists themselves would disapprove. We conclude that policymaking based on new paternalist reasoning ought to be considered with much greater trepidation than its advocates suggest” (Whitman and Rizzo 2007: 413).
Does Culture makes us happier – and healthier?
People’s happiness and wellbeing are undoubtedly at the center of today’s modern life – we could even dare to say that our generation is obsessed with the pursuit of happiness, with finding the perfect balance between our inner desires and the lives that we actually live. Nevertheless, we know very little about what truly makes a human being happy. We read tons of self-help books, we go to courses, and we talk to counselors. But the truth is – we very rarely dig deeper into the scientific causes behind human happiness and wellbeing. We may even be surprised to know that, in fact, there are very solid scientific causes. And among those causes, culture lists as one of the main ones. In order to better understand this, we need first to define what we mean by wellbeing and by culture.
Does movie poetics dream of territories?
A concept we can not avoid in our days talking about culture and the direction we’re heading towards is globalization. It stretches itself out like an umbrella surrounding cultural phenome-na in a way not experienced before, and its creations make us wonder about our cinema lan-guages. In the global movie market certain national movie industries like the US one are more dominant than others. One might question if there is a kind of ‘cultural homogenization pro-cess’ behind? Still, there is a language emphasizing the local, there are movies that give us tales and stories about the site-specific grounded into their own cities. This article focuses upon these movies, relying on some basic theories within Cultural Semiotics by Jurij Lotman. Per-haps it is possible to see some kind of interaction and connection between these different kinds of movies, or perhaps they are two separate languages living in their own spheres?
Libraries and Public Perception
The point of view of the author is to consider how libraries are perceived by national communities, on the background of the economic crisis of the latest year and the internet and social media penetration, in order to point out the gap between scientific analysis and general perception. There are several methods to […]
The future art of storytelling: Future Fabulating in Madeira Island
Introduction The practice of predicting the future has a long history, ranging from personal consultation in the patterns of coffee grounds to global computational projections derived from vast sums of data. The longing for a vision of the future offering some certitude seems to cross cultural boundaries. Engineer Alan Kay stated that […]
Where is Berlin? Too many (virtual) walls shape the town and its communities
Whenever approaching a city for the first time there are different ways, patterns, walls, and stories to unearth its hidden string. I moved to Berlin in Ma, 2014 and suddenly, even before my arrival, I was already playing the most popular sport of the city: speaking about Berlin. This sport has been played with abandon by both recent newcomers to the city and long time Berliners. Such a crowded curiosity makes almost impossible to craft a suitable answer to the main question: where is Berlin? If we want to interpret and understand the city as the backbone for fertile arts field we need to start from the development and diversification of its cultural spaces.
Tafterjournal n. 82 - giugno 2015
Social media against travel authenticity
Introduction One fifth of the human population uses social networks and one third of world travelers access them during their vacations, especially to share experiences, info and pictures of the places that they are visiting, and to look up information concerning the local area and the available services. (link: http://www.babelemagazine.com/2015/02/04/vacanze-disconnected-impossibili-per-i-social-addicted/ ) Data […]
Measuring Cultures
Introduction The topic of the importance of being able to measure the impact (or better yet, the plural impacts) that cultural heritages and activities have on many different areas is one of the most discussed issues in Contemporary Economic literature. There are many reasons explaining such an interest: first of all it is […]
Cultural Heritage and Value Creation. Towards new Pathways
“What do we mean by cultural heritage?” Is it the classical definition of “culture” relating to a purely material dimension still relevant, legitimizing the protection of “cultural heritage” as opposed to protection and enhancement? Is it perhaps time to reconsider the scope of this concept in a new way based on a systems […]
Dear Readers, Colleagues and Friends,
From this number, Tafter Journal will enter in a new courage dimension. Even though, for strategic reasons, Monti&Taft will no longer be at the head of the journal, I will continue with pleasure and commitment in sustaining the evaluation activities of scientific contents of our present and future authors… Who will pick up the torch is Alfonso Casalini, an acute and headstrong researcher who collaborates from several years with Monti&Taft. Casalini will be in the saddle guaranteeing the continuity of the imprinting and of the inner objectives of Tafter Journal, but he will achieve this result by extending in a more international and a wider perspective the research activity. The future of our sector is in the hands of those women and men who are capable to look beyond the differences among academic disciplines. People who want to create an added value by founding their researches on the concrete needs of our society. Tafter Journal will continue in focusing on topics related to cultural and territorial development. In addition to the best practices, there will be paid more attention to concrete projects, in order to evaluate the activities of those organizations that have no choice but the innovation to overcome the difficulties and to create a reliable, scalable, and sustainable project over time.
Tafterjournal n. 81 - marzo 2015
The Booking Challenge: Tourism and the Sharing Economy
Today, the Internet plays a key role in the tourism sector. Contemporary travelers use the Web during all phases of traveling process: before the departure for inspiration, research, and booking; during the travel for local services and information; and after the journey in order to share impressions and give suggestions to other travelers and communities. From a practitioner’s viewpoint, this contribution offers an insight into online tourism market, trying to emphasize how the sharing economy model could shape the future trends and habits of tourists and professional operators.
Cultural intelligence and internationalization: An approach to cultural and creative organizations
Cultural intelligence is defined as “a person’s capability for successful adaptation to new cultural settings, including cognitive, motivational and behavioral aspects”. This paper investigates how the adaptation processes recognized and studied in individuals can be applied to cultural and creative organizations. The aim is to discover which aspects of cultural intelligence are really relevant through detailed case studies of processes and their results. Two illustrative cases were chosen: the role of creative cities and the new music industry.
Human interaction: the next digital revolution
In the digital age, why should we care about human interaction? The answer is neither simple nor obvious. The rise of new technologies has generated a flourishing debate about the pros and cons of a wide usage of the Internet, transforming the Web in the angels and demons’ epic battle of the 21st century. Today’s relevant role played by the Internet contributes to consider it a fundamental infrastructure of the economy, in the same way as water, electricity and mobility. The recent decision of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve strict new rules to govern broadband internet like a public utility, leaves a mark in the fight for the protection of net neutrality – i.e. the concept that all information and services should have equal access to the Internet. The huge amount of information that circulates across the online world has several implications in terms of economic activities, social challenges and cultural opportunities. Such a wide range of applications makes it difficult to identify a reliable measure of the size of the Internet economy.
Tafterjournal n. 80 - febbraio 2015
Impact of European-funded programme on London creative micro businesses economic performance and confidence
This paper provides an insight on the profiles of 400 creative businesses in London and the impact that a tailored, ERDF-funded business support programme had on their business performance and their confidence. It aims to provide a reflexion on the barriers to growth faced by these businesses in the Craft, Design, Photography and Visual Arts sectors. Finally, it will share the impact achieved by the programme after 18 months of delivery, assessing whether the need for the support and the value for money remain as proposed originally. The findings will be of interest to professionals and students in the creative industries sector, as well as to those interested in the impact of European Funded programmes in this sector.
Participation and cultural industries: drawing a way through collective and collaborative creation
Much has been said about co-creation and participation in cultural projects, but it seems that cultural industry is facing challenges trying to balance social impact and profitability. Participation offers powerful tools to foment development and to weaken individualism in the contemporary society, but many of the so-called participatory cultural projects limit themselves to a certain type of functionality – very similar to marketing campaigns of big corporations – and end up struggling when it comes to develop a community sense or to promote innovation.
Creative challenges
It may sound obvious: in order for creative products to conquer markets we need creativity; business creativity. In the last decade debates and books about creativity were multiplied, in the attempt at answering to crucial questions ranging from the definition of creativity to the identification of creative activities, from the measurement of the impact of creativity upon local economies to the needed design of public action in support of creative artists and organisations. In such a way, although a varied and lively discussion is always healthy, ‘creativity’ was added to ‘art’ and ‘culture’ as iconic labels generously including an extremely wide and heterogeneous realm of objects, actions and exchanges. Neither right nor wrong, it seems to be the clear symptom of an urgency reflecting the attention (and the obsession) for taxonomies and hierarchies needed in the serial economy. The arts and culture, and quite recently creativity, have been absorbed in a simple and rigid view whose map is a grid of models.
Tafterjournal n. 79 - gennaio 2015
The impact of globalization on cultural policy: insights and emerging trends from the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research 2014
This article discusses some thought-provoking papers, presented at the ICCPR2014, on the relationship between cultural policy and globalization. On the one hand, it looks at how globalization has an impact on national cultural policies with reference in particular to tax incentives for private donations and mobility schemes for artists. On the other hands, it tackles the role of cultural policy in international development, questioning the motives and methodologies applied. Finally, it opens up a space for reflection on the role of cultural policy in countries involved in the Arab Spring and which are now in the middle of establishing new sovereign nations and need to define also the role of culture in society.
The discovery of arts and culture as global communication media. High-visibility experiences in the Italian and international scenario
If the powerful symbolic language related to artistic heritage can be considered the most brilliant intuition by first patrons and sponsors, during the last years the Italian scenario shows a real rush toward high-visibility cultural projects by global corporations, associating their own brands to the major monuments and artistic cities. By means of an explorative approach, the paper points to discuss trends and experiences emerging in the sector, as they highlight new risks but also strategic opportunities for both companies and the territory.
The role of culture in society
In an age of insecurity and inequality, the capacity of culture to generate positive impacts seems to be a certainty. Over the past years, an increasing number of studies have analysed the cultural and creative industries’ realm with the aim to demonstrate that cultural projects are good investments not only in terms of social benefits but also in terms of economic and financial returns. Given the relevance of culture to people and places, an interesting report – released in July 2014 – presents an original perspective about the measurable economic effects of sport and culture on local economies. This study carried out a systematic review of over 550 policy evaluations of major sporting and cultural events and facilities, from the UK and other OECD countries. Promoted by the “What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth (WWG), which is a collaboration between the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Centre for Cities and Arup, the study intends to help politicians and institutions “to have more informed debates and to improve policy making”.
Tafterjournal n. 78 - dicembre 2014
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The advent of the Digital Era and, subsequently, of Media Culture has not only changed the way we think, act and interact with the world but also interfered with our more basic motor skills and the way our body operates in the outside world. Digital or not, the ability to move our body and see how others are able to do so is simply to be able to feel, to experience a tangible reality and not to be divorced from physical contact, being that a sensory or visual one. We just need to remember to learn how to do things and recognize the world as we used to do as children, through touch. Perhaps it would be better to go back to using our senses as interface, even with the invention of Google glasses.
Staging the change?
The change required a different storytelling; the past order was being irreversibly abandoned, the new world seemed to grant a diffused welfare, if not happiness. Only creative artists could understand that such a change implied extremely high costs: the loss of identity, and the substitution of style and details with aggressiveness and merely material outcomes.
Literature and Art: narrative paths for social-emotional education
Finally in Italy we are talking about social-emotional learning; #1oradamore is the name of the media campaign promoted by Italian journalists, artists, psychologists, researchers, and sociologists to promote the introduction of social-emotional education in Italian schools. To share feelings and take care of emotional life is an essential cultural action, especially during adolescence when social behaviours begin to take shape and approaches to and dynamics of relationships strengthen.
Managing change and intimacy in the present
Heraclitus is often cited as the source of the quote, “The only constant in life is change.” This seems to ring true now, more than ever, as advances in technology rapidly change our cultures: the ways we communicate and express ourselves, the availability of information and resources, and even how we spend our time each day. Of course, change is not new and we are not the first to experience it. As Michele Trimarchi illustrates in “Staging the Change?” our ancestors’ lives were radically altered with technological advances in farming, machinery and communications systems. How people react to and manage these changes can define their identity, both in the present and their place in history, over time. Artists and arts consumers run the gamut in their response to change: many chase the avant-garde while others, like J.S. Bach, pursue perfection of one form long after their contemporaries have moved on to newer modes.
Tafterjournal n. 77 - novembre 2014
The regional turn of the European Capital of Culture and its traits in France, Germany, and Poland
Policies to strengthen urban regions play today a major role in the implementation of key objectives such as improving competitiveness of the EU territory, or achieving its territorial cohesion. A remarkable point in case here is the European Capital of Culture event whose “regional turn” is here to be discussed by the example of France, Germany, and Poland. A special impetus is to lie on the question on how far trends are reflected in the Polish (i.e. Central Eastern European) case notably with Wroc?aw preparing to become European Capital of Culture in 2016.
Towards a “Creative Ravenna”. Capitalising on the European Capital of Culture process to build a Culture and Creative Industries’ strategy
Ravenna, with its rich cultural and artistic heritage, its economic and social fabric as well as the political will to invest in culture, has the potential to design its future with the support of art and culture and contribute to the development of a model of creative territory for medium-size cities. Ravenna has commissioned a policy paper with a view to reflect on how to capitalise on the ECoC bid for the future of the city. This is in line with the European Capital of Culture’s bidding process which requires cities to show the sustainability of the cultural investment in term of economic and social development. For the European Commission, the year’s cultural investment should bring long term benefits to the city and the surrounding region, including the development of a vibrant culture and creative sector. This paper will illustrate how CCIs can concretely contribute to local development in Ravenna, what are Ravenna’s strengths and challenges to become a creative city and finally proposes some recommendations for Ravenna to unleash CCIs’ potential to set a dynamic and attractive environment.
European Capitals of Culture: structures and infrastructures
Culture and territory. A pair with an ancient but actual flair. A binomial that a growing number of public managers choose as the asset to economic development and to increase the quality of life, like in Qatar, where culture has peeped out with a certain delay on the desks of the European Union. At first excluded from EU subjects and focuses, culture has been recognized only at the beginning of the 90s as a subsidiary competence, while on the contrary, it would have been the essence of the integration in the European project. As Jean Monnet, one of the fathers and founders of Europe stated, “If Europe has to be rebuilt, maybe we should start from culture”. The absence of a real and shared cultural project should have been inserted in the process of economic integration to reinforce the EU directives. From a different perspective, it is to say that the absence of an economic structure, deprived of its cultural infrastructure, is visible in the diffused phenomena of dissatisfaction towards the European institutions, in the many misunderstandings and in the race amongst member states.
Tafterjournal n. 76 - ottobre 2014
American Museums versus Italian Museums online: are they so dissimilar?
Not unlike Italy, the cultural institutions of the United States are part of a prism returning different shades of quality in managing new digital tools. Let us take social media as an example for all: when asked to specify the issues they most frequently encountered in managing online communication, the American professionals gave answers amazingly similar to those of their Italian counterparts. What they pointed out were lack of time – often deriving from chronicle budget deficits to hire new staff, and low to non-existent digital awareness in their colleagues, making it difficult to manage the workflow efficiently in order to achieve better quality content.
How to deal with an increasing western-focused world?
The present world, dominated by high-speed information, easy access to knowledge and powerful cross-fertilisation of cultures, could on one hand ideally favour social and cultural integration by putting in contact different cultures, but on the other hand the shared feeling is that we are experiencing an increasing cultural globalisation, a sort of cultural holigopoly (held by the so-called western world) imposing its rules upon other cultures.
Price management. Working on the supply could be our chance
It is not easy to establish the admission price to museums and monuments. Different cultures suggest singular methods at this matter. Although the global scenario tends to allocate to goods a specific price which is directly commensurate to its value, both dimensional and qualitative, this concept is inapplicable in the economy of culture. This subject takes care of assets of immeasurable value, which represent a heritage of humanity. However, people do not think that this patrimony could in some way generate a profit. Cultural institutions stand as the richest and poorest at the same time. In fact is clearly evident the deep gap they have between the value of their heritage and their disposal money. The majority of the countries charges visitors with a fixed entrance fee, but the price of the ticket is just a lump sum.
Do the arts dream of society? The secret war of languages
Whenever I think, speak or write about the arts the crucial knot of my analysis is knowledge. Of course emotion is important, as well as some intellectual pride, but knowledge gives the flavour to the whole system. It is well rooted in the dramatic urgency that leads single creative artists to craft their works: if they were able to display their sentiments and views in an ordinary way – through plain spoken language, for example – they would not need any kind of expressive substitution, and their discourse should not need to rely upon powerful semantic channels able to convey it to its potential (even not desired) recipients. Knowledge is also important in the growth of creative tendencies, artistic and cultural groups, and all the social clusters advocating the rise and the consolidation of views, styles, techniques and all the methodological tools that can define creative waves. This normally occurs as a response to an insufficient conventional knowledge, in any case to push the threshold of language ahead. Whether it is only innovation (along the path) or revolution (against the path itself) its language wants to show, not without some surprise or even some repugnance, that the world needs new words, new concepts, possibly new truths.
Tafterjournal n. 75 - settembre 2014
I centri indipendenti di produzione culturale a Torino
Il panorama culturale e artistico italiano più recente ha conosciuto una nuova fase. A fianco alle realtà istituzionali e commerciali, sono comparse esperienze di centri indipendenti di produzione culturale. Questi soggetti formano un tessuto creativo dinamico, produttivo e relazionale del quale non si conoscono le capacità di generare innovazione e sviluppare capitale sociale nelle comunità locali, oltre a nuovi percorsi di sostenibilità economica della produzione culturale. La ricerca tenta di definire uno statuto dei centri e comprenderne configurazione e impatti sul territorio torinese.
Il progetto di identità e la ri-significazione dei luoghi. Il patrimonio ebraico in Calabria
Il passaggio degli Ebrei in Calabria dal IV al XVI secolo d.C. lascia sul territorio elementi tangibili e tali da delineare un modello urbano, oggi di difficile interpretazione. L’apparente mancanza di rapporto tra esigenze culturali e tipologia rende determinante la ricerca di invarianti – valenze immateriali e forme ricorrenti – più che la corrispondenza forzata tra segno e valenza. L’elaborazione di una metodologia mirata alla loro interpretazione è fondamentale per innescare processi di valorizzazione attraverso il progetto di identità quale approccio più adeguato a ri-significare una dimensione abitativa unica, poco nota e manifesta.
Le identità nascoste dello spazio urbano
Lo spazio urbano, inteso sia come luogo fisico che come entità immateriale, rappresenta lo scenario contemporaneo per antonomasia, l’habitat prediletto dalla specie homo sapiens sapiens, il contesto di riferimento di numerosi studi e analisi sulle società post-moderne. Frutto di successive alterazioni dell’ambiente naturale, gli agglomerati antropizzati di grandi e piccole dimensioni sono stati, e continuano a essere, oggetto di molteplici trasformazioni che contribuiscono a cambiare in modo radicale l’aspetto e le dinamiche sociali di interi gruppi abitativi. Se i nuclei originari di quelle che oggi sono le grandi metropoli mondiali, hanno visto i loro confini espandersi in maniera esponenziale nel corso del tempo, fino a diventare porzioni variamente assemblate di territorio che ospitano al loro interno milioni di abitanti provenienti da tutto il mondo, i contesti rurali e i centri minori – una volta cuore pulsante di un’economia di prossimità – sono divenuti una specie protetta a rischio di estinzione, minacciati in egual misura dall’abbandono, dall’invecchiamento della popolazione e dai fenomeni migratori che coinvolgono, con un’intensità crescente, le generazioni più giovani e istruite.
Tafterjournal n. 74 - agosto 2014
The Panagbenga: Ethico-Political Issues, Contestations, and Recommendations on the Cultural Sustainability of a Festival
The Panagbenga cultural festival of the popular tourist destination of Baguio City, Philippines, turns 20 in February 2015. Researching the sustainability of a 4-weeks festival held annually since 1995 is of academic and practical interest. Lessons can be learned for cultural policy and for more pro-active participation and collaboration between different stakeholders. Jumping off from issues and contestations on the cultural sustainability of Panagbenga, this descriptive-normative study argues for an ethics and politics of sustainable festivals, with focus on the difficult concept of sustaining culture. The study explores how cultural festivals become virtual and actual spaces for reflection, contestations, and consensual agreements on cultural tradition. “Cultural sustainability” or how cultures are dynamically engaged is distinguished from “cultures of sustainability”, or how cultures (mostly traditional) promote sustainable forms of living with the environment. The latter concept has been more discussed in the literature than the former concept.
Contemporary art fairs as new forms of cultural consumption and urban experience
Contemporary art fairs are commercial exhibitions where art dealers meet up over the course of several days at a specific event. Nowadays they are held around the world, offering attendees the opportunity to experience in just a few days what otherwise would only be possible by travelling all over the world. This study has selected some key aspects of the contemporary art fairs expansion, focusing on their historical background and on contemporary globalization aspects of the art system. While exploring the art fairs territory, the contemporary art system often finds common grounds with attitudes observed in more-encompassing cultural and creative industries. Art fairs, as many other cultural industry events, such as music and cinema festivals or fashion weeks, share the “show – spectacle” notion in the public culture. Within this context, some analogies can be made as regards the common networking necessities of these industries, but it is also worth highlighting the emergence of art fairs effectiveness in enhancing the contemporary arts and the consumption of creative products.
Eventful Cities: the relationship between city development and cultural events
In recent years slogans such as ‘festival city’ or ‘city of festivals’ have become common elements of the brand image of many cities. But why have events become so popular? What are the benefits of being ‘eventful’? What is the relationship between city development and cultural events? How do cities create, shape, manage and market events, and how can those events in turn shape the city, its spaces and its image? The creation and promotion of events such as festivals, shows, exhibitions, fairs and championships, have become a critical component of urban development strategy across the globe. No city believes it is too small or too complex to enter the market of planning and producing events, which have become central to processes of urban development and revitalisation, as cultural production becomes a major element of the urban economy. By adding an intangible component to the physical culture of the city, events provide a scenario in which human contacts are possible, however superficial, and there is the promise of communitas through the shared experience of ‘being there’.
Tafterjournal n. 73 - luglio 2014
Festivals and place. Isola delle Storie book festival and genius loci
The research investigates the relationship between festivals and place, looking at their genius loci and economic, social and cultural benefits produced. The issues were applied to Isola delle Storie, a book festival strongly rooted in its land and characters. The research looked at both roots and impacts, through questionnaires, interviews and press review analysis. It was found that its strong social basis brings several advantages, contributing in drawing some conclusions on festivals and their role for the local organising communities.
VOICES: an urban map of sentiment
Talking about cities, from their planning to their living, means activating fields of dialogue with more and more heterogeneous connotations. It means being able to face, handle and argue not only themes with architectural features, concerning infrastructures, services and buildings, rather it presumes to involve human dimensions, somehow ephemeral, barely related to pure spatial and traditional paradigms. It means to interface with a complex system, with emerging qualities, which cannot be reduced to a merely static comprehension. It is the dynamic human grids, the multiplicity of the involved social interactions, information, people and emotions that, in an intense and shimmering exchange or game with the surrounding architecture, draft the tangible urban morphology.
Curiosity and contemplation: a geography of culture
Culture is certainly rooted in specific sites. Such a simple feature has been used, often overused or even abused in the attempt at drawing borderlines or highlighting local pride, emphasizing a sense of belonging based upon the refusal of strangers and – symmetrically – the exploitation of foreigners. Despite its evident failure territorial marketing, more a label than a tool, is still adopted as a sort of Troy horse aimed at attracting blockbuster visitors rather than curious and non-prejudicial travellers. A geography of culture can be drafted. Its ancestor is the inevitably euro-centric view that convinced Napoleon to bring an army of archaeologists in Egypt: the aim was the enormous collection of ancient manufacts to be hosted in the new cultural hub, Paris. In such a way the newly born institution of nation state could show a powerful endorsement; while kings were there by grace of God and will of the nation, the bourgeois democracies devoted at keeping the manufacturing economy alive could only rely upon the past, even a stolen past. The golden age needed the sacred authority of grandfathers.
Tafterjournal n. 72 - giugno 2014
How African cultural festivals are using innovative methods to attract new audiences, fund and host sustainable festivals
This paper will focus on trends within the management of African cultural festivals, particularly on aspects of attracting new audiences primarily through social media, new approaches to funding such as using crowd funding and original models of social and environmental sustainability such as the Maaya model for festivals and cultural events. This paper will use secondary research from credible sources such as the UNESCO 2013 Creative Report, African Festival Network (Afrifesnet) concept document, African Musical Festival Network and HIVOS.
Decorating the Athens Metro: a matter of culture or conventionality?
One of the most ambitious public works of modern Greece, which is still under development, is the Athens Metro. Such a great project for the biggest city of the country can be viewed and analyzed in many ways in terms of its overall construction. However, its decorative approach seen from an architectural, structural, cultural and artistic point of view is believed to constitute the most important analysis platform of its public aesthetic image. This is why the following article attempts to focus on the ways and reasons of the decorative applications of this practical, public utility work – if any – and discuss their controversial purposes and values.
Culture and development at a crossroads
The two articles featured in this issue of Tafter Journal by Mazuba Kapambwe and Johannis Tsoumas may inspire some further reflections on the difficult, ‘liquid’ relation between place, ideology and politics, which is so present in almost any debate on the role and use of culture in development. Both papers tell us something of the ways in which culture can serve local development. However, the later is basically about what can go wrong – unimaginative planning abiding hidden interests and business tactics, though the ‘missed opportunity’ from the Athens case is only an arguably minor example of a wider system failure which screams for change and inclusion in decision-making. The former discloses the emergence of a new paradigm, a ray of hope from the plentiful sorrow that plagues the developing world: in the breech of the global cultural economy, social innovation and protagonism has flourished from technology and has reached even the more backwards – but still connected – places.
Tafterjournal n. 71 - maggio 2014
The notion of accountability and its usage in the cultural sector
All human, personal, economic and political relations are based on the notion of trust. Nevertheless, which are the subjects actually reliable or, in other words, truly accountable? It is necessary to make such a concept measurable, particularly in the economic sector because of the investment or acquisition choices related to that field of activity. The introduction of an evaluation process results to be even more difficult in the Italian cultural realm, where unselected public funds and culture budget cuts increase the uncertainty of the present.
Contemporary Art and Urban Regeneration in the City of Milan
In an enclosed space, such as a district, a city, or an area within the city, creative potential is intimately linked to the degree of knowledge and innovation, let alone the kind of cultural opportunities that space provides. On a global scale, the trend seems to be that of first creating and then promoting creative and cultural circuits in urban spaces in accordance with competitiveness and value production criteria. These strategies have multiple objectives. These range from the more intangible ones, such as finding a role for a city or an area within the knowledge economy, to the more measurable ones, such as those that show immediate economic results. Different criteria and means can be used to evaluate the achievement of the stated objectives. This article examines the current transformation of the city of Milan within the above-described interpretive framework. Such transformations are often directly linked to creative and cultural representations. This article places and examines contemporary art at the centre of these transformations. Art, and contemporary art in particular, could play a most beneficial role in city’s regeneration.
What an effort “to enter out”! Closures and resistances in the cultural sector
“It might be easy for you, but you cannot imagine how difficult is for us to enter outside”. Few years ago, walking in the yards of Santa Maria Della Pietà, psychiatric hospital already closed, Thomas Lovanio, Franco Basaglia’s colleague, got these words from one of the guest of the hospital. He was referring to the difficulty of coming back into the city, a city that years ago had jailed and forgotten him. But now, just because someone have decided to close the psychiatric hospitals, this city has to absorb him again. The articles in this issue reminded me those words. How difficult is for our artistic and cultural system to shape open and innovative relations with the environment and the urban space, and to generate an innovative and transparent management. These difficulties are surely a limit to innovation and an obstacle to the cultural growth of our country. Urban studies have long observed that the most innovative systems are those capable of hybridizing different worlds.
Tafterjournal n. 70 - aprile 2014
Veneto and Venice: new visions of Culture
The relationship between culture and territory is the subject of an increasing interest. Today, culture is widely recognized as a key asset for economic and social development and competitiveness. At the same time, we live in a period characterized by a worldwide economic crisis in which the unique possible solution seems to be “re-starting” and “re-inventing” everything. In this scenario, the point is whether the solution can come from our immense cultural heritage.
How web presence strategy can help museums to be a digital breeding ground for innovative communication
This article aims to understand if an efficient museums’ online presence can strategically impact on and improve their promotion and the way they are perceived by potential visitors. Visitors can engage and support a museum more if they feel like they had a part in providing feedback or have ownership in something because the feedback they gave was implemented. Through digital strategies, used as a bridge to get in touch with people from all over the world, cultural institutions can engage the audience in a deeper emotional way.
The challenging walk to digitization
The massive use of digital tools and technological devices requests a serious reflection upon the role played by culture in our society. Obviously, the black and white scheme does not work any more in a context where the long-established opposition between the comfort of the well-known processes and the uncertainty of the future scenarios has been knocked down by the notion of complexity. The so-called “digital revolution” represents a multi faceted phenomenon that has enemies and supporters who fight a daily battle over culture’s value. The former is used to predict the end of traditional newspapers, books, movies, music and so on, describing a desolate landscape of ignorance with no space for cultural and creative products and practitioners. The latter imagines the coming of the golden age of cultural contents which finally will be open and accessible to all for free. In between these two extremes, a wide range of intermediate points of view make possible those small and big changes that – considered as a whole – contribute to the contemporary structure of our analogical and virtual communities.
Tafterjournal n. 69 - marzo 2014
The importance of being evaluated. Guidelines and tools to plan a worthy evaluation of cultural projects
Talking about culture production, we need to shift The importance of being Earnest in The importance of being evaluated. The longing of evaluation it is in fact, by now, intrinsic to any cultural project: sponsors, stakeholders, project managers are all aware of that; however, while the crucial relevance of evaluating is no more called into question, there are still many doubts concerning how an evaluation should be planned and fulfilled. The aim of this article is to give some simple, but practical and solid, guidelines to conceive a worthy analysis of cultural projects, of any kind.
Analyzing the Network of the Italian Cultural Institute of Copenhagen. Reactions to the Farnesina Reform and Promotion of the Sistema Italia
The Italian Cultural Institutes are not just pivotal elements of the Italian cultural diplomacy but also crucial tools to promote Italian culture and language. The Reform of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2010) determined a reorganization of both the internal structure of the Ministry and the international network of offices. In turn, the IICs were asked for the first time to promote abroad the whole Sistema Italia, rather than just Italian culture and language. This paper aims at analysing the network of the Italian Cultural Institute of Copenhagen to understand which were the real effects, if any, of the Reform on the Institute’s operations.
The value of culture. Neverending debates need views and tools
Within the rich and complex vocabulary of culture the word value is certainly overused. It is always associated with culture, however we prefer to define it (which is already a challenging task). Even those who hate culture, since they fear it, say that it has no value. Even when conventional metaphors are adopted, describing the cultural galaxy with examples from the food system (it feeds, it must be preserved, it decays, it may lead to greedy action, etc.), the perception of its value is crucial. If we just observe the meaning that the debate gives to the concept of value as applied to culture we may find a few interesting views, often conventionally shared and accepted, able to reveal the eternal struggle between opposite factions: those who believe that culture is a ritual and hermetic realm where only the initiated have the right to speak (and to act), versus those who consider culture as normal as any other product, being therefore subject to simple economic norms and mechanisms. Exploring this controversial map, where culture is pulled and stretched to endorse much wider and visceral views, we discover that culture appears powerful in providing individuals (and sometimes communities) with some ethical strength.
Tafterjournal n. 68 - febbraio 2014
Working with surfaces to create spaces: street art or landscape project?
The presence of urban voids within contemporary cities imposes to consider the importance of new interpretations/actions on the landscape. These actions have to use formal representation devices more related to community needs. Thanks to its expressiveness, art can be used as a landscape regeneration’s tool for degraded environment. Street art and community participation actions can realize surfaces projects able to change the future of indefinable urban spaces.
Children and cultural policies in Europe
Today, children are a main target for many cultural institutions. There is no museum that does not devote space and activities for children and, more recently, also concert halls, orchestras and opera houses have opened their doors to the young public and to families.The paper intends to explore how cultural policies are dealing with young citizens and attempts to trace an overview of cultural policies and tools in Europe targeting children.
Does Culture Need New Audiences? Absolutely Yes!
In a time of austerity, audience development represents a fundamental aspect which should be taken into account. In the traditional business sectors, the demand side has always played a key role in order to predict and satisfy a huge range of needs – sometimes real, but more often market-oriented. On the contrary, in the Italian cultural realm we are witnessing a growing gap between the supply of products and services and the demand side. An excessive self-referential cultural system, together with a low attention to cultural audience’s requests and desirers, are at the same time cause and effect of a static perception of cultural phenomena. As Lyn Gardner noted in a recent Guardian blog, cultural organisations are afraid of asking people what they really want, transforming the relationship with the audience into a boring marriage of convenience. In this respect, if cultural institutions will continue perceiving themselves as locked places specifically dedicated to the upper classes of society, they will be doomed to forget their primary functions such as education and research.
Tafterjournal n. 67 - gennaio 2014
Development As A Network: A New Perspective To Evaluate Cultural Projects
The paper aims to show how and why network analysis turns to be a precious and complementary tool to evaluate cultural projects for local development. After reviewing the traditional project evaluation techniques, we first discuss how network analysis is able to map a series of aspects characterizing a cultural project and, especially, its sustainability. Second, we show the potentiality of this methodology by applying it to one of the 18 United Nations Joint Programmes in the area “Culture and Development”, implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Forum D’Avignon 2013: Polyphonic Voice From Avignon
The Forum d’Avignon is a think-tank dedicated to culture and creative industries which organizes an international annual meeting on culture, economics and media in Avignon, France since 2008. More than 450 participants of different sectors arrive from 40 nations. Guaranteeing a great diversity of opinions, this sixth edition focused on “culture” and “power” and 10 roundtables on the topic were held at Palais des Papas and University of Avignon on November 21 – 23, 2013. This article introduces the general outline, uniqueness and the way of discussion on cultural policy and management at the assembly.
Future Culture: Back To Normality
Many things are occurring, quite often in the shadow, out of the places and groups where conventions are crafted and consolidated. The only possible reaction to changes and threats is action, not certainly discussion. Action requires thought and interpretation. But simply waiting for someone else’s action is wrong. Things will be never again as they used to be. A galaxy is in danger if it rejects evolution. Do we want to simply survive? It is time to examine the state of health of what we define culture, a complex set of objects, places, experiences and intuitions whose expansion and variety reject the conventional framework and require new views, effective tools, consistent approaches and versatile action. As in a war report, we can draft a list of the losses. Culture used to be based upon simple, powerful concepts and beliefs that are fading away. Culture, as we know it, was invented within the manufacturing economy: the enjoyment of the arts, an exercise old as humanity, has been standardised as the object of social and economic exchange. It has been special, almost ineffable, physically isolated and accessible only to the initiated. Now the pillars of that wisdom become progressively weaker.
Tafterjournal n. 66 - dicembre 2013
The Art of Augmenting Reality
Over the last few years, we have been witness to the emergence of the use of the virtual in public space. The manifestation of the virtual and the interplay of it with the real are changing the concept of public space and the perception of art that is now being presented in it. The integration process of the virtual into the real is also clearly affecting the way in which cultural institutions are now presenting and meditating art, as well as how this process is bringing the demand for new and innovate ways to link the virtual to the real.
Exploring the emerging model of social enterprise capital markets
The ways through which a social enterprise gets funding have undergone major changes in recent years. An innovative entrepreneurship vision, based on issues which are different from the traditional return on capital principle, has been brought to light asking for logical criteria not diffused in the current financial systems. In the traditional model of social enterprises, the spread of Social Venture Capital’s practices represents a breaking point. This article analyzes the theoretical and practical criteria of the Italian fund “Oltre Venture”. Such a fund combines capital, skills and entrepreneurial innovation in order to achieve more efficient and effective results, by using Venture Philanthropy principles.
The rise of the unconventional approaches
The complexity of the contemporary world, combined with the social needs of increasing portions of population, puts on the table new issues to address. In a context characterised by high degrees of competitiveness and few stocks of monetary and natural resources, enterprises and cultural organisations, in particular, have to face a growing number of challenges in order to survive. The global society’s state of art points out a huge variety of common weaknesses and structural threats that makes hard to imagine a better future. The current scenario speaks about museums at risk – considering, for example, the case of Detroit Institute of Arts which is very close to sell off its artworks to pay for a city’s general debt -; culture budget cuts from local authorities, which means that arts companies could lose their funding completely; downsizing plans, as it is happening to Bloomberg where the brand of cultural journalism is being shut down or to Australia’s major classical music magazine that may close; crisis in the humanities and social sciences, seen as “luxuries” or “a waste of time” and beaten by scientific faculties.
Tafterjournal n. 65 - novembre 2013
Is theatre efficiency affected by the legal form type? A case study of German public theatres
The paper aims at exploring the economic efficiency of the performing arts organisations. A parametric stochastic frontier approach is presented as a way of measuring the performance of cultural institutions. In particular, this paper examines how the efficiency of publicly funded performing arts firms, operating under different organisational structures, is affected by two types of shocks. First, we consider what happens to efficiency when there is a funding shock and second, we consider the effect on efficiency of an increase in competition. The identification of these effects was made possible by the natural experiment of the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990. The results suggest that theatres organised under public law are more efficient than theatres organised under private law. However, when exposed to the exogenous demand shock after reunification, the theatres organised under private law react positively to this competition shock as measured by their efficiency scores confirming that they better react to the changing market conditions than theatres organised as public legal forms.
Il fenomeno delle start-up nel settore culturale
In tempi recenti, politici, intellettuali, accademici e altri importanti attori della società civile hanno cominciato a riconoscere che la cultura può essere uno dei fattori trainanti per la ripresa economica e sociale del nostro paese. Durante il 2013 il governo italiano ha iniziato a prestare maggiore attenzione alle questioni legate alle start-up attraverso l’emanazione di diversi provvedimenti normativi con lo scopo di offrire una regolamentazione al fenomeno e di porre le basi per il suo sviluppo, attraverso incentivi per la creazione di nuove realtà imprenditoriali. Nonostante gli sforzi del governo, ancora non esiste una ricerca volta a comprendere gli elementi critici delle piccole realtà imprenditoriali che si occupano di cultura e creatività.
Cultura e sostenibilità, questa è la sfida
L’anno 2013 sta volgendo al termine e sull’ambito culturale nel nostro malandato paese si registrano segnali contraddittori e una discreta confusione, mentre altrove si lavora su ampi e assai impegnativi orizzonti e scenari. Gli articoli proposti in questo numero, e di cui si dirà più avanti, suscitano infatti un’istintiva riflessione sugli strumenti di analisi di cui (non) si dota il nostro legislatore e, di contro, evocano allo spirito l’encomiabile impegno di ricerca e metodologico che un organismo internazionale come l’Unesco sta portando avanti in questo periodo sul tema della relazione tra cultura e sviluppo sostenibile. La scadenza sulla quale l’Unesco sta lavorando, infatti, è quella della revisione/aggiornamento degli “obiettivi di sviluppo del millennio”, che avrà luogo nel corso del 2015 e in cui si sta cercando di inserirne uno in cui venga esplicitamente dichiarato il ruolo della cultura come elemento essenziale di sviluppo sostenibile. Si collocano in questo ambito l’incontro animato dal Direttore Generale dell’Unesco, Irina Bokov, i lavori della Conferenza di Hangzhou e l’ampio e molto interessante spazio che sul sito web dell’Unesco viene dato a studi, ricerche e organizzazioni che stanno elaborando metodologie di analisi e ricerche empiriche per la valutazione dell’impatto delle filiere culturali nelle dinamiche di sviluppo.
Tafterjournal n. 64 - ottobre 2013
R&D in creative industries: some lessons from the book publishing sector
Notwithstanding the recent increasing interest in creative industries (CIs), very few studies are dealing with a new and emerging topic like technological innovation. In CIs, innovation is in general considered from a single viewpoint: a means to develop new creative contents. One very important issue is surprisingly neglected: this is the technological innovations and, therefore, the characteristic and the management of R&D in the CIs. The present paper aims at understanding where R&D takes place in the book publishing sector, which economic actors are taking charge of it, where they are located in the value chain, how they are articulated with content producers.
Exploring the world between nostalgia and desire
In such a rapidly changing world certainties are strongly needed, and communities share a painful nostalgia for an idyllic past. While powerful people try to stop time a growing tribe of innovators and non-prejudicial individuals build a sort of network able to generate new views and to face new horizons. When the world fears change it means that its backbone is frail, and it cannot rely upon any consolidated principles or beliefs, therefore it can only protect the traditional ones. In the meantime new people accept the challenge and craft a new mankind. They only travel and explore, exchange intuitions and inspirations, ride donkeys, bring light luggage and read the stars to get oriented. Among the many outcomes of such an intensive and complex period we find the evolution of describing the world with maps where many various sites, routes and atmospheres were analysed and painted; and the evolution of books, in some decades transformed from manually written sheets to printed volumes. When they were developed not everybody felt at ease with these mysterious and unexpected objects.
Tafterjournal n. 63 - settembre 2013
Cultural responsibility. Small steps to restore anthropology in economic behaviour. Interviews and best practices
Cultural responsibility (CR) links the terms “culture” and “responsibility”. This connection calls for a respectful attitude towards different cultural expressions and intercultural dialogue, in a society characterized by globalization and the spread of knowledge-based economy and cultural and creative industries. CR is linked to Corporate Social Responsibility as cultural development of the individual and communities has to be the primary goal of any economic behaviour. This attitude stimulates the building of an inclusive social context where cultural democracy, equal opportunities to access culture, participation and representation occur for all the individuals.
Cultural hubs as powerful leverage of economic growth: Sydney and Philadelphia case studies
The creativity industry has become more and more important not only for workers of the cultural sector, but also for governments and local authorities. In fact, cultural policy means economical policy. The article supports the thesis that culture is a real development engine generating an economic impact, showing data of two international case histories: Sydney Opera House and the group of arts and culture organizations of the city of Philadelphia. Thus, the article highlights the growing important role played by the web, social media and digital communications strategies to reach wider audiences all over the world and to make the two cities “cultural brands”.
Who is responsible for the success of the arts and culture sectors?
The arts are an essential part of life. This is a statement that can be evidenced in many ways, such as the important role the arts play in documenting history, helping people cope with difficult times, celebrating joyous occasions, expressing cultural or individual identity, and the arts are a key economic engine – employing hundreds of thousands and generating billions in revenues. In economic struggles of recent years, however, arts and culture activities have often suffered or been eliminated entirely. Some view the arts as a non-essential luxury that shouldn’t be afforded in hard times. I, like many readers of the Tafter Journal, will disagree with this sentiment. And I wonder, how can we make sure this attitude does not prevail? Who, ultimately, is responsible for the success of the arts and culture sectors? An informal poll of my colleagues produced answers such as: artists; arts and culture organizations; local, regional, or national governments; and even “people that care”.
Tafterjournal n. 62 - agosto 2013
Social Innovation and the Arts. Artists alone are not enough!
While social innovation begins to be broadly embraced by policy-makers and scholars in the context of healthcare and education, hardly any research has been done in the fields of the arts and culture (Mulgan et al., 2007). This paper aims at exploring what social innovation means, how to foster this type of innovation and the possible links between social innovation and the arts. The authors will address those issues via the case study of the Waag Society – Institute for art, science and technology in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Password Trento 2012, per una nuova cultura della partecipazione
La città di Trento per un anno intero, il 2012, si è interrogata e confrontata per impostare, discutere e condividere una radicale revisione del suo Piano di politica culturale, aggiornando il precedente del 2003 e dotandosi di un nuovo orizzonte di senso che arriva al 2020. Un obiettivo ambizioso reso possibile grazie a un’articolata operazione di ascolto e dialogo che ha tracciato, in un’ottica di pianificazione partecipata, le linee di un cambiamento tanto auspicato quanto necessario. Un percorso partecipativo in dodici appuntamenti, ognuno dedicato a un tema specifico, ha fatto di questi incontri importanti momenti di confronto, di interazione ma soprattutto di ascolto.
The importance of being innovative
The 21st century will be remembered as the century of creativity and innovation: from performing arts to manufacturing, from education to trade finance, all economic sectors – both conventional and unconventional – need to be creative and innovative in order to succeed in the current global market. Often considered synonymous, the terms creativity and innovation are actually two very different concepts. Creativity is indeed a phenomenon of hybrid nature, which consists of the generation starting from scratch of products, processes or pathways related to intuitive mechanisms not easily replicated by mere imitation; innovation is instead a incremental phenomenon, which contributes decisively to the increase in the quality and value of a certain productive activity pursuing a path already taken and adding to the technical and economic profiles. Not taking such a semantic difference into account, it is possible to identify the capability of developing new ideas in order to fill social gaps as the common shared value of creativity and innovation.
Tafterjournal n. 61 - luglio 2013
Grounding a new meaning of performative museum on the paradigm of Natural Interaction
This contribution aims at outlining a theoretical framework for the interpretation of some recent trends in museum exhibition design, based on the technological paradigm of Natural Human Computer Interaction. Performance and performativity from the perspective of performance studies are employed as references to propose a new definition of “performative museum”. Here the discourse is formulated mainly through interactive movement-based technologies and emphasis is placed on bodily experiences and expressions, on processuality and on the accomplishment of performative acts, aimed at specific communicative goals.
Immagini e Web: percorsi della memoria 2.0. Per una nuova versione Web dell’Archivio fotografico dell’Arcidiocesi di Gorizia
Il Web sta diventando sempre più il luogo di asset informativi di grande rilevanza scientifica e culturale, che non hanno alcuna controparte fisica e richiedono un’adeguata rappresentazione e un management efficace. “Percorsi della memoria” è il titolo del progetto di valorizzazione storico-culturale promosso nel 2006 dall’Istituto di Storia sociale e religiosa di Gorizia (ISSR): un’estesa indagine volta al reperimento di materiale fotografico d’interesse e un’accurata opera di catalogazione hanno consentito di mettere insieme un significativo archivio digitale, corredato da una ricca base di dati descrittiva. Questo studio dopo aver affrontato alcune questioni teoriche e metodologiche riguardanti l’indicizzazione dell’immagine, illustra in dettaglio gli aspetti teorici, metodologici e operativi dei componenti dell’interfaccia.
Musei performativi e nuove indicizzazioni, questa è cultura 2.0
La vita contemporanea sta vivendo una diffusione sempre più profonda e capillare del web e delle nuove tecnologie digitali. Questi strumenti stanno progressivamente andando a integrare e ridefinire un’ampia gamma di esperienze umane e lo stesso settore culturale può dirsi investito dalla loro diffusione, che ne ha più volte fatto il banco di prova per la sperimentazione di applicazioni differenti. In questo contesto, sono molti i versanti in cui le nuove tecnologie digitali possono intervenire: dall’ampliamento dell’accesso alle informazioni e ai contenuti artistici e culturali all’apprendimento, dalla fornitura di nuovi strumenti per sviluppare la propria creatività alla costruzione di esperienze fruitive innovative e coinvolgenti. La fruizione e la documentazione finalizzata alla ricerca e alla conoscenza costituiscono due campi di grande interesse per la sperimentazione di nuovi paradigmi digitali e l’applicazione degli strumenti tecnologici di ultima generazione. Le potenzialità di migliorare l’esperienza dell’utente su entrambi i versanti, infatti, sono notevoli. Gli articoli di Vanessa Michielon e di Andrea Cuna propongono una lettura di questi due orizzonti, portando alla luce trend emergenti ed esigenze reali.
Tafterjournal n. 60 - giugno 2013
Qualità di vita e orizzonti culturali della Terraferma veneziana
La Terraferma veneziana, negli ultimi decenni, è stata protagonista di numerosi investimenti in riqualificazione, volti a ridisegnarne l’assetto architettonico, urbanistico, ambientale e culturale. Ancora una volta, la cultura è riuscita a farsi strada fra i programmi elaborati dai pianificatori ed è stata posta al centro di specifici interventi. L’indagine pilota “Qualità di vita e orizzonti culturali della Terraferma veneziana”, al centro del presente contributo, nasce con la volontà di esplorare la percezione locale di una serie di fenomeni.
Smart Parma, o no?
Parma si differenzia dalle altre province della Regione Emilia – Romagna per la tradizione dovuta ai fasti del Ducato, per le scelte politiche e per un’identità elitaria che caratterizza anche il suo “capitale culturale”. Nel 2012 è stato reso pubblico il debito di quasi un miliardo di Euro accumulato dal Comune, mettendo in luce che la città viveva come non si poteva permettere. In momenti come questi la valutazione delle risorse in termini di opere d’arte tangibili e tradizioni condivise immateriali è fondamentale per cercare di ristabilizzare un assestamento economico e culturale.
Città e “capitale culturale”
Nella ricerca del maggior e miglior benessere per una società, obiettivo che la scienza economica si pone esplicitamente, pur proponendo ricette dall’altalenante successo, emerge oggi un ruolo importante per la cultura. Si affaccia l’idea che, nell’impegno a trovare altri parametri da affiancare al tradizionale prodotto interno lordo (PIL) per misurare oltre al benessere materiale anche quello immateriale, si possa utilmente includere il riferimento al “capitale culturale”. Questo concetto è stato introdotto nella letteratura economica da David Throsby nel 2001 per mettere in luce come la cultura svolga un ruolo importante per uno sviluppo socio-economico qualitativamente superiore di un territorio, area vasta, circoscritta o centro urbano che sia. Nel capitale culturale coesistono la dimensione tangibile della cultura, composta da opere d’arte, manufatti artistici, musei, monumenti ed edifici di valore artistico e architettonico, per la quale il valore di asset è piuttosto evidente, e quella intangibile derivante dall’insieme delle idee degli atteggiamenti, simboli, credenze, usi e costumi, valori e tradizioni comuni o condivisi di una società o di un gruppo a essa appartenente
Tafterjournal n. 59 - maggio 2013
La cultura per una crescita intelligente, sostenibile e solidale. Verso un uso strategico dei Fondi Strutturali 2014-2020 per la cultura
La cultura è al centro della sfera economica e politica del progetto europeo. Da un lato, la cultura produce ricchezza; dall’altro è anche fonte di creatività e innovazione, che favorisce il dialogo e la coesione sociale, nonché la trasmissione di valori di interesse comune. Oggi più che mai, la rinascita dell’Europa passa dalla cultura. È senz’altro necessario ridare nuovo slancio all’economia, ma lo sviluppo senza coesione sociale rischia di essere fallimentare nel lungo periodo. Solo la cultura può aiutare i cittadini europei a riguadagnare fiducia nell’UE e a ricostruire un senso di appartenenza fondato su valori comuni.
Capitale sociale, imprenditorialità locale e governance territoriale: il circuito turistico Cortes Apertas/Autunno in Barbagia come politica di sviluppo locale
Il contributo difende la validità dello sviluppo locale, paradigma che riconosce anche alle aree marginali la possibilità di realizzare percorsi di sviluppo virtuoso radicati nel territorio e integrati in circuiti globali. Per conseguire tale obiettivo, a partire da un caso di studio realizzato in Sardegna, appare cruciale che gli orizzonti di azione degli attori socio-economici coinvolti nelle politiche di sviluppo locale si allunghino e si amplino, per consentire l’attivazione di processi di apprendimento collettivo che informino l’intero sistema locale.
La cultura merita i fondi pubblici?
Il rapporto tra attività culturali e fondi pubblici è oggetto di un interminabile tormentone. Come sempre, le schiere si assestano su fronti opposti e per atterrire gli avversari adottano argomenti da giorno del giudizio. L’aggettivo più usato è ‘giusto’, che dovrebbe trovare poca cittadinanza in un sistema permeato da libertà espressiva, intuizione progettuale, ricchezza relazionale. Ma, ahimé, fin quando lo spettro di Benedetto Croce continua ad aleggiare sulle cose culturali italiane (e magari anche europee) finiamo per volgere una questione tecnica in un dilemma etico. Esplorando la variegata casistica dei progetti culturali realizzati con una combinazione variabile di entrate proprie ed entrate derivate, per lo più di fonte pubblica, si cominciano a vedere le coordinate di percorsi non necessariamente lineari, e spesso fragili nell’impianto logico. La sovrabbondanza di fondi pubblici a tutti i livelli di governo (partendo da quello dell’Unione Europea e finendo su quello municipale) è stata negli anni controbilanciata dall’ossessione tutta bizantina di emettere bandi erga omnes, in modo da schivare l’accusa di intelligenza con il nemico. L’effetto è stato quello di sovrapporre e contrapporre la mappa delle formalità alla mappa delle azioni concrete, lasciando convivere serenamente protocolli asettici e negoziati opachi, sportelli carichi di timbri con lo stellone e corridoi intasati di relazioni ammiccanti e accordi compiacenti.
Tafterjournal n. 58 - aprile 2013
The Cranach syndrome. Calls for private donations for museums’ art acquisitions: new perspectives for the French Public Cultural Institutions funding?
Micro-sponsorship might become a way to develop seminal actions of culture and in particular require people to define through their financial support what makes their culture today, in other words, what should become a clear statement of their own heritage. The development of actions of the kind in many fields (not only museums but cinema or theatre) proves the relevant nature of such strategies that go way beyond financial issues. Yet, several questions must be raised that may regard in particular their chance to become efficient on a larger scale for institutions that don’t have the prestige or the strong implementation in the audiences’ minds.
From destination management to destination governance
Tourist destinations face the challenge of being characterized by a highly fragmented offer, by a complex relationship between public institutions and private enterprises and by contrasting opposed stakeholder interests. Consequently, destination planning and management become a difficult process and destination development strategies regularly experience considerable obstacles during their implementation. This paper intends to investigate the concept of ‘destination governance’ in tourism literature and how the related innovation in management models perspective could help destinations to maintain their position in the competitive travel market. The case study of a Swiss Alpine destination (Bosco Gurin), developed by Padurean in 2010, would provide empirical evidence to the governance literature analysis.
Il dialogo che ci può salvare
Il coinvolgimento dei cittadini nella conservazione e valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale e la creazione e gestione di un’offerta turistica adeguata alle esigenze di una domanda evoluta, e a un mercato sempre più competitivo, sono argomenti sui quali si è posta frequentemente l’attenzione, come elementi combinati di una medesima opzione strategica, finalizzata a sviluppare nel nostro paese forme di crescita economica sostenibile, diffusa e duratura. Per elaborare una strategia, bisogna, però, conoscere gli elementi e le dinamiche in gioco e saper vedere in prospettiva. Per conoscere bisogna studiare e per vedere in prospettiva si deve essere capaci di elevare lo sguardo oltre il nostro, limitato orizzonte. Di entrambi questi approcci sono orfane le nostre istituzioni che governano il paese tutto, nonché quelle preposte al governo della cultura e dell’industria turistica, ma, dal momento che la speranza è l’ultima a morire, non è detto che prima o poi qualcuno non possa accorgersi che si può intervenire, positivamente ed efficacemente, in tal senso.
Tafterjournal n. 57 - marzo 2013
Future Trends in Cultural Diplomacy
The aim of this paper is to show how Cultural Diplomacy can take shape in the future, in a much wider extent than what we see today. Using the case study of the Deutsche Bank, this paper will refer to a broadening use of Corporate Social Responsibility in order to include cultural promotion in societies. Corporate Cultural Diplomacy-actions have to be considered as preventive and long-term investments will provide a win-win outcome for both societies as well as businesses. This paper will state the concrete benefits for enterprises to engage in Corporate Cultural Diplomacy, using Deutsche Bank as a concrete example of how Corporate Social Responsibility might develop and take shape in the future to come.
La sostenibilità culturale nei processi di trasformazione delle città storiche di pregio
Il patrimonio culturale in tutte le sue espressioni è considerato un particolare ambito produttivo, ma allo stesso tempo è anche un capitale da preservare, poiché rappresenta e custodisce i valori di un determinato territorio e dei suoi abitanti. Parlare di sostenibilità culturale e di conservazione sostenibile, significa affrontare queste questioni; nel caso specifico delle città storiche di pregio, risorse non riproducibili che esercitano forti attrattive, il rischio di subire alterazioni legate alla perdita di autenticità e identità dei luoghi è alto.
The Cultural Dimension of Sustainability
It is time to find new ways of injecting culture into business strategy. Economic downturn is quickly spreading across the big Western democracies because of an interconnected and global production system, causing a negative impact in terms of growth, employment and social cohesion. The recent financial crisis also brings to light the structural limits of a development model based on the anachronistic equation between richness and well-being. In the contemporary economic system, companies have to face a huge variety of challenges: competitiveness, innovation, sustainable development, and social and environmental responsibilities in order to survive in a global market. According to the so-called “happiness paradox” and paraphrasing a famous expression, the right answer to the recent economic and financial crisis cannot be “production for production’s sake.” In a world overstocked with goods, we need to reverse our lens and start exploring and explaining the power of culture to business.
Tafterjournal n. 56 - febbraio 2013
Quale musica per quali giovani?
Se ci capitasse di chiedere a un ragazzo italiano quale musica ascolta, la risposta molto probabilmente ricadrebbe su generi quali pop, rock, rap, hip-hop, ecc. e molto difficilmente ci verrebbe risposto “ascolto la musica classica”. Che l’ascolto della musica sia una delle attività più svolte dai ragazzi durante il tempo libero è un punto su cui concordano studi sia in ambito sociologico che musicale. Ma quale genere ascoltano e perché?
Arte e infanzia. L’importanza dell’arte nello sviluppo del bambino
Arte e creatività svolgono un ruolo fondamentale nell’ambito dell’evoluzione infantile, tuttavia, per molti versi, entrambe sembrano essere oggetto di scarso interesse da parte delle istituzioni. All’interno dei programmi educativi scolastici, le discipline artistiche appaiono infatti collocate in secondo piano rispetto alle altre e innegabilmente si continua a difendere la presunta preminenza dell’area cerebrale sinistra – quella del raziocinio – rispetto a quella destra – epicentro emozionale e creativo.
Why should we care about the arts?
Many things are disappearing from the political agenda: the emerging economic paradigm is totally ignored, as if nothing had happened in the most recent years showing the final breath of manufacturing capitalism; the new social complexities are feared, as if we could set the world’s clock back to the colonial age; the environment is considered only when it smells of business; the redistribution of roles and power in a society whose leading value is knowledge is viewed as a threat for the consolidated boxes in which individuals and groups are comfortable although mummified. In such a reluctancy against changes the arts and culture have been totally eliminated from any discussion, and almost no program takes them seriously. Many professionals still enjoy complaining about our permanent emergency: according to their oleographic view we are under siege by a horde of barbarians and nobody provides culture with adequate funds. The arts and culture still appear in the news and in the debate only when some masterpiece is overpaid in auctions, or some disaster occur. The discussion is still drawn with ethical colours, painting culture as a religion rather than a pleasure.
Tafterjournal n. 55 - gennaio 2013 - numero speciale epos
Cultura bene comune? Una riflessione retrospettiva
Che cosa vuol dire “bene comune” per i cittadini che nella cultura trovano ed elaborano la propria identità? E quali princìpi, regole e strumenti possono riuscire a proteggerne, consolidarne e diffondere il valore?
Un ecosistema per la cultura
La cultura è la risorsa che più d’ogni altra traccia il palinsesto specifico di un territorio, definendolo come reticolo di costruzione relazionale e di prossimità; essa è costituita e integrata dai processi quotidiani del fare: di avverbi più che di sostantivi, di approcci più che di contenuti.
Open culture, il rapporto possibile tra cultura e comunità
La partecipazione, già sfruttata dalla comunicazione e dal marketing, soprattutto attraverso il web 2.0, ora diventa la chiave per un deciso cambiamento sociale e culturale.
Nuove infrastrutture per la produzione culturale
The Hub è un progetto mondiale basato sul concetto di coworking. Lo dice la parola stessa: si lavora insieme, si trae spunto gli uni dagli altri, in un continuo rilancio di competenze, collaborazioni, idee, necessariamente innovative e socialmente responsabili.
Intercettare il futuro. Mappe del possibile
Trattare qualsiasi tema legato al territorio in epoca contemporanea è estremamente ambizioso e complesso. Le città in cui abitiamo diventano sempre meno afferrabili, sempre meno maneggiabili con gli strumenti e i paradigmi con i quali siamo abituati ad avere a che fare.
Immobili pubblici, beni culturali e sviluppo
Nel corso degli ultimi quindici anni sono state molteplici le iniziative dei governi italiani per valorizzare beni e aree statali sottoutilizzati e quindi generare attivi per il bilancio pubblico.
Artisti interpreti del territorio e della comunità
La professione dell’artista/creatore/produttore in questa nuova situazione assume contorni più flessibili e trasversali trovandosi al centro di relazioni sociali e istituzionali rispetto all’ormai lontana e superata visione dell’artista autonomo e indipendente.
Un distretto musicale
Il presente articolo sintetizza i risultati di una ricerca desk, condotta all’interno dell’Università IULM, sulla localizzazione spaziale in Italia delle imprese appartenenti alla filiera produttiva dell’industria musicale.
Dell’arte ribelle
E’ fondamentale che l’arte irrompa nella vita quotidiana e ne riprenda gli spazi, emancipandosi da quei luoghi di conservazione e necrosi che ne sono talvolta spazi esclusivi e deputati di fruizione per iniziati.
I nuovi volti del multi-culturalismo
L’emersione di nuovi bisogni, una delle caratteristiche peculiari della domanda di beni e servizi degli ultimi anni, risulta essere strettamente connessa alla nascita di nuove fasce di consumatori, tra cui rientrano anche le popolazioni migranti.
Valori e prassi del turismo culturale
Il turismo culturale continua il suo percorso di espansione con una sempre maggiore diversificazione della domanda; la concorrenza aumenta e anche l’offerta si specializza facendo emergere nuovi sub-mercati.
Idee culturali e nuove forme di partecipazione
Il caso Venetian Industries Festival diventa una possibile risposta a quei bisogni culturali espressi e latenti che si identificano difficilmente nell’offerta culturale prevalente nel territorio veneto.
Come scegliere un manager culturale
La nomina di Jeffery Deitch a direttore del MOCA nel giugno 2010 ha motivazioni ben precise e strettamente connesse con la città di Los Angeles e uno dei suoi personaggi più importanti: il businessman Eli Broad.
Quello che le muse non dicono
Nel 2009 quattro appassionati di musei, Giuliano Gaia e Stefania Boiano di Invisiblestudio insieme a Francesco Simone e Marco Sors, decidono di lanciare un sito web dedicato ai musei più curiosi d’Italia.
Nuovi materiali per la cultura
Il design è sempre più considerato un’attività strategica che crea valore aggiunto nella produzione industriale e che senza dubbio ha contribuito fortemente a determinare il successo dei prodotti del Made in Italy.
Un laboratorio collettivo per il nuovo design
Oggi sono molti i giovani designer italiani che tentano di fare parte attiva della pratica progettuale tentando di esprimere la propria creatività e competenza in un contesto progettuale ostico, non particolarmente attento e consapevole delle loro necessità.
Eatalians do it better
Cos’è il Made in Italy che ci invidiano all’estero? Non ci si interroga soltanto sul letteralmente “fatto” in Italia, ma più visceralmente su quel valore aggiunto che sembra nascere dalla nostra penisola.
Il futuro del libro
Stampa o file digitali, papiro o preziosi codici miniati: la rivoluzione della condivisione del sapere è sempre partita dal supporto dei contenuti e dall’accessibilità degli stessi.
Perchè vogliamo occuparci di cultura
L’intento di epos è quello di restituire al settore culturale la sua abilità di capire prima degli altri i cambiamenti in atto e di intercettare con largo anticipo le nuove tendenze che attraversano i sistemi economico, politico e sociale, perché l’intuizione di come la cultura possa innervarsi nel tessuto cognitivo quotidiano è già oltre la visione corrente. I contributi raccolti in questo numero speciale di Tafter Journal non rappresentano un tentativo poco riuscito di replicare il contenuto dei numerosi studi e rapporti che hanno già illustrato in maniera egregia e approfondita le caratteristiche e le componenti fondamentali del sistema culturale italiano. Gli articoli qui presentati non intendono restituire una misura dell’impatto del settore culturale sul tessuto nazionale, né fornire una nuova tassonomia dei beni e delle attività culturali, ma attivare – attraverso un dialogo intergenerazionale – un processo critico che conduca verso un progressivo miglioramento delle forme di governo e di gestione dei beni e delle attività culturali, circostanziando soprattutto degli interrogativi e lasciando trasparire delle possibili risposte.
Tafterjournal n. 54 - dicembre 2012
La forza lavoro creativa in Europa: un’esplorazione di tendenze territoriali e relazioni con la crescita
Sull’onda della popolarità dei lavori di Richard Florida (2002, 2005), Sharon Zukin (1995) e Anne Markusen (2006), si è andato sviluppando un discorso che ha fatto breccia a livello politico, per cui il settore creativo è considerato un asset fondamentale per il rilancio della competitività territoriale e un motore dell’inovazione tanto economica quanto sociale in senso lato. Tuttavia, se i numeri testimoniano l’importanza quantitativa del settore, pochi sono invece gli studi volti a comprendere le condizioni che ne consentono la crescita o una reale comprensione dei meccanismi di trasmissione che collegano le dinamiche del settore creativo con l’andamento delle economie regionali nel loro complesso. Il presente articolo vuole essere un contributo al necessario dibattito sulle dinamiche regionali del lavoro creativo e la relazione di questo con lo sviluppo economico.
Dalla metropoli alla periferia diffusa. Dati e dinamiche dell’insediamento degli immigrati nell’area romana
A seguito di un processo in atto almeno dalla seconda metà degli anni ’70, il territorio romano – e per estensione quello del Lazio – si colloca nel contesto nazionale tra le principali aree di immigrazione e di residenzialità di singoli e famiglie di origine immigrata. La dinamica che ha portato l’immigrazione e gli immigrati a raggiungere anche i comuni minori del nostro paese, va rintracciata all’interno di un processo ben più ampio: la progressiva espansione territoriale delle metropoli italiane da centri urbani tradizionali ad aree metropolitane, vale a dire a grandi aree costituite da un principale centro urbano di riferimento cui si legano, attraverso una fitta rete di interconnessioni, i diversi comuni limitrofi.
Evoluzione o patologia della specie?
Può l’etimologia della parola “cretino” aiutarci a proporre qualche riflessione su quanto pubblicato in questo numero della Rivista, in cui si affronta il tema delle professioni “creative” in Europa e dell’insediamento di immigrati nell’area della Capitale italiana? Partendo da una fonte primaria ormai desueta, quale il vocabolario Devoto-Oli, impariamo che il significato è quello di: “stupido, imbecille” – Che è indice di stupidità (momentanea o abituale). La stessa fonte definisce il cretinismo come una deficienza di sviluppo mentale e fisico per insufficienza della funzione tiroidea. La tiroide, infine, è una ghiandola endocrina, la cui funzione consiste nella produzione di sostanze iodate, che hanno efficacia stimolatrice su tutto l’organismo, influenzando l’accrescimento, il metabolismo, l’attività neuromuscolare, l’apparato circolatorio. Il parallelo che si vuole in questo modo evocare è quello di un corpo (in questo caso politico e sociale) come quello europeo nel suo complesso e, in particolare quello italiano, che deve porre la massima attenzione al funzionamento della propria “ghiandola endocrina”, il cui elemento chimico essenziale (iodio) può essere rappresentato dalla creatività e dall’apporto delle popolazioni migranti.
Tafterjournal n. 53 - novembre 2012
Is cultural diversity good or bad for the arts and creative economies?
Within the span of two months, September and October 2012, four arts policy-related events problematized the connections between diversity, democracy, and cultural policy. Cultural diversity has often been a convenient target for those who see it as subverting universal values in a democracy or in the arts. This is because the more culturally diverse a society is the more difficult it is to assign specific cultural (aesthetic) value to a work of art. In a climate of limited public funding, the absence of clearly defined cultural value is a problem on both sides of the North Atlantic. The challenge facing arts policy-makers is to come up with innovative ways to “make the case” for cultural value in order to turn policy discussions away from a “values for money” debate toward “money for values.”
La cultura dei bambini
Tra i pilastri dell’economia della cultura vi sono le teorie dell’addiction e dell’exposure: la cultura, come una droga, crea dipendenza, assuefazione e, più se ne consuma, più se ne consumerebbe. Non solo, man mano che cresce la quantità consumata, il gusto si affina e il fruitore, sempre più esperto, diventa anche produttore del proprio piacere culturale, una specie di prosumer antesignano di quello fabrisiano. Se tutto questo è vero, come sembrerebbe a livello empirico e come in ogni caso viene insegnato all’inizio di ogni corso universitario di economia dell’arte o della cultura, viene da chiedersi come mai ci si sia concentrati così poco sui consumi culturali dei bambini. Non, genericamente, dei giovani, non dei ragazzi, ma degli esseri umani da 0 a 6 anni, quelli in età prescolare.
Diversità e senso critico
La diversità, anche culturale, è intrinseca all’essere umano. Non è da confondersi però con il bisogno di appartenenza, che può diventare identità e che si declina in modi diversi – nazionale, tribale, religiosa, sportiva, ecc. -, e che, a sua volta, non deve neanche confondersi con la nazionalità o la cittadinanza, cioè quell’appartenere a una entità territoriale, lo Stato moderno per esempio, che conferisce a una persona la qualità di cittadino, con diritti e doveri. La diversità è sempre esistita; com’è sempre esistito, in eterna dicotomia con essa, il bisogno di appartenenza. L’esempio forse più “moderno” nel nostro mondo occidentale di risoluzione di tale dicotomia è il mondo romano: non vi è, forse, esempio di maggiore tolleranza per la diversità in tutte le sue forme pur nel riconoscimento di un’appartenenza ad un’entità collettiva. Il bisogno che oggi si sente, prepotente, di teorizzare sulla diversità anche culturale e sulla necessità che le politiche pubbliche la riconoscano o la integrino, potrebbe quindi quasi sembrare alle volte un teorico esercizio di stile.
Tafterjournal n. 52 - ottobre 2012
Monitoraggio e controllo della gestione dei siti UNESCO. Il piano di gestione come opportunità mancata?
Questo articolo presenta un quadro dell’attuale situazione nazionale dei sistemi di gestione dei siti UNESCO dichiarati “patrimonio mondiale dell’umanità”. L’Italia, il paese più rappresentato nella lista, si trova al momento ad affrontare una difficile crisi economica, che coinvolge anche i sistemi di gestione del proprio patrimonio culturale. Si ritiene che sia necessario far fronte alle difficoltà attuali con lo sviluppo di maggiore cultura manageriale e l’utilizzo più consapevole degli strumenti propri delle discipline economico-aziendali. Questi elementi vanno riscoperti in particolare per la realizzazione e l’attuazione di strumenti volti al monitoraggio e al controllo dei risultati ottenuti; fra questi strumenti emerge in particolare il piano di gestione dei siti UNESCO, che nella sua prima fase di applicazione non sembra aver ancora sviluppato tutto il suo possibile potenziale.
Mobile technologies: new ways to access tourism, culture and cities
The use of mobile devices and related technologies offers a great opportunity for cultural institutions to enhance and support visitors’ experience. Smartphones and tablets allow users to access contents ubiquitously using high-performance computing, embedded tools, fast wireless connectivity, and wider touchscreens, providing several novel solutions to engage visitors in a deeper level of interactivity and social networking.
Quale olio per la cultura?
A causa della crisi economica che serra non solo l’Italia ma anche molti dei paesi europei e non, e che ha portato e porterà a ridurre drasticamente le risorse destinate al sistema culturale è necessario, oggi più che mai, acuire l’ingegno e cercare di far fruttare al meglio ciò che si ha a disposizione. Per questo motivo è di fondamentale importanza adottare e saper utilizzare strumenti e strategie efficienti ed efficaci per favorire un profondo sviluppo economico, sociale e culturale dei territori e patrimoni italiani. Un elemento che, se non impedisce, sicuramente ostacola questo obiettivo è il ruolo spesso troppo superficiale degli economisti, tenuti lontano da una italianissima diffidenza dei conservatori e dirigenti della cultura nei confronti degli strumenti e delle metodologie proprie dei processi economico-aziendali.
Tafterjournal n. 51 - settembre 2012
Custodire, condividere, partecipare il futuro
L’Europa è un continente che invecchia rapidamente. In prospettiva, guardando verso il 2020, è possibile mettere in campo nuovi indirizzi e nuove idee per una migliore qualità della vita degli anziani e per un patto reale di solidarietà tra le generazioni, nell’interesse di tutti: queste sono le basi programmatiche dell’intervento che sarà sviluppato dall’Unione Europea. In quest’ottica il 2012 è l’anno dedicato alla diffusione della conoscenza di queste tematiche e allo sviluppo di un nuovo approccio culturale che dovrà orientare scelte e investimenti; proviamo ad approfondire per valutare la portata delle innovazioni che potremmo avere di fronte.
Filiera dell’industria musicale e nuovi modelli di business in Italia
Il settore della musica è sempre stato identificato con il più ristretto mercato discografico, seppure molte altre attività economiche ne facciano pienamente parte, in quanto senza la musica non esisterebbero o non avrebbero lo stesso valore. Attraverso un modello che ne ricostruisce l’intera filiera produttiva, questo studio presenta un’analisi empirica dell’industria musicale italiana da un punto di vista più ampio rispetto alle analisi tradizionali. Produttori di strumenti musicali, scuole di musica, autori, compositori, case discografiche, editori, distributori, società di raccolta dei diritti, organizzatori di concerti, discoteche, produttori di elettronica di consumo audio, sono alcuni dei suoi attori più importanti. Ad ognuno corrisponde un comparto di cui è stato calcolato il valore economico negli anni 2008 e 2009 in Italia. Il risultato finale è la quantificazione del valore economico complessivo dell’intera filiera italiana, l’analisi dei trend in atto nel mercato e dei modelli di business emergenti delle case discografiche.
Emerging Culture: Weak Labels vs. Strong Views
For many years culture has been too slow: static, self-celebrating, devoted to a club of presumed cultivated individuals; the convention used to consider culture as the source of spiritual value, therefore objective and eternal. Slow culture cannot evolve. Recently what we define culture has become too fast: spectacular, superficial, devoted to mass-tourists prepared to buy nights in hotels and meals in restaurants. Fast culture cares about income. In both cases labels count quite a lot; it is a matter of communication, either selective as before or ecumenical as after. Culture has been no more than a list of objects and facts, whose inclusion in the magic set strongly depended upon the ritual presence of such i-tems into museums, theatres and sites: the container gave power to the contents. This ended up to freeze culture as a homogeneous system, and to drain the audience into a cloned mass. Mummified culture was useful for its disneysation too, aiming its comfortable homogeneity at the attraction of a wider audience and at making some money.
Tafterjournal n. 50 - agosto 2012 - numero speciale
Le catastrofi naturali non esistono
Da sempre la domanda è la stessa: perché si torna a vivere dove il terremoto scuote la terra, dove il vulcano erutta o lo tsunami si gonfia? La risposta non è così semplice e va data inquadrandola nella sua prospettiva storica.
Territori fragili. La cura come pratica di progetto
Il nostro è un territorio fragile perché lavoriamo sempre, e male, in un’ottica di emergenza, realizzando sistemi di difesa al posto di interventi strutturali.
Projects for the regeneration of places and communities: the Japanese experience
The disaster in the Great East Japan in 2011 has brought the country several problems in its reconstruction, such as defining how to structure provisional housing, how to recover the regional economy, and how and where to settle the new villages and towns. If recovery takes longer, however, Japan could face a more complex situation as it might not only suffer economically, but also lose opportunities for younger generations. As the country attempts to redevelop communities and the local economy, a wide variety of novel ideas proposed by architects and urban planners are now being examined.
The role of communities in post-disaster reconstruction. A call for owner-driven approaches
In this paper I argue that community participation in reconstruction remains little more than a slogan as long as decision-making power and control over resources remains with the reconstruction agency. Only if and when people have control over the building process and over the required resources, the process may be considered as truly participatory and empowering.
A tale of three cities and three earthquake disasters
The purpose of this article is to present the results of a brief analysis of the short and medium-term aftermaths of three earthquakes that have occurred in different parts of the world: at L’Aquila, central Italy, on April 6 2009; at Padang, Indonesia, on September 30 2009; and at Christchurch, New Zealand, on September 4 2009 and February 22 2011 (these will be considered as two events, but as one disaster).
Le Cinque Terre: piano integrato di ricostruzione economica e sociale
I drammatici eventi alluvionali che hanno così duramente colpito i borghi di Vernazza e Monterosso al Mare nelle Cinque Terre, impongono l’attuazione di un piano di rinascita che sia capace da un lato, di rispondere ai bisogni contingenti della Comunità locale e, dall’altro, di cogliere l’unicità del momento per attivare un modello d’innovazione e di sviluppo sostenibile e partecipato.
Restaurare e ricostruire: problematiche del dopo-sisma aquilano
La mancanza di un indirizzo omogeneo caratterizza metodo, dinamiche e responsabilità dell’attività post-sismica in Italia, quasi che non esistano problematiche ricorrenti, di carattere sociale, economico-finanziario, gestionale, tecnico-operativo.
L’eccezionale rinascita delle città del Val di Noto dopo il terremoto del 1693. Un caso unico a livello europeo
In seguito al terremoto del 1693, uno dei più devastanti che la Sicilia abbia conosciuto nel corso dei secoli, il Val di Noto è oggetto di un fenomeno di ricostruzione senza precedenti.
Il costruito italiano: tipologie, problematiche, interventi pre e post sisma
La sicurezza sismica degli edifici non può prescindere dalla conoscenza dei luoghi in cui questi sono inseriti e dalla storia e tradizioni che hanno determinato tecniche costruttive, modalità di realizzazioni, modificazioni spazio-temporali. Il costruito italiano, soprattutto nei piccoli centri, ha peculiarità fondanti non solo della identità architettonico-culturale ma anche di quella costruttiva. Il presente paper vuole evidenziare alcuni aspetti fondamentali delle problematiche legate alla prevenzione e alla ri-costruzione che possono essere di guida per affrontare la progettazione con perizia tecnica e rispetto.
Emergenza e prevenzione
Le emergenze in Italia sono numerose e possono dipendere dalla neve o dalla pioggia, dalle frane o dai terremoti. “Emergenza” ha anche il significato di “circostanza imprevista” ma gli eventi di natura emergenziale in Italia non sono mai imprevisti.
KIZUNA, uniting people
Il Centro di ricerca Fo.Cu.S , Sapienza, Università di Roma ha organizzato il convegno “Ri-costruzioni” con l’obiettivo di evidenziare come gran parte del patrimonio storico italiano (in particolare quello dei piccoli centri storici) sia aggredito, ormai da anni, da eventi calamitosi che portano alla sua distruzione fisica e al connesso spaesamento delle comunità. Questo numero speciale di Tafter Journal raccoglie i paper presentati in occasione del convegno, che ha inteso affrontare l’argomento ad ampio spettro, sia dal punto di vista dei diversi tipi di disastri che provocano distruzioni e trasformazioni del territorio, quasi sempre irreversibili, sia dal punto di vista delle comunità coinvolte. La partecipazione di studiosi ed esperti di livello internazionale è finalizzata a guardare da angolazioni diverse, connesse alla specificità dei paesi, lo stesso problema: il disastro territoriale, la perdita della casa, lo spaesamento nei territori distrutti e la difficoltà di ricostruzione fisica e sociale, la scala territorialmente appropriata della ricostruzione.
Tafterjournal n. 49 - luglio 2012
Developing a museum brand to enhance awareness and secure financial stability
Facing severe budget cuts, fierce competition, and being compelled to demonstrate their worth in terms of current policy to maintain ongoing funding, museums are now appraised by the experiences and benefits they generate as much as by the collections and exhibitions they display. Branding strategies, often seen in the for-profit sphere, are now also been undertaken by cutting-edge museums, recognising these as critical tools so as to enhance awareness, develop brand-customer relationships, and guarantee financial stability through continuous support and secondary revenue streams.
Measuring the economic impact of CCIs policies
The proposed benchmarking raster is a tool aimed at assessing the creative potential of cities and regions and selecting the best policy measures to support the sector. It should be used by local and regional actors to show decision-makers the importance and value of CCIs for local economic development and support the design of evidence-based policies. Its ultimate purpose would be to help cities and regions to establish “smart specialisation strategies” focused on CCIs’ growth potential and access the new generation of EU regional funds.
The Sacred and the Vulgar
Last month Richard Florida released a new edition of his famously controversial book, “The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited”. Now that the business world is interested in creativity, the new edition could, potentially, outsell the first edition many times over. The recent popularity of creativity may come as a relief to some. Those that have been tirelessly advocating for the arts’ place in education can now more easily connect arts education to preparedness for entering the workforce. Cultural economists also benefit as more cities want metrics to prove the cultural vibrancy of their community. This edition of the Journal includes an article by Valentina Montalto, in which she describes new efforts to quantify the impact of creative industries and, importantly, the effects of policy; and an article by Julia Ferreira de Abreu, in which she describes steps an institution can take to become an integrated member of its community.
Tafterjournal n. 48 - giugno 2012
A practitioner’s viewpoint in integrated Place Branding: four principles and some thoughts
This article tries to bridge the gap between place branding theory and practice. It takes the viewpoint of the practitioner and juxtaposes recent literature with work experience. It focuses on four basic principles underpinning a consultant’s work in place branding: 1) Consultant and client should take time to agree on their understanding of place branding and on what they can expect from it; 2) the motivation behind place branding needs to be as transparent as possible; 3) consultant and client need to find a compromise between the need for fast visible results and a robust analysis that pays tribute to the complex and political nature of place; and 4) a place branding strategy needs the involvement of a broad range of stakeholders and the formation of strong partnerships.
Il crowdfunding: tra autoproduzione e social commerce, storia dello strumento che potrebbe cambiare le regole del fare impresa
Crowdfunding, una parola che ne contiene molte altre: crescita, idee, racconto, confronto, progetti, cultura, rete, innovazione, socialità, finanziamento. Analizzare la genesi del fenomeno serve a comprendere come si sia trasformato, nell’arco di soli due anni, nella promessa più concreta di supporto e crescita per progetti creativi di tutti i tipi. E come, grazie anche alla legislazione del governo americano, possa ora diventare uno strumento di innovazione economica e sociale per superare la crisi.
A cultural elsewhere
Many things are occurring in the cultural system. While scholars try to understand the features of the emerging paradigm, in the real world things simply happen: maybe the problems are quite the same as before, but the needs are certainly evolving. Culture is becoming central in the approach of so many individuals and groups and we can observe that, despite the frequent complaints generated by a fearful and static view, there is a shared perception of the unique and multi-dimensional impact of culture upon welfare and happiness. Rather than emphasizing the symbolic value of phenomena, the prevailing value is their actual ability to face and possibly solve problems. The articles on place branding by Ares Kalandides, and on crowdfunding by Chiara Spinelli address specific issues connected by a common orientation: a new conception of time and space needed to craft the emerging identity of contemporary society.
Tafterjournal n. 47 - maggio 2012
Gioconda 2.0: politiche per l’accesso e l’uso delle immagini di beni culturali in pubblico dominio
La digitalizzazione delle immagini e la rete internet offrono oggi nuove opportunità attraverso soluzioni tecniche innovative, che possono ampliare fortemente l’accesso e soprattutto l’uso e il riuso dei contenuti digitali delle collezioni museali. Questo articolo offre una panoramica sui nuovi modelli di accesso e riuso delle immagini digitalizzate dei beni culturali in pubblico dominio, proponendo alcune politiche per la valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale nell’era digitale.
Passeggiate-racconto al museo, un approccio ludico all’arte
La mediazione culturale cerca di convincere i pubblici restii ad entrare nei musei d’arte a praticare tale tipo di attività. Negli ultimi sette-otto anni, il racconto è diventato una delle attività che riesce meglio di altre ad attirare i visitatori che frequentano raramente i musei, o a rinnovare il piacere di coloro che ci vengono regolarmente. Nessun segreto, la relazione tra racconto e arte è una storia d’amore antica come il mondo; le visite-spettacolo nei musei permettono di riascoltare le storie e riscoprire l’arte.
Godere e diffondere conoscenza e amore per il patrimonio culturale
Evocando un sagace slogan di qualche tempo fa del sempre benemerito FAI (Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano), che recitava più o meno così: “conservi ciò che ami, ami ciò che conosci”, si può dire che conoscenza, ri-conoscenza e affetto verso le proprie memorie sono alla base della catena del valore, che porta a conservare e tutelare beni spesso oggettivamente “inutili”, se visti con l’ottica dei frenetici ritmi e degli spietati canoni di un’esistenza come la nostra, votata al consumismo più esasperato. Un telefonino o un elettrodomestico rotto, oggi, non si ripara, si butta … (e se ne compra un altro!). Come si può essere legati, in famiglia, ad un oggetto di nessun valore, ma che è appartenuto ed è stato usato da un parente la cui memoria è cara, o autorevolmente riconosciuta, o riferibile a contesti storici che hanno contraddistinto epoche più o meno recenti, così si dovrebbe fare per il nostro patrimonio storico-culturale, avendone in primo luogo contezza dell’esistenza e, in secondo luogo, sapendogli attribuire valore.
Tafterjournal n. 46 - aprile 2012
Arte migrante a Milano e Provincia: le reti come strumento d’integrazione e come sfida per rilanciare il sistema dell’arte contemporanea milanese
Questo articolo intende presentare la nuova realtà dell’arte migrante a Milano e Provincia, fenomeno manifestatosi a partire dagli anni Settanta del secolo scorso, per illustrarne problematiche e potenzialità. Dopo aver definito i concetti di “arte straniera” e “arte migrante”, verranno delineate le criticità dell’associazione La Casa delle Culture del Mondo, istituzione artistico-culturale fondata a Milano nel 2009, e del futuro progetto La Città delle Culture, mettendole a confronto con realtà europee virtuose quali la Werkstatt der Kulturen di Berlino. Saranno quindi esposte le motivazioni storiche, politiche, sociali e sociologiche che ostacolano l’inserimento degli artisti migranti nel sistema dell’arte contemporanea milanese; il tutto verrà supportato da testimonianze rilevate attraverso interviste qualitative realizzate con gli stessi artisti. Le reti, contrariamente al sistema istituzionale, verranno infine indicate sia come potenziale strumento di integrazione, sia come fattore per rilanciare la competitività internazionale dell’arte contemporanea milanese.
Città polifoniche. Visualizzazione di User Generated Content geo-localizzati a supporto della comprensione dei fenomeni urbani
In un mondo sempre più denso di informazioni, che si riempie di sensori e di tracce digitali; in città i cui spazi, flussi, persone e dati si intrecciano quotidianamente, come osservare, interpretare e restituire le dinamiche intangibili che circondano e pervadono quelle fisiche? Città polifoniche esplora le potenzialità di utilizzare l’analisi e la restituzione visiva di User Generated Contented geo-localizzati, ovvero delle informazioni digitali condivise dai cittadini e legate a luoghi specifici, come strumento per individuare relazioni significative tra spazi urbanii, usi, e percezioni, a supporto della reale comprensione dei fenomeni urbani contemporanei. Dopo una sistematica ricognizione dello stato dell’arte in materia e l’analisi dei casi studio più interessanti, si introdurranno due progetti di ricerca in corso: Maps of Babel e Visualizing the Crisis, e si analizzerà in particolare il ruolo della visualizzazione dinamica dei dati come strumento in grado non solo di fornire molteplici viste sui fenomeni urbani complessi, ma di includere un livello analitico ed interpretativo dei dati stessi. Si individueranno inoltre diversi scenari per possibili applicazioni virtuose dei metodi e delle techiche presentati, in termini di supporto a processi di decision making e pianificazione strategica alla scala del territorio.
Il mondo secondo Gauss: geo-localizzazione e riferimenti del territorio
Due temi, connessi alle infrastrutture sensoriali delle città, ci riconducono alla considerazione dell’importanza dei riferimenti su cui poggiano le rappresentazioni della realtà in cui viviamo. In una smart city, entità ancora non ben definita, ma fortemente percepita, voluta, promossa e analizzata negli ambienti della neo-geography, ma anche in via di commercializzazione da parte di alcune realtà industriali, si integra l’espressione artistica “migrante”, derivata dai flussi degli artisti d’Oltre-Europa, spesso difficilmente geo-localizzati e dispersi in spazi cittadini non consoni alle loro attività. Si rappresenta l’aspetto “polifonico” delle città utilizzando tecnologie geografiche per raffigurare particolari aspetti dell’umanità in sistemi di mappe pluridimensionali condivise, come ad esempio le Maps of Babel, che mirano a individuare schemi e modelli di comportamento alla scala urbana delle diverse etnìe che la abitano.
Tafterjournal n. 45 - marzo 2012
Torino aka la paura di diventare grandi
Questo articolo, attraverso un breve e personale excursus storico-sociale e un paio di case studies, che hanno dimostrato la capacità innovativa di ripensare lo spazio urbano e le relazioni tra cittadini, tenta di dare una lettura della situazione e dei possibili scenari futuri dello sviluppo della città, basandosi su un’analisi dei fenomeni socio-culturali provenienti dagli ambienti non istituzionali e che, a mio parere, hanno dato alla città una precisa impronta da seguire per uscire dalla crisi in cui si trova.
Pubblico e privato nella gestione museale: Italia e Francia a confronto
Il panorama culturale europeo negli ultimi anni si è trovato ad affrontare una serie di problematiche di carattere economico-finanziario che, per quanto riguarda in particolare l’ambito museale, ha visto i paesi reagire tramite la ricerca di soluzioni differenti ma identiche nella comune tendenza a individuare forme di gestione che consentano una maggiore autonomia dall’apparato pubblico, tanto nella gestione organizzativa che finanziaria. Le leggi del mercato e del marketing, pervadendo anche il settore culturale, hanno imposto un ampio ricorso a strumenti di diritto privato e a forme giuridiche flessibili. Proprio da qui nasce la comune istanza di modernizzazione dei musei, fondata sulla ricerca di strumenti di gestione ibridi, capaci di contemperare gli interessi dei diversi attori che gravitano intorno al settore culturale.
Sistemi generatori e organizzatori di cultura
Quali sono i sistemi generatori e organizzatori di cultura: questa è la domanda alla base dei due contributi, l’uno di Valeria Dell’Aquila, l’altro di Fabiana Lanfranconi, che suscitano riflessioni e spunti diversi ma interessanti. Il primo dei due contributi assume una prospettiva spesso trascurata, analizzando la spinta propulsiva “dal basso” o, se si preferisce, spontanea, in termini di iniziative ed eventi culturali. Il pretesto per approfondire il tema è la città di Torino e le sue politiche culturali degli ultimi anni che ne hanno cambiato pelle, favorendone la trasformazione da città industriale a luogo delle culture. Il secondo ha in comune con il primo il problema della governance culturale, sebbene con una prospettiva in questo caso pienamente istituzionale, inserendosi in un dibattito, oramai ricco e articolato, sul modello delle Fondazioni di Partecipazione come possibile sintesi tra settore pubblico e privato nel campo della gestione museale.
Tafterjournal n. 44 - febbraio 2012
Culture di paesi terzi: le biblioteche di Timbuctù e la luce del Sahara. Un caso studio
Africa. Il contente della tradizione orale ha nascosto nelle sabbie del Sahara un tesoro inestimabile. I manoscritti in lingua araba di Timbuctù sono testimoni di una cultura scritta che ha animato questa zona del Sahel in epoca medioevale. I proprietari dei fondi lanciano la sfida: conservare e valorizzare il patrimonio documentale e rilanciare economicamente la città. Può la cultura funzionare come dispositivo di sviluppo economico in un paese del terzo mondo?
La ricerca di autenticità nel processo di visita museale
In un periodo in cui la crisi economica e lo spaesamento della politica non sono in grado di assicurare alla popolazione gli standard di vita a cui è stata abituata e in cui è pressante la necessità di ridisegnare modelli di sistema, diventa importante concentrarsi su ciò che costituisce valore. In ambito museale, e applicato all’idea di Cultura, il concetto di valore si presta a molte interpretazioni: valore etico e sociale, valore educativo, estetico o “ricreativo”; non ultimo valore economico: i cespiti e gli asset tangibili e intangibili del Museo, la creazione di un mercato della domanda e dell’offerta di Cultura che generi introiti diretti e indotti. È in questo contesto che riprende forza e importanza il concetto di autenticità che si associa strettamente a quello di valore e che, anch’esso, nel contesto museale si può declinare in varie e differenti accezioni.
Non è un museo per tutti
La definizione ICOM di museo, elaborata durante l’Assemblea Generale di Seul, ormai risalente al 2004, fa emergere chiaramente le due funzioni primarie dell’istituzione: quella di conservare manufatti, oggetti, opere e quella di trasmettere cultura e diletto. Dalla definizione emerge anche la stretta connessione del museo con il tessuto sociale, trattandosi di un’istituzione al servizio della società e del suo sviluppo. Proprio da tale scopo essenziale consegue il grande problema dell’istituzione museale: le grandi trasformazioni economiche e valoriali che caratterizzano gli ultimi anni impongono al museo di definire la propria identità, non più come fluttuante e autoreferenziale, ma come qualcosa che “si fa carne” e diventa brand. Seppure molti ancora mostrino delle forti resistenze al riconoscimento dell’opportunità di un connubio tra management e cultura, in una relazione di continuo interscambio di elementi positivi tra questi due mondi apparentemente lontani, la questione della brand personality vanta già esempi di successo di pubblico formidabili, dimostrando come il museo possa comunicare perfettamente e in modo immediato la propria identità fatta di passato, presente e proiezione futura.
Tafterjournal n. 43 - gennaio 2012
Le potenzialità della valutazione nel rapporto impresa-cultura: riflessioni sullo stato dell’arte in Italia
La contrazione subita dai finanziamenti per la cultura in Italia ha sollevato, tra il 2008 e il 2011, un interessante dibattito sul rapporto impresa-cultura mettendo in rilievo l’urgenza di porre mano ai problemi che da tempo lo contraddistinguono. Una delle misure proposte consiste nel promuovere il ricorso alla valutazione ovvero ad una analisi che permetta di cogliere la rete di valore tessuta dall’intrecciarsi del rapporto tra questi due attori. Il contributo propone una riflessione sul ruolo della valutazione accostando la “voce” della letteratura e quella delle imprese italiane allo scopo di mettere in luce le sue potenzialità con particolare riferimento all’attuale contesto nazionale.
Place Branding and Place Identity. An integrated approach
Place Branding is based on a very elusive concept of place identity that needs to be re-examined. An understanding of place as simultaneously absolute, relative and relational on the one hand and as the “coexistence of difference” on the other, opens up new perspectives for this concept. Looking at the ways that place is constituted and considering its individual constitutive elements, can lead to a more dynamic understanding of place identity that would integrate mental images, materiality, institutions, practices and representations. This has deep consequences on the conceptualization and practicability of Place Branding that then needs to be reconsidered in an integrated way.
Orientamenti
Quando si parla di cultura si finisce per mettere a fuoco il concetto di identità. Sono proprio le cose (beni, attività, idee) senza identità o con elementi parziali e insufficienti a farci escludere che si tratti di cultura. Stiamo maneggiando un concetto complesso, evolutivo, che la paura e l’ignoranza legano soltanto al passato, come se l’identità dovesse essere protetta; al contrario, è la mancanza di prospettiva che taglia le ali all’identità, qualunque essa sia. Ora, anche senza addentrarci troppo nei delicati meandri del tema, si può capire quanto esso sia meritevole di attenzione se si prova a fare un elenco: la convenzione culturale vigente abbraccia cose esistenti e magari anche molto anziane, ma difficilmente si potrebbe negare la caratura culturale di “2001 Odissea nello spazio” o di “Blade Runner”, così come della world music o di altri prodotti culturali nati in laboratorio e non riferiti al passato.
Tafterjournal n. 42 - dicembre 2011 - numero speciale
Spatialisation of urban culture in a large-scale event: urban visions and the program of Tallinn 2011 European Capital of Culture
The study discusses examples from the three periods, which are represented by certain texts in the process of Tallinn becoming ECoC. Texts are included from 2005 (artistic reflections), 2008 (the city’s proposal), and 2010 (the program). Thus the paper considers mainly the visionary ideas expressed before the large-scale event in Tallinn. The visions and spatial focuses towards ECoC influenced the contexts of urban culture. I also give some examples of initiatives and actual changes of city environments that took place in the first half-year of 2011.
European Capital of Culture as a regional development tool? The case of Marseille-Provence 2013
In 2013 Marseille-Provence will hold the title European Capital of Culture (ECoC). Marseilles, the lead city in the bid, is significantly larger and poorer than the other urban districts included in the project. In common with a number of other Capital of Culture projects, most famously Glasgow in 1990 and Liverpool in 2008 (Andres 2011), one of the central premises of the proposal is that Marseilles requires the title to assist in the development of a metropolitan urban area.
Pécs2010: borderless culture?
On 19th October 2005 Pécs, one of the cities in Hungary with the greatest cultural heritage, was designated as European Capital of Culture (ECOC) for the year 2010, together with Istanbul and Essen. The following pages aim at detecting the reasons which brought to the candidacy and the successive designation of Pécs as European Capital of Culture. We shall attempt to reconstruct how this event has contributed to the city’s renewal process through the decentralization, regionalism and urban renewal projects.
From Brussels 2000 to the plan culturel (cultuurplan). Localising a European initiative to cultural policies in Brussels
Brussels 2000 reflects a moment in contemporary Brussels when the divided Franco-Flemish Communities came together to plan and promote a common cultural agenda. Though few projects of Brussels 2000 remain, individual and institutional actors continue to collaborate, but without a shared cultural agenda, their attempts at fostering unity in the capital city remain ad hoc and in opposition to the current fragmented policy structure.
Liverpool 2008 : capital of whose culture? The cities on the edge project
This paper aims at showing a contrasting vision and image between a particular project realized during the Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 and the official one depicted in the bid and brought forward by the Liverpool Culture Company. The first part of the paper wants to frame some questions around mega-events; the second one will show the approach of the project “Cities on the edge” and will try to identify where the idea of “city” is, focusing on the contrasting visions and images proposed by the project “Cities on the edge” and by the Liverpool Culture Company.
Culture and urban space in academic research projects of Turku 2011 European Capital of Culture
Even though most European Capitals of Culture (ECoC) have been university cities, academic research has seldom played much of a role in their programmes. The case of the Finnish city of Turku, European Capital of Culture 2011, is different. The local universities are connected to the ECoC in three ways. Firstly, there are 10 research projects (2009-12), which were selected in an open call and are partly financed from Turku ECoC 2011 funds. Secondly, Turku ECoC 2011 includes 14 cultural projects, which involve co-operation between university research and arts. Thirdly, the University of Turku is in charge of the Turku 2011 Evaluation Programme (2010-2016), a multi-layered impact assessment led by Professor Harri Andersson. This article focuses on the first category, the research projects.
What’s the “city” in the design and implementation of the European Capital of Culture? An open issue
The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) is a long-standing programme that invites visibility for a cultural mega-event that aims to highlight the richness and diversity of European cultures and the features they share, and also to promote greater mutual knowledge and understanding among Europe’s citizens. The set of papers in this special issue of Tafter Journal intends to highlight the relevance of different interpretations of space for cultural policy-making and urban policy design more broadly, as well as their economic, social and cultural implications. The call for papers critically focused the analysis and interpretation on the urban dimension included in the ECoC programme proposed by cities, as well as in the implemented projects.
Tafterjournal n. 41 - novembre 2011
Il contributo della cultura per la crescita dell’occupazione
In questo articolo si vuole mettere in luce il possibile contributo dell’occupazione culturale alle strategie di crescita del nostro paese. Attraverso le statistiche culturali dell’Eurostat vengono messi a confronto i paesi europei, al fine di evidenziare l’anomalia della situazione italiana: un patrimonio culturale vasto, un’alta propensione allo studio a livello universitario delle materie culturali, ma un basso livello di occupazione culturale. Le stime condotte a partire da questi dati mostrano come il mancato incontro tra domanda ed offerta di lavoro nel settore culturale costi all’Italia molti posti di lavoro.
The evolution of cultural consumption and successful strategies for sustainable cultural management
The evolution of cultural consumption can generate important opportunities. A deeper understanding of the phenomenon can help public administrators, institutions and private organisations to create sustainable strategies for development. The paper describes the change occurring in the features of the cultural demand, trying to identify and to illustrate the implications of a new approach based upon the connection between cultural heritage management and creativity.
La rivoluzione copernicana che aspettiamo da tempo
Mi fa piacere constatare che esistono giovani ricercatori che lavorano quotidianamente senza avere paura degli errori o dei limiti in cui necessariamente può incorrere chi si applica a tale attività e che questa costatazione mi ha generato una speranza. La speranza che, come è accaduto del tutto inaspettatamente nel Nord Africa quest’anno, anche da noi possa prima o poi avvenire una nuova rivoluzione copernicana, una “primavera della cultura”, in cui venga invertita la prospettiva dominante e la cultura venga finalmente riconosciuta come carburante e motore essenziale della nostra economia del futuro. Su questo fronte c’è ancora tutto fare. Basta analizzare il Piano Nazionale di Riforma (PNR), documento programmatico che è parte integrante del Documento di Economia e Finanza (DEF) nazionale, redatto secondo i format richiesti dall’Unione Europea, per rendersi conto di come l’ambito della cultura sia del tutto assente dall’orizzonte dei nostri governanti, secondo la prospettiva appena evocata. Io credo, invece, che, se si vogliono effettivamente raggiungere gli obiettivi indicati in tali documenti, sia necessario un rinnovamento sostanziale, condiviso da parte dei cittadini, che è in primo luogo una consapevolezza di ordine culturale delle sfide imposte dall’economia mondiale e nazionale.
Tafterjournal n. 40 - ottobre 2011
Le nuove frontiere della produzione: la digital fabrication
Lo sviluppo tecnologico e la diffusione dei digital fabricators – macchine che consentono di fabbricare oggetti tridimensionali da file digitali in un unico processo, simile alla stampa – ha reso negli ultimi tempi più sottile la distinzione tra prototipo usato per affinare il design e oggetto finito. C’è quindi chi prospetta un futuro prossimo in cui qualunque oggetto di consumo potrà essere acquistato in foma di file e prodotto on demand. Partendo dal caso di un piccolo e pioneristico servizio italiano di digital fabrication, questo articolo illustrerà in una rapida carrelata gli elementi che sostengono questa previsione e il suo potenziale innovativo.
Inspiring principles for liveable and sustainable residential neighbourhoods
Several European peripheral urban areas, built after WWII, suffer from livability issues. This is also true for numerous residential neighbourhoods in Italy where, despite all the interventions carried out so far, innovative design strategies are still needed. Decline processes in post-war housing neighbourhoods present similarities, therefore observing European good practices may lead to an enrichment of Italian regeneration strategies. What key aspects can inspire experiments in deteriorated neighbourhoods in Italy?
L’Italia non è solo un “disastro”…
Recentemente sono stata a Lecce, per lavoro. Non vi ero mai stata prima. Alloggiata in un albergo “fuori le mura” sono arrivata in tarda notte. La mattina dopo mi sono avviata, a piedi, in centro. Dappprima mi è parso di trovarmi in una qualsiasi città moderna del meridione d’Italia ma poi, varcate le mura nei pressi del Castello Carlo V, con mio grande stupore, mi è parso di entrare nella scenografia di uno spettacolo teatrale o operistico. Quasi come in un sogno o in un film, la città si trasformava davanti a me: bellissima e pulita, la luce di prima mattina metteva in valore un patrimonio architettonico eccezionale. Con ancora piú stupore ho vissuto la città anche di pomeriggio e di notte: gente ovunque, movimento, traffico, locali affollatissimi… Ho capito di non essere in una città-museo ma in una città viva, in pieno fermento, nella quale i leccesi – ma non solo – si sono riappropriati appieno dello spazio pubblico cittadino: non solo di quello intra ma anche di quello extra muros dove palazzi, edifici, parchi, giardini, viali sono vissuti, frequentati e, addirittura, gestiti dalla cittadinanza.
Tafterjournal n. 39 - settembre 2011
The Street Project. Per una nuova relazione tra museo, arte e pubblico
The Street è un laboratorio di arte pubblica durato tre anni, iniziato nel 2008 da Whitechapel Gallery, istituzione culturale non profit fondata nel 1901 nell’Est End, un’area di Londra a est della City. L’analisi del case history rappresentato da The Street ha fornito lo spunto per indagare le modalità adottate da Whitechapel Gallery per operare nello spazio pubblico, gli effetti di tali interventi sull’area coinvolta e le criticità a cui è andata incontro. Più in generale tale esperienza consente di riflettere sui termini di “arte pubblica” e “arte partecipativa”; sul rapporto tra museo e spazio esterno; ed infine sulle modalità di finanziamento adottate per questa tipologia di progetti, privi – per loro natura – di un pubblico predeterminabile e difficilmente quantificabile.
Archeologia industriale, creativita’ e gestione integrata. Il caso biellese
Architettura, urbanistica, design, arte, cultura, creatività, sviluppo economico sono solo alcuni degli elementi che affiorano alla mente, allorquando pensiamo al complesso puzzle degli interventi di riqualificazione urbana di un contesto metropolitano. Da diverso tempo, infatti, l’economia è stata accostata al patrimonio della conoscenza, in quanto si è ritenuto che le metodologie economiche fossero funzionali allo sviluppo della cultura per efficacia ed efficienza, con lo scopo di attribuire nuovo valore e sviluppo ad un territorio. In questo contesto entra in gioco il ruolo dell’archeologia industriale, ovvero di quello studio complesso ed ampio che riguarda edifici e macchine che oggigiorno hanno perso la loro funzione d’uso, ma che sono ancora presenti sul territorio e nei quali, talvolta, vengono riconosciuti valori sociali e culturali molto forti. Obiettivo del presente lavoro è quindi quello di indagare le interazioni tra settori disciplinari differenti tra loro: economia, archeologia e marketing territoriale, al fine di raffrontare le prospettive di indagine e di strutturare un paradigma concettuale nel quale archeologia industriale, creatività e territorio siano identificati come vere e proprie risorse in grado di garantire uno sviluppo locale sostenibile. Il contesto territoriale che si intende prendere in esame è quello inerente alla provincia di Biella.
Dove va la cultura? Un sestante per il futuro
Stiamo seppellendo un mondo che ci sembrava perfetto ed era soltanto anabolizzato. La cosa dura ormai da un poco, ma soltanto negli ultimi mesi è diventata talmente forte e intensa da non poter fare più finta di niente. E non diciamo, per favore, che a morire è la cultura: il terrore dei barbari, veri o presunti, è soltanto l’ennesimo alibi per tentare di far durare un paradigma che in fondo sembrava protettivo e comodo. Al contrario, la cultura è l’unica che sopravviverà, dopo essersi salvata da un sistema lungo più di due secoli che ha cercato in tutti i modi di appropriarsene dileggiandola e drammatizzandola. Generazioni brutali in fabbrica e in ufficio, facili all’adulterio e a molte altre nefandezze ma affascinate dalla possibilità di singhiozzare all’opera, di svenire nei musei, di commuoversi in un sito archeologico.
Tafterjournal n. 38 - agosto 2011
Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA). La rinascita del Bronx passa dalla cultura
Il contributo racconta e illustra, tramite l’esperienza diretta di uno stage effettuato dall’autore, l’organizzazione del Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA). La struttura, operativa nel territorio del Bronx, si occupa direttamente o indirettamente della stragrande maggioranza delle attività culturali operanti nel Borough. Nel corso della sua storia il BCA è riuscito a trasformarsi e a diventare punto di riferimento per l’intero distretto, anche grazie all’opera costante del suo storico e carismatico direttore esecutivo, Bill Aguado. I risultati che l’organizzazione ha ottenuto nel tempo vengono considerati straordinari; questi sono il frutto di una politica fortemente indirizzata a ridare dignità ad un territorio e un tessuto sociale martoriati negli anni ‘60 e ’70 del secolo appena trascorso.
Se ha funzionato nel Bronx…
Quello che serve complessivamente al nostro Paese è senz’altro l’individuazione delle priorità delle politiche culturali su scala nazionale e la loro indispensabile modulazione particolare su scala regionale e locale, mantenendo, però il minimo comun denominatore della “rinascita” identitaria, sociale e, quindi, anche economica, come nel Bronx. Il benessere in cui siamo (fortunatamente) avviluppati e dall’altra parte il degrado del livello medio del dibattito politico a cui siamo costretti ad assistere da troppi anni hanno provocato un mix micidiale di indifferenza, individualismo e scetticismo sul fatto che qualcosa possa cambiare, ma qualche piccolo segnale di speranza di rinnovamento c’è e le testimonianze proposte nei contributi di Paolo Bertani e Marco Serino aiutano ad alimentarla.
Spazio urbano e spazio teatrale nell’organizzazione dello spettacolo dal vivo
Lo spazio delle città accoglie, com’è noto, luoghi molteplici per funzione e forma. In questo quadro, i teatri occupano da sempre un posto di rilievo. Tuttavia, alla luce dei differenti modi di organizzare l’ambientazione e la collocazione dei luoghi di spettacolo, è opportuno riflettere su come lo spazio teatrale si è disseminato e diversificato nella storia recente, fino a utilizzare l’ambientazione di edifici “non teatrali” oppure quella della città stessa, in modo diverso rispetto al passato, in un intreccio di estetica e pratica culturale.
Tafterjournal n. 37 - luglio 2011
Patrimonio Mondiale UNESCO: la tensione tra valore universale e interessi nazionali
La Lista del Patrimonio Mondiale UNESCO rappresenta oggi il più efficace strumento internazionale di conservazione e tutela di un bene pubblico globale che include alcuni tra i più importanti tesori culturali e naturali esistenti al mondo. Tuttavia, dopo quasi 40 anni di attività, e più di 900 siti protetti, è necessario domandarsi se e come il sistema UNESCO sia stato in grado di definire e preservare questo patrimonio. Il presente contributo sintetizza alcune recenti ricerche economiche che mettono in luce come esista una tensione tra l’aspirazione al valore universale ed eccezionale della Lista del Patrimonio Mondiale, e i fattori e interessi nazionali che ne influenzano la sua composizione e la rappresentatività delle culture mondiali.
Architettura dell’informazione e design museale
Più che una disciplina a sé stante, l’architettura dell’informazione costituisce un sapere di confine che si muove in modo complesso fra discipline più classiche come la bilblioteconomia, la linguistica e l’architettura, e discipline più nuove come la scienza e la teoria dell’informazione, l’ergonomia, l’information retrieval. L’architettura dell’informazione è un settore strategico nel design non solo di prodotti specifici (come siti web, intranet, software) ma anche nel design dei servizi e più in generale in tutti quei casi in cui l’usabilità e la trovabilità dell’informazione costituiscono fattori chiave per l’esperienza d’uso (user o customer experience). Ecco che anche il museo – in quanto spazio informativo condiviso, luogo di interazione in cui si vive un’esperienza – si intreccia fortemente con i temi dell’architettura dell’informazione, e ne costituisce senz’altro un importante campo di applicazione.
Convention, atomi e bit
La recente riunione annuale della World Heritage Convention ha portato venticinque nuove nomination per i Siti Mondiali Unesco, ma anche molte polemiche, come quella della Tailandia che ha minacciato di denunciare la Convention poiché un suo sito, il Temple of Preah Vihear, non ha ancora ricevuto l’ambito riconoscimento. Avere un sito iscritto nella lista del Patrimonio Mondiale non comporta vantaggi economici ma è comunque un fatto di prestigio che molte istituzioni vogliono conquistare, cimentandosi per raggiungere l’ammissione che richiede il rispetto di una serie di complesse norme. L’Unesco ha anche una lista del Patrimonio a Rischio nella quale, l’essere inseriti, è considerato un discredito per l’istituzione o il Paese responsabile.
Tafterjournal n. 36 - giugno 2011
Il friend raising: programmi di membership e sostenibilità finanziaria. Il caso Uovo performing arts festival
L’evoluzione del quadro istituzionale, economico e socio-culturale costringe le organizzazioni di spettacolo ad individuare nuovi modelli di sviluppo in grado di rispondere ai criteri di sostenibilità economico-finanziaria. Ma quali sono gli strumenti a disposizione delle piccole imprese culturali italiane? Con quali margini di crescita? Il presente contributo si propone l’analisi dei meccanismi che favoriscono il sostegno da parte degli individui, evidenziando le potenzialità legate allo sviluppo dei sistemi di membership, e cerca di individuare gli strumenti che possano qualificare la partecipazione dei donatori alle attività dell’istituzione al fine di creare relazioni stabili con i sostenitori.
Megaproyectos en tiempos de crisis: el caso de España
En una España devastada por la crisis, la continuidad de ciertas grandes infraestructuras culturales en construcción está en tela de juicio. Después de 20 años de edificación intensiva de museos de arte contemporáneo, de salas de conciertos o de teatros, estimulada por unas administraciones regionales recientes y deseosas de construir una nueva identidad, los efectos de la crisis son muy palpables: derrumbamiento de las subvenciones y del mecenazgo y simplificación de los programas de las fundaciones bancarias (como la de La Caixa), de los museos o de los festivales. Eso cuando no se trata directamente de la bancarrota, como en el caso del gran festival de música Summercase en Barcelona o en el del admirable Museo Chillida-Leku en el País Vasco.
Ecosistemi culturali emergenti
Che la realtà stia cambiando pochi hanno il coraggio di negarlo. Siamo dentro un mutamento epocale: parte dalla fine conclamata del paradigma economico e sociale che ci ha confortati per oltre due secoli, passa attraverso nuove consapevolezze e responsabilità, approda su una griglia forse non del tutto inedita ma certamente solida, costruita su relazioni, qualità, molteplicità. Non mancano i nostalgici di un ordine che era certo, appagante e carico di promesse etiche, grazie al quale la borghesia si è autodefinita illuminata anche quando cominciava a non capire granché dell’evoluzione della propria specie. E poi, a ben guardare, i nostalgici più accaniti sono coloro che giocano in difesa di posizioni protette e garantite: i professionisti del settore culturale. Con buona pace di tutti, il mondo percorre una strada nuova e la direzione è indicata da prodotti creativi, beni di conoscenza, valori culturali; ma non possiamo appigliarci alle cose già successe.
Tafterjournal n. 35 - maggio 2011
Patrimoni immateriali & design thinking. La “dote” di un designer nel progetto E.CH.I., Etnografie italo-svizzere per la valorizzazione del patrimonio immateriale dell’area transfrontaliera. Un’esperienza in corso
Il “Design Thinking”, in quanto processo sociale creativo che ruota intorno alla “costruzione” delle idee, si differenzia dal metodo lineare analitico che prevede l’esecuzione sequenziale delle fasi facendo spazio, al contrario, a fasi non lineari che possono avvenire simultaneamente o essere ripetute. Ma soprattutto dimostra la volontà di riconoscere la presenza di un “fare progettuale” diffuso. Nello specifico dei beni immateriali, tale “creatività diffusa” è prova spesso di una “intelligenza distribuita” fra le persone. E’ quanto emerge dall’analisi del progetto E.CH.I., Etnografie italo-svizzere per la valorizzazione del patrimonio immateriale dell’area transfrontaliera.
L’applicazione del diritto di seguito in Italia: dati e teorie a confronto
Il diritto di seguito (DDS) è un corrispettivo dovuto agli autori di arte visiva in proporzione al prezzo di rivendita di una loro opera d’arte. Le norme europee in materia di DDS sono contenute nella direttiva 2001/84/CE; quest’ultima definisce il diritto di seguito come un diritto inalienabile e fissa le percentuali da applicarsi al prezzo di vendita dell’opera per la determinazione del quantum da riconoscere all’autore. Per quanto possano essere molti i profili giuridici che meriterebbero di essere discussi, a partire proprio dalla non negoziabilità del diritto, fino alla fissazione della sua quantificazione economica, in questo lavoro, analizzeremo principalmente gli aspetti economici, teorici ed empirici, della gestione del DDS in Italia.
I beni culturali immateriali. Ipotesi e prospettive di gestione
È curioso come nel Codice Urbani non ci sia alcun riferimento ai beni “immateriali”, se non in termini generici. Ne discende un’assenza sul piano normativo, colmata unicamente dalla Dichiarazione Unesco del 2003. Eppure il ruolo dei beni etnoantropologici nella cultura di un popolo è notevolissimo e pone, oggi più che mai, il grande problema della loro tutela e conservazione. Bisogna, e al più presto, elaborare delle strategie interpretative dei cambiamenti e riformulare, in una società come la nostra che è quella del multiculturalismo e di sempre più rapidi processi di ibridazione culturale, una sorta di medium dove collocare una lettura scientificamente corretta del patrimonio culturale immateriale che non significa patrimonio legato genericamente e superficialmente al passato, ma patrimonio vivo in ognuno di noi e radice profonda che alimenta il nostro presente.
Tafterjournal n. 34 - aprile 2011
Why the EU and China should further engage in business cooperation and trade in the field of cultural and creative industries
Under the edge of the EU-China Intercultural Year in 2012, the EU and China have committed to increase business cooperation and trade in the field of cultural and creative industries (CCIs). The objective of this paper is to illustrate the economic and political reasons justifying EU-China cultural exchanges, which are still at the initial stage. Chinese CCIs contribute to 2.45% of the national GDP, European ones to 2.6%. Supporting cultural and creative SMEs is a policy priority on both sides. In the end, the paper recommends that EU technical assistance programmes contribute to fostering cultural trade.
Partecipazione e programmazione sociale: i Tavoli Tematici nei Piani di Zona della Provincia di Torino
Il focus di questo contributo, che prende le mosse da una più ampia ricerca sui processi decisionali all’interno dei Piani di Zona (PdZ) nella Provincia di Torino, è costituito dalla dimensione partecipativa di politiche di programmazione sociale quali, appunto, i PdZ. Nello specifico, particolare attenzione è riservata al luogo privilegiato di sviluppo di una decisionalità a più voci: i Tavoli Tematici. Argomenti per indagare la portata partecipativa dei PdZ sono: il target dell’inclusione, gli strumenti comunicativi utilizzati, la questione della rappresentanza, le dinamiche conflittuali, l’analisi coalizionale.
Esercizi di democrazia tra partecipazione e creatività
L’articolo di Laura Cataldi ed Enrico Gargiulo ci porta dentro i cosiddetti “processi partecipativi”, con lo svelarne alcuni aspetti più problematici sui quali spesso si “scorre”, consapevolmente, per non inficiare la presunta portata politica di alcune operazioni, o inconsapevolmente, perché, in modo banale per inerzia o per troppo enfasi “democratica”, non si pone mente alle difficoltà e ai limiti che tali processi incontrano per una loro piena esplicazione. Dal canto suo, Valentina Montalto scrive di “creatività”. E’ un termine su cui occorre riflettere; la creatività nella cultura, le città creative, tutto poggia spesso su mode, anche se nuclei di attività veramente significativi e innovativi si stanno sviluppando, nel tentativo di superare le barriere delle piatte omologazioni. Si può essere creativi non solo negli ambiti della “cultura” (intesa, spesso, come qualcosa di immateriale immerso in un’aurea superiore) ma anche al tavolo di un Piano di Zona, toccando con mano i problemi quotidiani della gente e provando a dare risposte “originali”.
Tafterjournal n. 33 - marzo 2011
Gestire l’informazione per gestire il patrimonio: il caso della Regione Lombardia
Il sistema italiano dei beni culturali sta attraversando una fase di profondo rinnovamento. Il concetto di bene culturale, come entità singola di particolare interesse, è stato superato dall’idea di patrimonio diffuso come territorio punteggiato di numerosi beni collegati tra loro. In questo scenario, in cui le amministrazioni incaricate della tutela non dispongono di strumenti adeguati, le tecnologie Web dimostrano caratteristiche interessanti e promettono di agevolare le attività di questi attori e di facilitarne le relazioni. Il nostro studio intende analizzare i limiti e le potenzialità dell’uso di Internet per la gestione del patrimonio diffuso attraverso l’analisi delle pratiche di knowledge management della Regione Lombardia.
Vedere l’invisibile. La complessità dell’interpretare le città e i loro luoghi
La vita quotidiana di ciascun individuo all’interno delle città si sviluppa attraverso percorsi abitudinari che attraversano porzioni di spazio a cui vengono riconosciute specifiche identità e funzioni, trasformandole così in luoghi. Ma questa assegnazione non è sempre condivisa, e così allo stesso frammento di città possono essere attribuite identità e funzioni differenti da differenti individui. E per gli occhi di chi non riuscirà o non vorrà riconoscerle tale frammento resterà, almeno in parte, invisibile.
L’arte, il luogo e la sua assenza
Ai primi di gennaio ha chiuso a Stoccolma, al Moderna Museet, la Moderna Exhibition 2010, una mostra che ogni 4 anni fa il punto su cosa sia l’arte contemporanea svedese. Chi, come me, abbia visitato la mostra ha potuto seguire il pensiero dei curatori Fredrik Liew e Gertrud Sandqvist nel dare una risposta alle domande sul tipo di vita che oggi contrassegna il Paese, su come questa vita si rifletta nell’arte e su quale ruolo vi svolga l’artista contemporaneo. Le domande sono di per sé interessanti, e le opere dei 54 artisti selezionati sulla scena svedese erano lì a fornire la propria personale risposta. Ma molto più interessante è stato per me, che svedese non sono e che in Svezia ero casualmente e per la prima volta per un invito a intervenire a una conferenza sulla gestione sostenibile dei siti Patrimonio dell’Umanità dell’Unesco, leggere la sintesi posta all’ingresso della mostra,che nulla conteneva di specifico sulla Svezia. Aveva invece a che fare con lo straordinario modo in cui la produzione artistica contemporanea si intreccia con la vita di un luogo, un modo al tempo stesso inafferrabile e precisissimo. L’arte contemporanea di un luogo è, infatti, sia quella prodotta dagli artisti che in quel luogo vivono, ma che sono nati o cresciuti in qualunque altra parte del mondo, così come è arte contemporanea di quel luogo l’opera degli artisti che lì sono nati e che poi sono diventati cittadini del mondo. Oppure è opportuno fare una scelta tra una delle due visioni?
Tafterjournal n. 32 - febbraio 2011
Flussi globali e sviluppi locali. Trasformazioni urbane ed economie della cultura a Palermo
Anche se Palermo non è certo fra gli esempi più eclatanti di città cosmopolita, la sua maggiore apertura internazionale è oggi piuttosto evidente. A metà degli anni Novanta, sulla scia di quanto era già avvenuto in molte altre città europee in una fase di indebolimento dei legami nazionali, Palermo ha fatto ricorso “alla cultura per tentare di creare un senso di appartenenza, di unità, al di là delle divisioni sociali e dei conflitti, per mobilitare le risorse necessarie all’elaborazione di un interesse generale urbano”. In questa sede non è possibile approfondire le dinamiche tramite le quali la città si è aperta ai flussi globali, ma ci limitiamo a rimandare ad alcuni meccanismi principali: il ruolo del governo locale (con la canalizzazione di finanziamenti per il recupero del centro storico e l’investimento in cultura); la mobilità dei giovani universitari; il ruolo dei visitatori stranieri.
NIPPON-multimedia. A successful example of multichannel communication in Lugano
The increasing number of technologies and devices (including iPhone, iPad and alike) provides new perspectives for the use of multimedia applications in the broad field of Cultural Heritage, in a moment in which small, fast and low-budget projects are often preferable and where user experiences have evolved, corresponding to different user profiles, needs, situations and purposes. Users, in fact, no longer sit in front of a computer at home, but they access multimedia information all the time, circumstances and venues, choosing – among many devices available – the most suitable ones. This paper shows a successful example of multichannel communication in Lugano (Switzerland), and recounts the background and the collaboration among the Università della Svizzera italiana and the City of Lugano for the development of a culture oriented multi-channel communication, focusing on the real-life example “NIPPON”, four exhibitions and numerous events through the culture of Japan, taking place in Lugano from October 2010 to February 2011.
Innovazione e nostalgia
Nei momenti di crisi, l’avvocato barese di fiction, Guido Guerrieri riempie di pugni il suo sacco da boxe oppure gironzola in bicicletta per la sua città – una città che negli ultimi decenni si è trasformata e dove, oggi, coesistono quartieri residenziali, malfamati o marginali e quartieri che brulicano di locali dove bere e mangiare, leggere, ascoltare musica o fare due chiacchiere con un padrone, a volte stravagante, che ha importato usi dall’estero. L’articolo di Giambalvo e Lucido sulla recente trasformazione urbana di Palermo mi ha fatto pensare a Guerrieri, alla sua Bari; ma anche ad altre città, come Barcellona, da dove scrivo. Città in cui si sono attuati progetti di recupero patrimoniale dei centri storici per lottare contro il loro spopolamento, di risanamento di quartieri per contrastarne l’insalubrità o evitarvi la cristallizzazione di criminalità.
Tafterjournal n. 31 - gennaio 2011
L’impresa di parlare d’impresa culturale
Nonostante sia il settore più inquieto e dinamico dell’economia italiana, la cultura fatica a rivendicare il proprio ruolo di preminenza nella nostra società. Fortunatamente tra l’obsolescenza di vecchi paradigmi, la rigidità del rapporto con l’amministrazione pubblica e un dialogo troppo intermittente con i pubblici potenziali, fioriscono pratiche innovative e in controtendenza, che devono solo trovare il coraggio di darsi una forma, dirsi impresa, e cominciare a porsi al centro di un auspicabile nuovo corso del Belpaese.
Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto
“Era de maggio”, quando entrai per la prima volta a Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto. Da allora continuo a collaborare alle attività di questo grande laboratorio. È un generatore di energia creativa, che sviluppa processi di trasformazione responsabile nei diversi settori della società. Vi voglio raccontare dell’origine di questo luogo e del mio innamoramento. Se sarete abbastanza curiosi scoprirete anche perché un semplice gesto, come stendere un braccio davanti a sé, rappresenta a mio avviso l’energia vitale di Cittadellarte.
Cultura come strumento per una vita migliore
Se pensate di essere soddisfatti e realizzati dallo standard di vita consumistico proposto dai modelli di sviluppo vigenti, con tutto ciò che ne consegue in termini di costi sociali e ambientali, e pensate che le risposte ai problemi eventualmente rilevati siano identificabili in dottrine e formule eminentemente economico-finanziarie, non leggete questo numero della rivista, perché la prospettiva analizzata e le iniziative di cui si dà conto vanno nella direzione opposta. Gli articoli di Chiara Galloni e Filippo Fabbrica, infatti, assai diversi per stile e soggetto, manifestano una coerenza singolare con la mia personale visione del significato essenziale del lavoro e dell’attività in ambito culturale, come strumenti per costruire una vita migliore. Vita migliore significa, infatti, un mondo in cui siano ristabilite relazioni umane e sociali improntate al rispetto reciproco e delle regole indispensabili del vivere comune, in cui la velocità non sia sinonimo di superficialità, in cui la crescita economica non sia realizzata a scapito delle risorse naturali non rinnovabili.
Tafterjournal n. 30 - dicembre 2010
La convivialità nelle strade. Un percorso tra feste ed eventi auto-organizzati a Napoli, dal Petraio a Scampia
Il presente contributo affronta lo studio di alcune pratiche urbane che, nel loro essere espressione dei diritti della cittadinanza e nel loro essere utilizzate come strumenti di auto-amministrazione e di auto-promozione, si dimostrano capaci di mettere in relazione differenti attori e di ampliare lo spazio delle possibilità e l’autonomia degli spazi urbani. Tali pratiche sono nate nel corso del Festival di strada di Lefevbre, dove lo spazio fisico è al contempo spazio sociale, in grado di registrare ogni micro cambiamento nella vita di tutti i giorni e nei rapporti esistenti tra le differenti classi sociali, che reclamano più spazi di condivisione e che possono evolvere in utopie sperimentali, creando nuovi significati e strumenti di partecipazione innovativi ed affascinanti.
Quell’azzurro che tutti aspettiamo: le Fondazioni culturali del “quasi non profit”
Nel terzo settore italiano si registra un particolare miscuglio di pubblico e privato, che caratterizza molti Enti che intervengono in ambiti tipici del non profit, testimonianza, questa, della storia di un settore che si presenta strettamente correlato al processo di riforma dello Stato sociale e di trasformazione della Pubblica Amministrazione. In molti, negli ultimi tempi, hanno evidenziato come il generale slittamento istituzionale delle attività di policy verso Regioni ed Enti locali – sommato alle varie forme di coinvolgimento della comunità e, quindi, alla nuova organizzazione degli attori – rappresenti una risposta adattiva della Pubblica Amministrazione (centrale e locale), di fronte alla restrizione delle risorse economiche disponibili e all’esigenza di meglio articolare la produzione e l’offerta di beni pubblici.
Possiamo ancora permetterci di non ascoltare?
Abbiamo scelto di chiudere l’anno pubblicando due articoli che delineano, dal nostro punto di vista, un passaggio cardine per la comprensione delle modalità attraverso cui gli attuali strumenti operativi possono essere messi a disposizione del Terzo Settore, del non profit e del sociale. Ci teniamo a distinguere tali ambiti con grande attenzione, perché molti, anche tra gli operatori del comparto, tendono ad accomunarli e renderli sinonimi, quando in realtà non lo sono. Il percorso di lettura che vorremmo tracciare è quello dello sviluppo del Terzo Settore come mezzo per promuovere nella comunità locale, la “cultura del dare, come valore sociale esteso”. Lettura che noi riteniamo fondamentale e non più procrastinabile a causa dell’accentuarsi delle dinamiche di differenziazione della società, dinamiche che rendono necessario ripensare lo sviluppo dello Stato Sociale promuovendo la partecipazione e l’assunzione di responsabilità di una parte consistente della comunità.
Tafterjournal n. 29 - novembre 2010
Dal reset al franchising: ultime tendenze nel campo della creazione museale
Rinnovarsi o morire, un clichè che non è mai stato così attuale nel campo del management culturale come in questo momento. Per la prima volta il mondo delle arti dal vivo e delle arti visive, spinto dal crollo dei mercati, dai conseguenti e drastici tagli di bilancio della sponsorizzazione privata, e in più dalla disgregazione dei finanziamenti pubblici alla cultura, ha iniziato a pensare a se stesso in termini di evoluzione e di radicale riorganizzazione per poter sopravvivere. Un fenomeno particolarmente evidente nel caso della profonda trasformazione subita dai musei tradizionali e degli spazi dedicati alla cultura contemporanea che hanno sperimentato una profonda ristrutturazione concettuale.
L’economia videoludica italiana: Indie alla riscossa
Giocano quasi tutti i giovani. E ora iniziano anche a giocare gli adulti, grazie all’innovazione di contenuti e di piattaforma dell’offerta. I videogiochi sono una quota importante del consumo culturale italiano, che fa una concorrenza serrata al cinema, il consumo culturale più diffuso. La scena produttiva, tuttavia, mostra dati meno confortanti: le produzioni di maggior successo sono straniere e gli italiani che vogliono emergere vanno all’estero. Piuttosto vivace, invece, la scena Indie cui sono offerte nuove possibilità grazie ai nuovi sistemi di distribuzione digitale.
Il gioco (analogico e digitale) della cultura
E’ tempo di leggerezza, finalmente. Un po’ di anni fa l’aveva presagito Italo Calvino, che proprio con la leggerezza intendeva aprire i suoi memos for the next millennium, le Norton Lectures impedite da una morte dispettosa. Ma nessuno ci aveva fatto davvero caso, almeno da noi, abituati a sopravvivere in un paese bizantino nelle forme, greve nei meccanismi, torvo nelle relazioni, privo di senso autocritico. (Questo lo pensava Flaiano, quando amaramente diceva: la situazione è grave ma non è seria). Che c’entra la cultura con la leggerezza? con il gioco? con la novità? Ancora qualche giorno fa un importante quotidiano italiano manifestava una feroce nostalgia per il passato, unica possibile culla della cultura. Senza radici, non c’è identità. A furia di pensarlo, e di proteggerci dietro questo dogma indimostrato ma comodo e rassicurante, abbiamo reso il paese come un gigantesco frigorifero senza cucina, un luogo nel quale si conserva tutto ma non ci si riesce a nutrire.
Tafterjournal n. 28 - ottobre 2010
La digitalizzazione del Patrimonio Librario Italiano. L’accordo Google-MiBAC
Il 10 Marzo 2010 è stato annunciato l’accordo di cooperazione tra Google e il Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (MiBAC) per la digitalizzazione e messa in rete, nei prossimi anni, di circa un milione di libri non coperti da Copyright conservati nelle Biblioteche Nazionali di Roma e Firenze. Il presente contributo vuole offrire una riflessione sul recente accordo Google-MiBAC, cercando di spiegare quali sono le condizioni che hanno portato all’accordo e quali sono le potenziali opportunità e criticità nella sfida alla digitalizzazione del patrimonio culturale italiano.
La cooperazione sociale si dà alla cultura. Il percorso del consorzio Con.Solida
L’articolo propone una rassegna dei principali risultati di un percorso di ricerca-azione promosso dal consorzio Con.Solida di Trento, volto a determinare il potenziale di sviluppo della propria rete di cooperative sociali in ambito culturale. A quali condizioni è possibile irrobustire un’offerta di servizi ancora embrionale da parte delle organizzazioni socie? E l’agenzia consortile quale ruolo può svolgere per sostenere e innovare questa offerta? Infine come individuare e coinvolgere in partnership strutturate attori dell’ambito culturale per acquisire competenze e per delineare un nuovo approccio alla produzione culturale? Le questioni affrontate, pur riferite ad un caso e ad un contesto specifico, sono apprendimenti utili per i diversi attori che individuano nell’ambito culturale un veicolo per migliorare l’efficacia degli interventi sociali.
Patrimonio, tecnologie sociali e sfide della cultura della partecipazione
Gli utenti di tecnologie sociali come Twitter, Facebook e Flickr sono in costante aumento. Nuove forme di intendere e comunicare il significato e il valore delle nostre esperienze e delle nostre memorie si accompagnano alle interazioni quotidiane di milioni di persone. É la nascita di un nuovo senso di patrimonio: “non ufficiale”, idealmente “democratico” e fortemente legato alle culture di partecipazione promosse dalle tecnologie sociali.
Tafterjournal n. 27 - settembre 2010
Dalla parte di Jean Vilar: il Festival di Avignone e il mito fondativo del “teatro popolare”
L’evoluzione di una tradizione teatrale che poggia le basi nelle idee della rivoluzione francese; la genesi avventurosa di una poetica innovativa diventata “mito fondativo” e espressione di una politica culturale; il manifestarsi di una tradizione teatrale e il radicarsi di una poetica nella cultura organizzativa di una istituzione: le vicende del Festival di Avignone sono tutto questo, collegate indissolubilmente al nome del fondatore, Jean Vilar, e inestricabilmente connesse con una espressione, “teatro popolare”, che costituisce il senso di una esperienza collettiva solo parzialmente compiuta ma con pochi precedenti nella storia dei processi di produzione culturale moderni.
Il litorale romano tra riqualificazione urbana e memoria storica
Lo sviluppo urbano, formale ed informale, non ha risparmiato la costa della provincia di Roma, dove gli elevati ritmi di crescita della popolazione e dell’edificazione hanno innescato meccanismi di progressivo quanto rapido consumo di suolo. Uno dei risultati di questa ‘crescita’, non sempre direttamente percepibile, sembra riguardare lo smarrimento del senso stesso di appartenenza ai luoghi, la perdita cioè dei caratteri vocazionali e delle memorie insite nei territori. I dieci comuni costieri della provincia di Roma, con le diverse frazioni marittime, assumono, quasi sempre, la classica configurazione degli insediamenti lineari lungo la strada litoranea che li attraversa con un rettifilo da nord a sud, con costruzioni di diversa tipologia e funzionalità, realizzati spesso senza regola, sfruttando al massimo tutto lo spazio disponibile. Sono stati alterati e modificati elementi appartenenti a contesti storici e paesaggistici di pregio. Pertanto il presente contributo, frutto di un’attività di ricerca più ampia condotta nei comuni costieri del Lazio, propone una chiave di lettura che cerca di analizzare le relazioni e le conflittualità innescate dai processi di riqualificazione urbana.
La cultura del dato geografico per la salvaguardia del territorio
Negli ultimi anni la domanda dei consumatori per informazioni legate al dato geografico, geospatial, è salita alle stelle, basti pensare ad esempio ai sistemi di posizionamento GPS e alla loro integrazione con le mappe digitali che hanno portato alla ribalta dispositivi di navigazione portatili usati quotidianamente da milioni di persone. Le amministrazioni pubbliche e gli stessi politici fanno sempre più uso delle informazioni geospatial per produrre mappe delle pianure alluvionali, condurre i censimenti, mappare i pignoramenti o rispondere alle richieste per i rischi naturali come terremoti, incendi e alluvioni. Ai responsabili delle decisioni, questo tipo di dato può essere di grande aiuto per chiarire i problemi complessi che possono coinvolgere amministrazioni locali e centrali sulla gestione del territorio.
Tafterjournal n. 26 - agosto 2010
La produzione di autenticità per il mercato. Un’esplorazione nel campo della popular music
Ormai da qualche tempo, le imprese tenterebbero in ogni modo di offrire prodotti che possano essere percepiti come autentici da parte dei consumatori. In effetti, sembra che sia soprattutto in questo modo che possano ottenere un certo successo di mercato. Ma sono effettivamente in grado di proporre qualcosa di autentico? Di fronte a questo interrogativo, il presente articolo si propone di esaminare alcuni aspetti chiave dell’offerta di autenticità e, analizzando in particolare l’evoluzione dei significati del concetto di autenticità nel contesto della popular music, cerca di individuare le modalità con cui gli operatori di tale settore starebbero cercando di offrirla al mercato.
L’esperienza dei Laboratori di Urbanistica Partecipata a Potenza: una iniziativa promossa da docenti dell’Università per una più efficace attuazione degli strumenti urbanistici
Negli ultimi decenni, la rilevanza del tema della partecipazione dei cittadini nei processi di trasformazione della città ha condotto a nuovi approcci al governo del territorio, mirati a coinvolgere la comunità seguendo un modello di sistema aperto, flessibile e reversibile (approccio bottom up), e a nuove forme sperimentali di urbanistica partecipata. Queste stesse forme di urbanistica partecipata, con lo scopo di ridare efficacia e credibilità ai processi di pianificazione del territorio e della città, e di conseguire risultati utili ad incrementare la qualità della vita, si sono concretizzate nella sperimentazione di laboratori di urbanistica partecipata nella città di Potenza.
Senza riforma della pubblica amministrazione anche la partecipazione naufraga
Cresce la percezione dei limiti nell’uso delle risorse esauribili e la voglia di capire dove e come si prendono le decisioni che riguardano il nostro futuro. Un bisogno che spesso s’infrange nella giungla della pubblica amministrazione italiana. Non sempre, infatti, è agevole capire dove e come si decidono le trasformazioni delle città, del territorio e dell’ambiente in cui viviamo.
Tafterjournal n. 25 - luglio 2010
L’azione comunitaria “Capitale Europea della Cultura”
In questo articolo si presenta l’azione comunitaria “Capitale Europea della Cultura”, un’iniziativa che da 25 anni stimola le città europee a mettere in atto programmi di sviluppo culturale. In molti casi, le strategie di crescita basate sulla cultura hanno influenzato positivamente il sistema economico locale. Analizzando tre casi in cui il binomio cultura-sviluppo si è rivelato vincente – Glasgow, Linz e Liverpool -, l’articolo mette in luce come la cultura può diventare una leva di sviluppo fondamentale per le economie contemporanee.
Il Sistema Ambientale e Culturale “Parco delle Dune Costiere – Riserva di Torre Guaceto”: i punti di forza di un territorio ricco di storia e natura nel cuore del Mediterraneo
La Regione Puglia ha avviato la costituzione dei Sistemi Ambientali e Culturali (SAC). Il SAC “Dune Costiere – Torre Guaceto” mette insieme elementi storico-culturali, naturali e paesaggistici che si aggregano attorno alla Via Traiana. Il territorio è caratterizzato dagli ulivi monumentali, plurisecolari e dalla presenza di due aree protette. Il progetto di valorizzazione e gestione integrata del SAC punta a completare i processi già intrapresi (incluso il completamento di una rete ciclabile, facente parte della rete nazionale Bicitalia), ad una fruizione unitaria, qualificata e sostenibile su scala sovracomunale.
Cultura e sviluppo, provare per credere
Da tempo si assiste nel nostro Paese all’uso e (all’abuso) dell’accostamento del termine cultura a quello di sviluppo e non coerenti appaiono spesso le linee di intervento nazionale e locale che dovrebbero tradurre in politiche attive e virtuose tale binomio. E’ così che in tempi di crisi (che c’è per davvero) si ripropone il balletto, quello di cifre e polemiche sui tagli fatti con la scure per risparmiare ove possibile sulla spesa pubblica, colpendo, ovviamente, in primo luogo la cultura, intesa come costo piuttosto che come risorsa, senza produrre, però, un serio e documentato dibattito sui differenti e ampi valori economici che gli investimenti in cultura possono produrre.
Tafterjournal n. 24 - giugno 2010
Globalizzazione e mercato dell’arte contemporanea
Il mercato dell’arte contemporanea è un sistema complesso formato da attori ed entità comunicanti che oggi, in un contesto in cui la concorrenza ha inevitabili ripercussioni, si trovano a dover operare in maniera coordinata cercando di interpretare al meglio le leggi della globalizzazione. Quest’ultima, infatti, inevitabilmente influenza sia la domanda che l’offerta. Il fenomeno della globalizzazione viene dunque esaminato attraverso le diverse tipologie strutturali appartenenti al mercato dell’arte contemporanea, considerando tali tipologie quali elementi di un unico sistema integrato.
Gli studi sugli utenti per la qualità dei servizi web culturali europei: il Manuale Minerva e la valutazione del prototipo di Europeana
I progetti di creazione e gestione di piattaforme digitali di ambìto culturale solo raramente affrontano la questione cruciale delle effettive esigenze e dei comportamenti degli utenti finali. Il manuale MINERVA per l’interazione con gli utenti ha inteso presentare lo stato dell’arte del web culturale nella attuale fase di passaggio da un web delle istituzioni al web degli utenti, fornendo inoltre un quadro sistematizzato delle metodologie per la valutazione degli utenti digitali. Una recente esperienza di analisi di un campione importante di utenti a livello europeo, di cui in questo contributo si da sintetico conto, è stato lo studio sul prototipo del portale Europeana, condotto in Scozia, Italia, Bulgaria e Paesi Bassi.
Le potenzialità dei nuovi pubblici e delle tecnologie in campo culturale
I più attenti osservatori del settore culturale ci invitano da tempo a non sottovalutare le tendenze della società contemporanea destinate a produrre effetti evidenti e non facilmente prevedibili sia sulla produzione che sulla fruizione culturale. Mantenendo l’attenzione focalizzata sulle dinamiche relative alla fruizione, è indubbio che le nuove modalità di interazione offerte dalle tecnologie, la democratizzazione della conoscenza e l’avvento di nuove fasce di pubblico, sono trend che già permeano ed influenzano il panorama attuale.
Tafterjournal n. 23 - maggio 2010
Una televisione del teatro o una televisione sul teatro? Idee e riflessioni per istituire un canale tematico di servizio pubblico per lo spettacolo dal vivo
Il 27 marzo 2010 l’Italia ha celebrato, per la prima volta, la Giornata Mondiale del Teatro. Rallegra pensare che la manifestazione è stata lanciata dall’Unesco a Vienna nel 1961. Infatti, se a distanza di quasi cinquant’anni abbiamo deciso di aderire alla Festa del Teatro, allora possiamo ben sperare che un altro passo avanti nella rivalutazione dello spettacolo dal vivo è stato finalmente compiuto.
Conversione funzionale e ri-funzionalizzazione come strategia di rigenerazione urbana. Il progetto “La Città delle culture” di David Chipperfield per l’isolato ex Ansaldo
La letteratura scientifica relativa al concetto di rigenerazione urbana ha individuato alcuni importanti strumenti di intervento che riguardano comparti urbani, edifici dismessi e interni abitati. La conversione funzionale e la ri-funzionalizzazione, i landmark urbani, gli insediamenti aggregativi legati alla cultura e all’innovazione sono tutti approcci rintracciabili nell’intervento sull’area ex-Ansaldo a Milano. L’analisi riguarda l’applicazione contestuale di questi eterogenei modelli di sviluppo ad una realtà urbana in dinamica trasformazione.
Nuovi spazi per la cultura, nuovi protagonisti della cultura
Partendo da differenti prospettive di analisi, i contributi di Bruno Zambardino e Barbara Camocini propongono interessanti spunti di riflessioni sulla questione dell’adeguamento, o se si preferisce dell’innovazione, degli spazi contemporanei a servizio della cultura. I punti di vista degli autori, così come i temi sviluppati, sono naturalmente molto diversi tra loro, ma entrambi forniscono un prezioso contributo su questo tema.
Tafterjournal n. 22 - aprile 2010
Il design per la valorizzazione territoriale. Il caso del Rione Sanità a Napoli
Qual è il rapporto tra design e territorio, e come può il design contribuire alla valorizzazione di tessuti urbani e sociali? Quali sono le metodologie, le pratiche e gli strumenti a supporto della costruzione e attuazione di scenari sostenibili design driven? Attraverso un caso emblematico di sviluppo bottom up, di progettualità che nasce dal basso, rifletteremo sulle capacità strategiche del design, palese o di fatto, nel prefigurare e realizzare scenari di sviluppo locale attraverso l’attivazione di network multilivello.
Il sistema delle Fondazioni Lirico-sinfoniche in Italia
L’articolo presenta una sintesi dei risultati di una ricerca realizzata dall’Osservatorio Economico della Sardegna. La ricerca scaturisce dall’esigenza di approfondire la conoscenza delle Fondazioni liriche – con particolare riferimento al Teatro Lirico di Cagliari – che, nell’ambito dello spettacolo dal vivo, occupano una posizione del tutto particolare, non assimilabile a quella delle altre strutture che operano nel settore. L’approfondimento prende in esame l’evoluzione del contesto normativo, giuridico e organizzativo e confronta tra loro le Fondazioni attraverso l’analisi di alcuni indicatori e parametri di bilancio in grado di rappresentare il loro stato di salute economico-finanziaria.
Dal mondo delle icone al mondo della conoscenza
A che serve la cultura? La questione non è da poco, e se c’è un momento in cui è opportuno porla è proprio questo scomposto e bizzarro presente. Siamo cresciuti sotto il riparo di una cultura che – nella vulgata – fa del bene all’umanità, e adesso la ritroviamo claudicante, meticcia, contraddittoria. Ma non vale la pena spendere energie all’inseguimento dei laudatores temporis acti. Non c’è mai stata una società così tanto alfabetizzata come la nostra. Piuttosto, prendiamo atto che il ruolo della cultura cambia radicalmente, e che molti dei punti fermi del passato anche recente vanno quanto meno verificati, se non direttamente revocati in dubbio.
Tafterjournal n. 21 - marzo 2010
A proposito della protezione dell’ambiente: esperienze e spunti per una possibile transizione
La lettura di una ricerca condotta da Carlo Desideri e Emma Imparato, pubblicato da Giuffrè con il titolo Beni ambientali e proprietà, propone un modello per la gestione delle aree protette distinto da quello attualmente in vigore nel nostro paese. Il lavoro ha il grande merito di tratteggiare le linee essenziali di questo approccio alternativo portando a sostegno della sua bontà la descrizione della sua sperimentazione in corso da lungo tempo in Francia e Regno Unito. A distanza di alcuni anni – il libro è stato pubblicato nel 2005 – e nonostante le difficoltà in cui versano i nostri enti parco e il sistema di protezione nel suo complesso che riportano spesso in agenda il tema di una sua revisione, i frutti di questa ricerca non sembrano essere adeguatamente filtrati nel dibattito generale.
Musei e territorio: la gestione del rischio nei confronti del patrimonio culturale
Si assiste sempre più di frequente, in Italia come all’estero, al susseguirsi di calamità naturali. Ne consegue un crescente interesse al fine di limitare le conseguenze che queste rischiano di avere sul patrimonio culturale. E’ necessario in prima istanza definire la tipologia di disastro, che può essere scatenato da cause naturali come nel caso di terremoti, siccità, eruzioni vulcaniche, così come da cause umane, incidenti e fatti bellici. E’ interessante notare come il verificarsi di una situazione di emergenza ci permetta di misurare la capacità di reazione di un paese. La tempestività e l’efficacia dell’azione diventano fondamentali. Per questo motivo risulta evidente che l’attività di soccorso debba essere mirata e affiancata da altre attività complementari, quali la formazione e l’aggiornamento costante degli operatori.
La vera emergenza è la fine della cultura della prevenzione
A che punto stiamo, davvero, con la protezione e l’utilizzo sociale del patrimonio culturale e dei parchi italiani? Questa la domanda sostanziale che sottintende i contributi di Marco Eramo e di Federica Gandolfi pubblicati in questo numero di Tafter Journal. Una domanda assolutamente pertinente in un paese abituato a declamare buoni propositi, a partire dalla Carta Costituzionale, e a negarli clamorosamente. Terremoti, frane, inondazioni, disastri ambientali, ci ricordano ciclicamente il “costo” umano ed economico delle nostre distrazioni e l’abbandono della cultura della “prevenzione” e della “manutenzione” a partire dal patrimonio pubblico e dal territorio.
Tafterjournal n. 20 - febbraio 2010
Movie design e brand experience
Le grandi marche hanno esplorato e sperimentato tutti gli aspetti della comunicazione, dall’advertising alle pubbliche relazioni, dagli eventi al guerrilla marketing. Solo poche però hanno saputo coniugare l’asset del business con il tema della sostenibilità, intesa come cultura etica ed estetica, del bello e utile. Gli esempi che abbiamo riportato sono collocabili nel perimetro di questa rinnovata ricerca della qualità, intesa come una priorità a cui guardare per rendere migliore il mondo in cui viviamo. Il pensiero strategico della marca è oggi al centro di molte riflessioni sul presente e sul futuro delle merci e dei mercati. Sappiamo che un prodotto diventa brand attraverso una serie complessa di azioni, alcune delle quali sviluppate nell’ambito del marketing, altre nella sfera della comunicazione. E sappiamo anche che l’azienda esprime una domanda di comunicazione sempre molto elevata, a fronte di cospicui investimenti, poiché è la comunicazione che permette quella percezione positiva della marca che sta alla base di un processo di acquisto consapevole.
Ruoli e funzioni degli eventi culturali in Italia
L’evento è un elemento valorizzatore del territorio, in grado di determinare, con il proprio attuarsi, modificazioni più o meno sostanziali e di natura profondamente differente sui territori in cui si realizza. Partendo dall’individuazione degli elementi costututivi degli eventi, è possibile giungere alla formulazione di un’ipotesi di classificazione degli stessi che, basata sulla centralità di target, format e funzioni, individua: una tipologizzazione degli eventi; i format; le funzioni e le sottofunzioni che assolvono; le tipologie dei target; e le correlazioni che esistono fra format, target e funzioni. L’evento è un elemento valorizzatore del territorio, in grado di determinare, con il proprio attuarsi, modificazioni più o meno sostanziali e di natura profondamente differente (culturali, politico-istituzionali, urbanistiche, economiche, infrastrutturali, di immagine) sui territori in cui si realizza.
Marchi culturali e territoriali
Concetti legati alla creazione, accumulazione e scambio di conoscenza sono diventati tipici dei filoni di ricerca atti ad indagare i fenomeni emergenti su scala territoriale. Sebbene sembrino essere ad una prima occhiata concetti antitetici, il territorio – essenza fisica, presente, tangibile – e la conoscenza, immateriale, dai contorni sfumati e priva di caratteristiche fisiche, assumono un senso proprio quando sono contestualizzati all’interno di un luogo, di un’area territoriale in cui si produce la scintilla della creatività.
Tafterjournal n. 19 - dicembre 2009/gennaio 2010
Il nuovo Tafter Journal
Tafter Journal vi accompagnerà ogni mese con nuovi contributi nazionali ed internazionali, ed insieme saranno inaugurate diverse nuove sezioni che amplieranno l’offerta della testata. In un momento di grande difficoltà politica, il settore culturale – inteso nella sua accezione più ampia e fertile – registra una vitalità ignorata, attivando canali di produzione e di scambio innovativi e coinvolgenti, stimolando una crescente partecipazione diffusa ai temi e alle scelte culturali. Il nostro impegno, quindi, sarà rivolto, come è stato fino ad ora, a dare spazio ai contributi più interessanti della comunità scientifica, ma soprattutto agli operatori che ogni giorno si confrontano con i temi legati al territorio e alla sua valorizzazione. Il nostro occhio sarà sempre più puntato a casi e realtà internazionali: questa decisione è stata presa, non solo dalla nostra esigenza di porci su una dimensione europea, ma soprattutto perché in questi mesi abbiamo ricevuto una grande attenzione da parte della comunità scientifica internazionale.
Nuovi orientamenti museali e spazi educativi: l’ateliers des enfants come centro di cultura ludica e ponte culturale tra museo e pubblico
In questo articolo è stato riportato uno studio effettuato sugli Ateliers des enfants, realtà didattico-museali realizzate per ora soltanto in Francia, in Belgio, in Svizzera e Lussemburgo. Grazie ad un confronto a livello europeo e ad una scheda di valutazione, sono stati identificati aspetti significativi e caratteristiche tali da permettere la creazione di un Modello di Atelier, che pur mantenendo grande flessibilità, possa essere inserito in qualsiasi contesto museale, senza snaturare i principi ispiratori, le finalità, e gli obiettivi educativi.
Design e sistema territorio. L’esperienza didattica del progetto “Arredo & Territorio”
Arredo & Territorio è una ricerca/progetto per lo sviluppo di attrezzature di arredo urbano e montano lungo i percorsi delle valli olimpiche di Torino 2006. I progetti sono stati realizzati da studenti di architettura e design di tre scuole universitarie europee e costruiti da artigiani torinesi. Obiettivo è stata la valorizzazione del territorio in termini di aumento della fruizione, valorizzazione della cultura artigianale locale, godimento delle risorse ambientali. Tale esperienza, ha dato vita a prodotti reali installati, e tutt’ora presenti, in 28 comuni della provincia torinese.
Tafterjournal n. 18 - novembre 2009
I musei sono “servizi pubblici” di prossimità?
Al cittadino medio del nostro paese non è certo mancata nell’arco della propria vita la frequentazione di uffici di servizi pubblici, come quello postale o anagrafico. Fatte salve le eccezioni e le negligenze che ciascuno di noi può sempre enumerare, nel corso di questi ultimi vent’anni si è assistito ad un netto miglioramento […]
Musei e tecnologie virtuali
Da tempo i musei hanno recepito l’avvento delle cosiddette tecnologie della virtualità, ma non sempre ciò ha coinciso con un reale processo di innovazione dei modi dell’esporre contemporaneo. Da una breve panoramica di sperimentazioni recenti emerge come gli artifici tecnologici possano davvero essere strumenti al servizio della museografia, ma a volte arrivino a contendere la scena alle collezioni e ai reperti stessi. Dal canto suo, il pubblico se ne lascia sedurre ma, se non sono radicati nel progetto comunicativo museale, altrettanto facilmente se ne stanca.
Musei e disabili: il caso veneto
L’unico vero viaggio … sarebbe non andare verso nuovi paesaggi, ma avere altri occhi, vedere l’universo con gli occhi di un altro, di cento altri, vedere i cento universi che ciascuno vede, che ciascuno è. Così scrisse Marcel Proust in una delle sue opere. Nel corso degli anni sono stati scritti numerosi testi sui musei, le loro attività, i servizi, l’allestimento e altro ancora, ma ben poco è stato pubblicato invece in materia di disabilità in rapporto agli stessi. Porsi nell’ottica di vedere il mondo da una diversa prospettiva, significa mettersi in discussione e rivalutare, sotto altra lente, tutto ciò che ci circonda. Questo lavoro si propone di raccogliere alcuni dati e cercare di leggerli, lasciando trarre al lettore le proprie conclusioni, magari come spunto per future ricerche.
Tafterjournal n. 17 - ottobre 2009
Il forum mondiale Unesco sulla cultura e sulle industrie culturali. UNESCO World Forum on Culture and the Cultural Industries
Lo scorso settembre Monza ha ospitato il primo Forum mondiale Unesco sulla cultura e sulle industrie culturali. In questo articolo si presentano le principali motivazioni che hanno portato al Forum Unesco, approfondendo le ragioni dell’avvicinamento tra economia e cultura e presentando alcuni dati sulle industrie culturali. In un’economia sempre più basata sulla conoscenza, la cultura costituisce una risorsa collettiva che contribuisce ad alimentare la creatività, a stimolare l’innovazione e ad accrescere la qualità del capitale umano. In questa prospettiva la cultura può diventare il volano della crescita economica, contribuendo all’incremento della competitività delle economie moderne.
Dalla ricostruzione friulana alle vicende abruzzesi: altro che zona franca urbana, per l’Aquila ci vogliono C.A.S.E
Questo articolo vuole introdurre rispetto alle vicende abruzzesi post terremoto due elementi: uno legato alla rilettura di alcuni lavori di Giovanni Pietro Nimis sulla ricostruzione in Friuli e in particolare sugli esiti che l’adozione del principio “dov’era com’era” e la scelta di riconoscere un’ampia delega ai Comuni hanno determinato sul piano dell’organizzazione fisica e dello sviluppo socio-economico dell’area colpita; il secondo, più direttamente legato alla scelta della realizzazione dei cosiddetti Complessi Antisismici Sostenibili e Ecocompatibili (C.A.S.E.), con il quale si richiamano alcuni degli sviluppi più recenti della riflessione sulle aree deboli e marginali che individuano nella qualità dell’offerta residenziale e dei servizi alla persona un asset strategico per il benessere e lo sviluppo di questi territori.
La forza delle comunità locali e del capitale umano
Credo si possa affermare con una certa tranquillità che il nostro futuro dipende dalla capacità che il Paese avrà di imprimere una svolta all’accrescimento della qualità del suo capitale umano. La situazione attuale della formazione, a tutti i livelli scolastici e universitari, è piuttosto critica per la carenze di risorse economiche e umane; oltretutto è critica a fianco della carenza quantitativa anche quella qualitativa. I sistemi di valutazione in Italia stentano ad affermarsi.
Tafterjournal n. 16 - settembre 2009
Indagine sulle imprese che investono in cultura: risultati ed analisi dei comportamenti aziendali
In seguito all’andamento altalenante della spesa pubblica in cultura nel corso degli ultimi quindici anni, le riflessioni di studiosi e addetti ai lavori si sono con il tempo spostate verso l’analisi di forme di finanziamento alternative a quella pubblica. A questo proposito, nel corso degli anni novanta si sono registrate la vertiginosa crescita delle sponsorizzazioni in ambito culturale e l’importante contributo fornito dalle fondazioni di origini bancarie a sostegno dell’arte e della cultura.
Il distretto del cinema e dell’audiovisivo di Montreal
La politica condotta dalla città di Montreal a partire dagli anni ’90 si colloca alla perfezione in una strategia di sviluppo locale network-based. L’attuale sindaco, Gerald Tremblay, iniziò già nel 1991, quando ricopriva la carica di Ministro dell’Industria, del Commercio, della Scienza e della Tecnologia del Québec, ad introdurre l’approccio dei distretti industriali, descritti da lui stesso come un modello « in grado di accelerare il formarsi delle condizioni ideali allo sviluppo di nuove idee e procedure che potranno più facilmente passare dalla fase embrionale a quella della commercializzazione, al servizio di tutta la società».
Le dimensioni della creazione di valore attraverso la cultura: distretti e responsabilità sociale di impresa
Due facce della stessa medaglia, due esempi di corto-circuito positivo tra mondo economico, cultura e dimensione territoriale. Da una parte il fenomeno del distretto culturale avviato in Canada, dall’altra il coinvolgimento delle imprese profit nel settore culturale. In entrambi i casi, interventi pratici che danno conto di come evolve la teoria quando diventa realtà.
Tafterjournal n. 15 - luglio-agosto 2009
(Ri)disegnare e (Ri)progettare città e territori: tra le urgenze di una catastrofe e il diletto di una Scuola estiva internazionale
Una catastrofe distruttiva e luttuosa e un incontro seminariale tra esperti di tutto il mondo che si confrontano sull’efficacia del design come strumento di crescita della comunità del territorio, due eventi assai distanti tra loro, eppure possibili occasioni di migliorare il nostro modo di stare al mondo e di progredire nella costruzione di civiltà. La prima, certo, mai auspicabile, ma di fatto accaduta, la seconda costruita con paziente lavoro tra ricercatori ansiosi di verificare ipotesi e approcci professionali, che allargano la propria sfera d’azione al disegno dei territori.
Formare comunità, in-formare territori. Designing connected places: fare scuola di design per il territorio
“La terra, vista come territorio riservato alla vita è uno spazio chiuso, limitato dalle frontiere dei sistemi di vita (la biosfera). Quindi è un giardino”(Gilles Clément, 2004)
La sfida della rinascita post-terremoto dei centri storici abruzzesi
E’ accaduto quel che doveva. La protesta montante dei cittadini aquilani, e degli abitanti degli altri centri danneggiati dal sisma di aprile, restituisce, come ci si attendeva, il clima di una situazione radicalmente diversa da quella dei numerosi traumi nostrani precedenti, sia in termini di consapevolezza che di aspettative della comunità colpita.
Tafterjournal n. 14 - giugno 2009
Pratiche di social media per l’innovazione urbana
Le città della società della conoscenza si caratterizzano per nuovi tipi di relazioni e dipendenze che hanno dato vita a network urbani come rete di scambio di beni e servizi. Tali network hanno spesso trasformato le morfologie e le identità delle città, divenute il teatro per eccellenza di un sistema globalizzato e delle sue conseguenze. L’origine di questi network risiede in ciò che Manuel Castells ha definito come space of flows ossia i flussi di capitali che viaggiano tra diversi spazi, ed il processo d’integrazione europea, che ha sviluppato la collaborazione tra gli stati-nazione sopratutto attraverso connessioni tra le città di rilevanza
Impresa sociale e cultura
L’impresa sociale rappresenta un’importante innovazione nel settore no profit. In Italia la sua affermazione è fin qui legata a una specifica forma giuridica (la cooperativa sociale) e a un ben definito settore (i servizi di welfare). L’approvazione di una recente normativa che amplia le attività e i modelli giuridici apre però nuovi scenari, anche in ambito culturale. A partire dai principali apprendimenti che derivano da una rilettura storico-evolutiva della cooperazione sociale e dall’analisi delle dinamiche più recenti che caratterizzano le forme organizzative della cultura è possibile delineare il potenziale di sviluppo di questa inedita tipologia d’impresa, riconoscendola non solo come un fenomeno “di nicchia”, ma come una nuova forma istituzionale.
Socialmente coinvolti
L’impresa sociale è una delle recenti forme che l’impresa ha assunto negli ultimi anni. Analogamente a quanto succede nel caso dell’impresa culturale, essa sembra, ad un primo sguardo, assumere più che altro le sembianze di un ossimoro difficilmente comprensibile e spiegabile. Quanto succede di interessante nella pratica, codificata solo di recente, è la creazione di una sorta di modello messo in atto dalle tipiche forme di imprese sociale basato su un’azione imprenditoriale nella quale prevalgono trasferimenti monetari di tipo redistributivo, i quali riescono a mantenere l’efficacia e la sostenibilità dell’impresa stessa.
Tafterjournal n. 13 - maggio 2009
La cultura “integrata” alla socialità
Forme distrettuali avanzate, cultural district, processi decisionali partecipati, network sociali. Il massimo comune denominatore è, sia che si parli di sviluppo urbano, sia che si considerino le manifestazioni culturali, la partecipazione allargata e diffusa. Conviene però interrogarsi se e fino a che punto si tratti di soluzioni percorribili, e fino a quanto si rischi la retorica.
La creatività nei quartieri, un fatto ordinario e non spettacolare. Implicazioni dell’istituzione di un distretto culturale in un quartiere di Brooklyn
Il contributo mette in evidenzia l’urgenza di pensare alla creatività urbana come fatto ordinario e non spettacolare, prodotto della vita quotidiana. La storia del quartiere Fort Greene offre il pretesto per investigare le implicazioni della retorica sulla creatività a livello locale. L’istituzione di un distretto culturale all’interno del quartiere già ampiamente affermato per la vivace scena culturale afro-americana, solleva il dissenso nella comunità artistica e degli abitanti. Il piano è accusato di strumentalizzare il quartiere che già c’è e si rivela poco inclusivo degli artisti che vi risiedono già sotto pressione per le fasi avanzate del processo di gentrification.
Gli eventi culturali come incubatori culturali. Il caso di MI AMI Musica Importante a Milano
Gli eventi culturali sono espressione della società postmoderna e sanno creare valore attraverso dinamiche relazionali e di condivisione di apprendimento ed esperienza. In tal senso sono incubatori culturali perché si giovano dei luoghi d’interazione, delle comunità-tribù e delle piattaforme conversazionali del Web, potendo contare sull’efficacia delle nuove tecniche di marketing e comunicazione on ed off line. L’analisi empirica del Festival MI AMI, derivante da una ricerca condotta da Claudia Spadoni, evidenzia tali aspetti, riconducendo gli eventi alla loro sintesi di conoscenze e consapevolezze.
Tafterjournal n. 12 - marzo-aprile 2009
Il valore economico della cultura in Europa
In questo articolo si fornisce un quadro d’insieme dell’industria culturale. Attraverso fonti statistiche, studi e ricerche di livello nazionale ed internazionale, viene evidenziato il rilevante contributo della cultura alle economie moderne: sia in termini di valore aggiunto e fatturato, sia per quanto riguarda l’occupazione i dati rivelano che la cultura è un business. Cultura ed economia, due mondi troppo a lungo considerati distanti, mostrano oggi virtuose relazioni che possono risultare fondamentali per la crescita dei sistemi economici locali, in una prospettiva in cui il ruolo ricoperto da creatività ed innovazione continui ad aumentare.
Illuminando la città. Esperienze urbane tra arte e design
La città contemporanea è palinsesto d’infinite narrazioni. Ormai il sistema di eventi presente nel calendario della vita urbana presuppone una pratica progettuale continua: gli allestimenti sono veri e propri “cambi d’abito” di una realtà in continuo divenire. I linguaggi espliciti e dichiarati dell’arte, della pubblicità, del design, dell’architettura, si mescolano a quelli non convenzionali dell’urban stencil & stikers, dei graffiti elettrificati, del guerrilla advertising e della comunicazione bottom up.
Complessità sociale e pluralismo culturale
Sulle pagine di Tafter Journal abbiamo affrontato più volte il tema del linguaggio e del racconto come elementi cardine ed indissolubili delle modificazioni di un territorio. Il compito che ci siamo dati è stato quello di porci di fronte alle tematiche dei luoghi e delle loro trasformazioni come osservatori attenti a descriverne i mutamenti. Il nostro impegno è più che mai, ora, imperniato ad un studio e ad una forte comprensione della complessità sociale e del pluralismo culturale della nostra società.
Tafterjournal n. 11 - febbraio 2009
Cultura al governo! Il governo alla cultura!
Le pagine (elettroniche) di questa rivista hanno più volte richiamato la nostra attenzione sui temi della legislazione pertinente il patrimonio culturale e, da ultimo, ci propongono l’esperienza dell’Inghilterra in materia di sostenibilità ambientale della produzione culturale. Due facce di una stessa medaglia, che sembra, però, assumere un valore sempre più debole in un Paese come il nostro in cui le priorità politiche vengono con evidenza poste altrove. La contraddizione palese tra dettato Costituzionale (art.9) e gli scempi ambientali e le perdite di memorie storiche irripetibili, che hanno marcato il nostro passaggio da un’economia agricola a una economia industriale e terziaria nel sessantennio dal secondo dopoguerra ai giorni nostri, stanno ad indicarci chiaramente i valori di riferimento di coloro che ci hanno governato in questo periodo.
Quando l’arte produce effetti sull’ambiente
Il mondo anglosassone è stato il primo a riservare una grande attenzione al rapporto esistente tra l’arte e l’ambiente, ed in misura più precisa all’impatto ambientale provocato dall’arte e dagli eventi. Sebbene esso sia misconosciuto, merita una grande attenzione anche in termini di politiche. Sono di provenienza anglosassone anche gli standard per la salvaguardia ambientale elaborati esclusivamente per il settore.
Alienazione e cessione nel Codice dei Beni Culturali
L’Italia può vantare una vera e propria tradizione di legislazione dei beni culturali: già prima dell’unificazione, la giurisprudenza dei diversi stati preunitari dimostrò particolare attenzione a quelle che oggi potremmo definire politiche culturali. Talvolta una illuminata concezione della res publica, più volte il fascino della figura del potente mecenate, favorirono una consapevole indivisibilità del binomio patrimonio-territorio.
Tafterjournal n. 10 - dicembre 2008 - gennaio 2009
Ricercare per innovare. Nuovi strumenti e linguaggi per comunicare
Innovazione è la parola d’ordine alla quale a più riprese si fa ricorso per giustificare azioni ed interventi nel settore della cultura (e non). In questo senso, è il comparto dei musei luogo eletto di sperimentazione e di introduzione di normative ad hoc, strutture gestionali e nuove pratiche. Vale la pena seguire le “innovazioni” proposte, poiché l’ambito dei musei spesso funge da paradigma per l’intero settore culturale. Non a caso, infatti, l’ultima modifica proposta dal ministro dei Beni culturali, l’istituzione del super manager, direttore unico a cui è affidato il coordinamento generale di circa quattrocento strutture museali statali, che tante polemiche ha provocato, si concentra proprio sul funzionamento del sistema dei musei. Senza voler entrare nel merito della proposta, si sottolinea, però, quanto sia importante architettare sistemi di gestione che richiamino ad una reale efficacia di funzionamento del sistema.
Strutture narrative e metalinguaggi design-oriented per la fruizione del patrimonio culturale
Progettare la fruizione del patrimonio culturale attraverso un approccio design oriented significa trasferire processi d’innovazione nell’ambito culturale a partire dalle risorse locali e dalle specificità del luogo in oggetto. Il design per la valorizzazione dei beni culturali prevede un approccio sistemico che costituisce il valore aggiunto in grado di “dar forma” a specifici concept in termini di strategic design, communication design, interior/exhibit design, product design.
Nuove tecnologie per nuovi musei. Dai social network alle soluzioni RFID
Il museo vive se comunica in modo efficace l’insieme delle conoscenze che ha prodotto nel tempo, relativamente alle testimonianze storiche ed artistiche che compongono le sue collezioni; le tecnologie informatiche, sotto questo profilo, hanno fornito un grande impulso alle attività di comunicazione del museo, in particolare in tempi recenti con l’affermarsi, da un lato, dei siti di social network (fuori dei confini fisici del museo) e, dall’altro, della tecnologia RFID (entro i confini del museo). Le potenzialità di questa tecnologia ed alcune sue interessanti sperimentazioni in ambito museale sono presentate e commentate in questo articolo.
Tafterjournal n. 9 - novembre 2008
Le ragioni della tutela
Difesa del paesaggio, del patrimonio storico, delle attività artistico-culturali, degli standard di vivibilità urbana, degli spazi pubblici, dell’ambiente minacciato da uno sviluppo quantitativo che non considera i limiti naturali delle risorse esauribili. Difesa. Questo il bollettino quotidiano dello scontro epocale, e del tutto inedito, tra natura, cultura e sviluppo. Uno scontro che vede contrapposte due ragioni: quella che identifica lo sviluppo con la crescita continua (di merci) e quella della tutela dell’ambiente e della cultura.
La valutazione delle performance aziendali quale fattore di successo per le Fondazioni liriche
Nel presente articolo si propone una sintesi dei risultati di una ricerca svolta sulle Fondazioni liriche italiane allo scopo di definire un modello di analisi delle performance che, sull’evidenza dei principali “sintomi” delle condizioni gestionali di equilibrio economico, finanziario e patrimoniale, possa rivelarsi uno strumento utile alla governance per l’individuazione di efficaci linee strategiche…
Costruire scenari per un territorio fragile. L’esperienza dell’osservatorio sul delta del Po
Stiamo vivendo un processo di estetizzazione – delle merci, dei servizi, delle esperienze – che mistifica il significato della progettazione, a tutte le scale. In che modo il progetto può contribuire a costruire gli scenari quotidiani e futuri di un territorio? In che modo i designer possono mettersi al servizio della società per rispecchiarla e svelare le criticità nascoste nelle azioni progettuali del presente? L’osservatorio sul delta del Po ha promosso una scuola estiva per individuare le possibilità per il futuro di un territorio fragile…
Tafterjournal n. 8 - ottobre 2008
Grande e piccolo. I pilastri per riassegnare valore d’uso al patrimonio esistente
Da qualche tempo sono riprese sulla stampa le denunce relative al consumo di suolo e all’intensità delle nuove realizzazioni edilizie. Questo fenomeno, mettendo insieme numeri e quantità, appare massiccio. Stando a un recente articolo di Carlo Petrini su Repubblica, negli ultimi 15 anni sarebbero spariti in Italia più di 3 milioni di ettari di superfici libere con un’estensione maggiore del Lazio e dell’Abruzzo. Va, però, evidenziato che nel Paese ferve una significativa attività di riuso del patrimonio della città esistente, di quella più propriamente storica e di quella consolidata.
Non è solo un paese per vecchi. Identità e innovazione nell’esperienza LAB.net della regione Sardegna
Il 3 ed il 4 luglio 2008 si è svolto ad Alghero il convegno conclusivo del progetto LAB.net – Rete transfrontaliera per la valorizzazione dei centri storici urbani, finanziato dal PIC Interreg IIIA Italia Francia “Isole” Sardegna-Corsica-Toscana. L’iniziativa si colloca sulla scia di una ormai decennale esperienza della regione in tema di tutela e valorizzazione dei centri storici: la legge 29 del 1998 “Tutela e valorizzazione dei centri storici della Sardegna” rappresenta infatti il momento di avvio di una serie di sperimentazioni che hanno segnato le punte più avanzate del panorama italiano. I capisaldi di questa attività risiedono soprattutto nella convinzione della necessità del superamento della logica del puro intervento fisico, in particolare nelle realtà di minore dimensione, e dell’adozione di una logica di intervento complessa ed integrata, che affronti e coinvolga attivamente anche la dimensione socio-economica del problema.
L’esperienza modenese del progetto partecipativo ex Fonderie Riunite. Intervista a Marianella Pirzio Biroli Sclavi
È stato di recente bandito il Concorso internazionale di idee per il riuso dell’edificio delle ex Fonderie Riunite di Modena secondo le indicazioni emerse da un processo partecipativo avviato dall’Amministrazione comunale che ha visto impegnate istituzioni e associazioni cittadine. Si è trattato di un’esperienza quasi unica nel suo genere per la dimensione del progetto e la qualità del risultato, alla quale hanno contribuito il coraggio di alcuni amministratori locali, l’entusiasmo e l’impegno di un compatto gruppo di cittadini portatori di idee progettuali diverse che hanno saputo trovare un punto di contatto tematico e una convergenza ideale, e la capacità professionale di Marianella Pirzio Biroli Sclavi che ha governato il processo. Officina Emilia, uno degli attori del progetto partecipativo, ha assunto l’iniziativa di raccontare questa storia raccogliendo un’intervista della prof. Sclavi.
Tafterjournal n. 7 - settembre 2008
Il nome del territorio
La grana di un territorio, per dirla con Kevin Lynch, inteso quale mix delle varie modalità in cui i diversi elementi costitutivi di un insediamento – attività, persone, edifici – si affastellano nello spazio, richiama ad un senso del luogo al quale può essere associata un’immagine storica in grado di identificare quel luogo e solo quel luogo. Quando le pubbliche amministrazioni più lungimiranti attivano procedimenti, sistemi di programmazione, attività per supportare e veicolare il nome del contesto locale di appartenenza, si può assistere a casi di intervento particolarmente innovativi nella loro specifica impronta di intervento.
Dal recupero edilizio a proposte innovative per il riuso dei centri storici della Valle dell’Agri in Basilicata
Con riferimento al tema dello sviluppo locale ed in particolare al recupero e riuso dei centri storici minori, in Basilicata si sta sviluppando una interessante esperienza nell’area della Valle dell’Agri. Il territorio ricco di risorse ambientali e paesaggistiche e culturali è da anni interessato da rilevanti attività di estrazioni petrolifere.
Progettare luoghi, territori e contesti. Una esperienza formativa e progettuale di meta-brand del territorio
Abbiamo bisogno di “chiamare” le cose, i luoghi, le persone per identificarle: il nome rende leggibile e sensata, esperibile e dunque dotata di valore, ogni singola porzione di mondo, e conferisce ad essa una prima forma di identità. Ma di cosa è fatta l’identità di un luogo? Come si costruisce? Quanto è progettabile?
Tafterjournal n. 6 - luglio-agosto 2008
La capacitazione attraverso la creatività
Si fa un gran parlare di crescita, crescita intesa in termini economici, in termini di prodotto interno lordo, ci si interroga spesso anche sul valore da assegnare a questi indicatori, su quanto essi possano essere considerati affidabili per misurare il benessere dei cittadini. Il dibattito vede contrapposte le ragioni dei numeri, puramente basata sulla produzione di prodotti e servizi, con quelle della vivibilità, dell’accrescimento delle capacità dei singoli e, dunque, della comunità cui essi appartengono.
L’arte partecipata di Second Life
Con l’avvento dei social network e dei mondi virtuali si sta facendo strada un nuovo approccio alla creatività e all’arte, che progressivamente sta mettendo in discussione alcune presunte certezze in campo estetico. Si comincia a insinuare il dubbio che la cultura artistica non debba essere esclusivamente appannaggio di un’élite e si iniziano a legittimare le sperimentazioni di chi elabora nuovi modelli, generati dal basso.
L’impresa incontra arte e cultura
La città di Montreal si afferma da qualche anno sulla scena internazionale come una metropoli culturale. In questo contesto, durante il mese di novembre 2007, la Camera di Commercio di Montreal e Culture Montreal hanno organizzato un incontro cittadino volto a definire il piano d’azione delle politiche culturali municipali fino al 2017.
Tafterjournal n. 5 - giugno 2008
Strade verso una valorizzazione sostenibile
Rigenerare, favorire l’accesso, migliorare la qualità della vita, principi cardine degli interventi sugli ambienti urbani e metropolitani che si stanno affermando negli ultimi tempi con l’obiettivo di facilitare la visita e la permanenza dei turisti. I piccoli ed i grandi centri urbani sono accomunati dalla ricerca delle modalità migliori per attirare ed accogliere i nuovi turisti, i quali hanno sempre meno le sembianze dei turisti famelici ed improvvisati, ed assumono le sembianze di visitatori in punta di piedi, rispettosi della cultura e dell’anima delle città.
Ricettività diffusa e nuove tendenze del fenomeno turistico in Italia
I flussi turistici che caratterizzano la domanda turistica di questi ultimi anni, seguono la tendenza che trova espressione in poche ed esaurienti parole: “fuori dai soliti posti”. Oggi le parole chiave per un nuovo approccio turistico, in grado di interpretare nuovi bisogni e nuove esigenze del consumatore di località turistiche sono “inedito e autentico”. Questi trend trovano il loro naturale sfogo nell’ospitalità diffusa, in forme di ospitalità che della salvaguardia dei luoghi, dell’ambiente e degli stili di vita hanno fatto la loro ragion d’essere.
Strategie per la promozione dell’identità urbana e grandi eventi
Oggi come mai prima d’ora la promozione del territorio è diventato un argomento centrale nelle agende di istituzioni e urban manager. La globalizzazione e la conseguente compressione spazio-temporale hanno cambiato le regole alla base della competizione economica e hanno contribuito alla creazione di una nuova gerarchia sociale dei luoghi. L’interesse crescente mostrato nei confronti dei processi di costruzione dell’immagine, sia quando si parla di città sia quando più genericamente parliamo di territori, deriva dal bisogno di attrarre flussi, di persone e risorse, utili alla promozione dello sviluppo locale.
Tafterjournal n. 4 - maggio 2008
Allenare lo sguardo sul territorio
Allenare lo sguardo, insegnare la sensibilità nei confronti della comunità e del territorio, accrescere la consapevolezza degli abitanti attraverso l’uso di strumenti e chiavi di lettura inusuali: ecco cosa succede quando si utilizza il filmato video quale strumento di narrazione e di interpretazione del territorio. Il valore delle immagini diventa funzionale, in questo senso, all’attivazione di corto-circuiti comunicativi efficaci per esplicitare le dinamiche del territorio.
L’evoluzione del sostegno pubblico alle imprese cinematografiche. Il modello francese diventa realtà?
Mai come in questi ultimi anni il richiamo al cosiddetto “modello francese” è stato così presente all’interno del dibattito sulle possibilità di rinnovamento e di rafforzamento del settore dello spettacolo inteso nelle sue due anime principali, quella cinematografica e quella delle rappresentazioni dal vivo. Ebbene, in questa fase cruciale di ripartenza della politica, di bilanci di attività svolte e di eredità consegnate ai nostri nuovi decision makers, va registrata l’introduzione, a partire da quest’anno, di nuove e più evolute forme di sostegno indiretto, e in particolare di agevolazione fiscale alle imprese cinematografiche nazionali, che – di fatto – per la prima volta avvicinano il nostro Paese al tanto decantato modello di sostegno francese.
Abruzzo Reset: un progetto sperimentale per la conoscenza e la comunicazione del territorio
Il progetto formativo “Abruzzo reset”, sviluppato dall’Accademia dell’Immagine dell’Aquila nell’anno 2007/2008, ha perseguito l’obiettivo di promuovere dei “racconti” nuovi per le due più grandi aree urbane della regione. Due film di ricerca hanno indagato le relazioni esistenti tra i luoghi fisici, le città, ed alcuni aspetti originali della vita delle persone che li abitano. Nel nostro caso, l’attiva scena musicale pescarese, e la passione sportiva per il rugby all’Aquila. Il video è stato utilizzato come strumento di ricerca e di comunicazione; contribuire alla conoscenza dei luoghi, alla consapevolezza dei cittadini che vi abitano, e allo svecchiamento di un marketing del territorio fondato su una lettura stereotipata delle due città, sono stati degli obiettivi specifici del progetto sui quali, in corso d’opera, sono stati costruiti rapporti di partenariato inediti e non istituzionali.
Tafterjournal n. 3 - aprile 2008
Un ritratto mediatico del quartiere Liberties di DublinoA mediated portrait of the Dublin Liberties
Il progetto “The Media Portrait of the Liberties” è composto da una raccolta di molteplici racconti brevi, che racchiudono informazioni di carattere storico, sulla comunità del quartiere Liberties di Dublino. Queste unità mediali svelano “un senso dello spazio” e sono state progettate con l’intento di essere diffuse tra il pubblico come se il pubblico stesse girovagando per le strade del quartiere. Lo sviluppo concettuale del progetto è iniziato con la raccolta di informazioni sul quartiere e i suoi abitanti attraverso l’osservazione e la realizzazione di interviste etnografiche, e si è evoluto quando il direttore del progetto ha intrapreso una collaborazione con Maireen Johnston.
Il granting a favore degli eventi espositivi
Nel corso degli ultimi decenni, il mercato culturale ha visto la nascita di un nuovo prodotto: quello delle esposizioni temporanee. Dal punto di vista della produzione dei beni e dei servizi culturali è forse l’evento più interessante dopo la svolta commerciale dei musei. Anche in Italia negli ultimi anni la produzione di mostre è cresciuta in modo esponenziale, in ragione sia del ricco patrimonio culturale del nostro paese e della presenza di un numero eccezionale di strutture (oltre 4000 musei), sia, in misura diversa da realtà a realtà, della creatività, dell’esperienza e delle competenze scientifiche necessarie per realizzare progetti espositivi.
Narrazioni interattive e ricordi di comunità
I ricordi riflettono le nostre esperienze vitali ci fanno rammentare episodi, aneddoti, si intersecano alle nostre azioni e rafforzano l’immagine che abbiamo di noi come individui singoli, ma anche come appartenenti ad un luogo.
Esattamente come una foto o un’immagine, arricchita di supporti sonori e video, i supporti multi-mediali sono in grado di richiamare alla mente il contesto emotivo ricco e sfaccettato che caratterizza un luogo, amplificandone il senso per chi lo abita, lo sperimenta, lo vive.
Tafterjournal n. 2 - gennaio 2008
Il contesto museale e i suoi pubblici: una definizione integrata
The museum context and its audiences: an integrated definition
Abstract
The increase in the interest towards museums and cultural heritage is now more than a widespread feeling: even if the cultural consumption rates in our country have huge margins of development, it is very significant that in the last years ISTAT registers a substantial increase of those who have gone at least once to visit exhibitions and museums. Today, we face a competitive environment, changed profoundly and characterized by the reduction of public funds and by the enlargement of the entertainment offering.
The article analyses the development made in visitors’ studies and offers a focus on future development of this kind of research. In first paragraph, the author contextualize these studies within a framework; paragraph 2 illustrates the available toolboxes that museum practitioners and researchers could use to implement further analyses while paragraph 3 illustrates the main results of visitors’ studies researches. In paragraph 4, the article will introduce a management perspective and will define the evaluation politics that could help in managing museums. Finally, the article concludes with the enunciation of one of the most important future challenges for the future of the museum sector: non-visitors and first access to the museums.
Abstract
La crescita dell’interesse verso i musei e i beni culturali è oramai ben più che una sensazione diffusa: anche se i tassi di consumo culturale nel nostro Paese presentano ampi margini di crescita, è assai significativo che negli ultimi anni l’ISTAT registri un sostanziale incremento di coloro che si sono recati almeno una volta a visitare mostre e musei. Siamo oggi di fronte ad un contesto competitivo profondamente mutato, caratterizzato dalla diminuzione di fondi pubblici e dall’allargamento dell’offerta di intrattenimento.
I contributi dei visitatori come patrimonio culturale: il design per la partecipazione
Visitors’ contributions as cultural heritage: designing for participation
Abstract
In this article, we approach the setting up of two public exhibitions and, in this sense, our goal is to offer the necessary tools in order to facilitate and support the contributions of the visitors to the exhibitions themselves. The philosophy at the base of our work considers the role of technology as an instrument able to increase the stock of experiences of each person, going beyond the mere provision of information and allowing users to create the content of an exhibition.
In first paragraph, we will illustrate how interaction design could be implemented within the museum and exhibition sectors; in paragraph 2, we will contextualize this reflection within the analysis of museums’ audiences while in the third paragraph two case histories related to the approach of user-centred design are described. Finally, we will discuss the results of showed data individuating further research developments.
Abstract
In questo articolo affronteremo il nostro approccio all’allestimento di due mostre pubbliche, nell’ambito delle quali il nostro obiettivo è stato quello di offrire gli strumenti adatti per facilitare e supportare i contributi personali dei visitatori alle mostre stesse. La filosofia alla base del nostro lavoro, considera il ruolo della tecnologia come in grado di accrescere il patrimonio delle esperienze di ogni singola persona, andando oltre la mera messa a disposizione delle informazioni, e permettendo ai fruitori di creare il contenuto di un’esposizione.
Pratiche di ascolto attivo
Abstract
The communities, their different expressive potential, highlighted in the territorial cultures, interwoven with material and immaterial, everyday life and future expectations, draw non-linear trajectories, sometimes with critical outcomes – as regularly have reported the article of Ricci and Cabasino. However, the regenerative capacity that they express are unexpected and open to possibilities that bring changes.
The editorial illustrates the key elements of the articles included in the number of Tafter Journal, indicating how culture could assist the territorial development in different ways and highlighting how the quality of inter-organizational relationships plays a central role in this process.
Ascesa e declino del paesaggio toscano
Rise and Decline of Tuscany Landscape
Abstract
Is there really a Tuscan landscape? Maybe, it is better to say the Tuscan landscapes, since the variety of situations makes difficult the reduction to a unified framework, although the landscape of the region is commonly identified with the settlement spread and the mixed-culture of an urbanized countryside, built on the basis of a close and special relationship between the town and country, actualized through the sharecropping. This long local agricultural organization has produced the scattered settlement of farmsteads, a widespread network of rural roads connected to the main roads, the presence of woody and herbaceous crop on the same land, with vineyards and olive trees interspersed in arable land, a continuous and coherent territorial maintenance.
Rossano Pazzagli interprets landscape as a common good, indicating the ways this interpretation should guide the actions affecting regional landscape. The article proposes this approach by analysing recent regulations that introduce social participation in the construction of a shared vision of the Tuscany landscape.
Abstract
Esiste davvero un paesaggio toscano? Magari sarebbe meglio dire i paesaggi toscani, poiché la varietà di situazioni rende difficile la riduzione ad un quadro unitario, sebbene il paesaggio della regione si identifichi comunemente con quello dell’insediamento sparso e della cultura promiscua, di una campagna urbanizzata, costruita sulla base di uno stretto e particolare rapporto tra città e campagna, concretizzatosi nella mezzadria. Questa duratura organizzazione agricola del territorio ha prodotto l’insediamento sparso delle case coloniche, una rete diffusa di viabilità rurale collegata alle strade principali, la compresenza di colture legnose ed erbacee sugli stessi terreni, con la vite e l’olivo intercalati ai seminativi, una continua e coerente manutenzione territoriale.
Dopo il paesaggio italiano
After the Italian landscape
The Baroque returns to us also for the fact that is the first Italian style consciously designed for an international and globalized dimension. With the Baroque, the Italian art topics become sensational and spectacular in order to overcome the local borders and to spread throughout the world. This communicative idea succeeds in reconciling the sixteenth-century dualism between spaces as a scene, resulting for cultural perspective, and space as an object, related to the culture of the antique. The definition of the contemporary landscape, Baricco would say “barbarian” landscape, passes through the consciousness of the self-representation and the identification of figurative themes that connect and amplify the multiple realities of our country. Instrument of this revolution from below, of this turn the glove, is the creative industry.
In this article, the author reflects on the contemporary characteristics of the Baroque in Italian Landscape and Built-Environment by contextualizing the birth of the Style within a political, cultural and social reconstruction.
Il barocco ritorna a noi anche per il fatto che è il primo stile italiano a essere consciamente pensato per una dimensione internazionale e globalizzata. I temi dell’arte italiana con il barocco divengono sensazionali e spettacolari per superare i confini localistici e diffondersi in tutto il mondo. Questa idea comunicativa riesce a conciliare il dualismo cinquecentesco tra spazio come scena, derivante dalla cultura prospettica, e spazio come oggetto, legato alla cultura dell’antico. La definizione del paesaggio contemporaneo, del paesaggio “barbaro” direbbe Baricco, passa per la coscienza del rappresentarsi, e l’individuazione di temi figurativi che connettano e amplifichino le molteplici realtà del nostro paese. Strumento di questa rivoluzione dal basso, di questo rivoltare il guanto, è l’impresa creativa.
I festival tra impatto sul territorio e luogo di espressione per l’immaginario collettivo
Festivals between territorial impact and place of expression for the collective imagination
The practice of experiencing aesthetic contents far from specific places, usually in open or unusual spaces, which are not directly designed for art, like squares or streets. This is the main characteristic of festivals. Celebrations, events full of social relations, which attract an increase nomadic audience that is ready to face even longer journeys just to feel part of an event that opens the door to imaginations.
The article explores the Festival as a specific cultural medium analysing both the economic impacts that Festivals produce on territories and their cultural-related outcomes. In the first paragraph, the author proposes an overview on the Festival Medium and its relationship with the territory while, in paragraph 2, a major attention is paid to the audiences of the festivals. Successively, the article review European Best Practices (paragraph 3) and the risks that an abuse of the festival-form could produce (paragraph 4). In paragraph 5, the author reflects upon the Festival as a cultural space.
L’esperienza estetica lontana dai luoghi deputati, in spazi generalmente aperti oppure insoliti, non direttamente pensati per l’arte; la cultura nelle piazze, nelle strade, questa la caratteristica principale dei festival. Feste, eventi intrisi di socialità, che attirano un pubblico sempre più nomade e disposto ad affrontare anche lunghi tragitti pur di sentirsi parte di un evento che spalanca le porte all’immaginazione.
Tafterjournal n. 1 - ottobre 2007
Creatività e gestione nelle imprese culturali
Creativity and management approach within cultural enterprises
How can we read the cultural world in the light of managerial disciplines? How does knowledge economy and intangible assets dovetail with the cultural industries sector? The article proposes an overlook on the world of cultural organizations and on the way in which they produce benefits in creativity, complexity and responsibility.
In the first paragraph, the article shows the defining framework of Cultural Enterprises while in the second and in the third paragraphs the author analyses the most common leadership approaches for the organizations involved in creative production and the subsequent information processes within the organization and the reputational outcomes. Finally, the article reflects on the management role and its impact on the identity of the cultural organization.
Come leggere il mondo culturale alla luce delle discipline manageriali? In che modo knowledge economy e intangibile trovano espressione nel settore delle cultural industries? Uno sguardo sul mondo delle organizzazioni culturali e sul modo in cui producono valore aggiunto tra creatività, complessità e responsabilità
Cultura per tutti, tutti per la cultura?
Culture for Everyone, all for Culture?
“The birth of Tafter Journal represents a good opportunity to propose an argument that I consider lively and constructive, and far from ideological positions, about the value and position of culture in our everyday life”.
The article analyses the main applications, in our daily lives, of wider cultural concepts, and highlights the principal characteristics of the cultural content, such as participation and accessibility, contents and messages, expressive and cognitive tools and by comparing creation and conservation politics that govern the Italian Country.
La nascita di questo giornale rappresenta una buona occasione per proporre un ragionamento che mi auguro vivace e costruttivo, ma lontano da posizioni ideologiche, sul valore e sul posizionamento della cultura nella nostra vita quotidiana, scandita da ritmi sempre più rapidi e allargata a confini pressoché illimitati dalla tecnologia e dalla globalizzazione.
Ricchi di territorio: puntare sulla coscienza civica
Rich of territory: working towards to a civic consciousness
By now, the territory has become a “dense” word, full of meanings, projects, expectations, not only for the town planners, which still frequent it, but also for economists and for cultural professionals. The territory is a mass of physical places, of communities that inhabit it and go through it, of forces and powerful potentialities, of tangible and intangible assets and economic and human resources. The editorial underlines the relevance of educational resources in the safeguarding the territory and how cultural skills could help in setting-up a civic consciousness.
L’internazionalizzazione della cultura
Cultural Internationalization
In current processes of internationalization, the territory is increasingly taking a role of central identity because it represents a fabric of tangible and intangible elements, it guarantees an added value to the location of productive activities, it contributes to the selection of the business activities.
The article proposes an in-depth analysis of the dichotomic relationship between the globalization process and the role of territorial economies, with a specific focus on the “Made in Italy” tradition and the impact that globalization could have on its products.
Nell’ambito degli attuali processi di internazionalizzazione il territorio assume sempre più un ruolo di entità centrale in quanto rappresenta un tessuto ricco di elementi materiali ed immateriali, garantisce un valore aggiunto alla localizzazione delle attività produttive, contribuisce alla selezione delle attività imprenditoriali…
Interazioni tra media per un museo virtuale
Cross-media Interaction for the Virtual Museum
Silence of the Lands è un museo virtuale localizzato a Boulder, in Colorado sul silenzio della natura. Il progetto, basato su tecniche di “locative and tangibile computing”, promuove un modello di realtà virtuale che rafforza il ruolo attivo e propositivo delle comunità locali nella salvaguardia e rinnovamento della quiete naturale, quale importante fattore del patrimonio ambientale. Silence of the Land is a virtual museum, located in Boulder (Colorado), about the silence of nature. The project, based on “locative and tangible computing” techniques, promotes a virtual reality model that strengthens the active role of local communities in the protection and restoration of natural quiet, as an important factor of the Natural Heritage.
L’Italia che se ne va
Italy is going in ruins
While numerous debates and conferences on the cultural identity are underway, in the last decade three billions of cubic metres of new buildings have devoured the landscape and the historical evidences in every corner of the country. The reasons of the conservation and of the safeguard of our heritage are still weaker than the development’s need, intended as the production of cube-meters of asphalts. The article analyses the contradictions between the public declarations and the factual interventions on the territory about the natural and cultural heritage.
