Har du penna på papiret eller dilla på data?

Forskning.no hadde nå en spennende artikkel om et «udkast til en tegnefilosofi» -en doktorgradsavhandling der forfatteren slår fast at det å tegne skisser er viktig for designstudenter, også i en alder hvor det blir mer og mer fokus på gule lapper og å skrive inn ting og tegne inn ting på data. Tegningen kan tvinge folk til å oppdage mer. http://www.forskning.no/artikler/2012/mai/320943

Jeg er helt enig. Jeg har gått i tegnetrening hos Bjørg Eigard, og vet hvor ubehagelig det er å gjøre ting man ikke helt mestrer. Som å tegne. Men nettopp fordi jeg ikke er så flink, klarer jeg ikke helt å uttrykke meg som jeg har tenkt. Jeg klarer å se for meg at jeg skal tegne flotte representasjoner med sjel, men så er ikke fingrene trent. Da blir det lett å la være, men samtidig er det ubehaget en fin utfordring, for det betyr jo ikke så mye, og så er det mye enklere for meg å huske etterpå hva som foregikk når jeg har tegnet underveis. Jeg tror det er en måte å gi seg selv en multi-sensorisk opplevelse, men dette er bare synsing, altså.

Men ikke minst tror jeg det er noe spesielt med penn mot papir, uansett om man tegner eller skriver. Jeg var på et kurs i antropologisk metode her i forrige uke, og det var veldig bra. En gammel nestor i faget, Jonathan Parry, fortalte om sammenhengen mellom sine feltarbeid. OG så sa han noe jeg reagerte på. Han hadde 37 kasser med notater fra sine feltarbeid. Han mente det var veldig dumt og anbefalte oss å bruke data der vi kan.

Spurlock's method - making businesses more innovative

This is a translation of my blog post at http://www.forskning.no/blog/ervik/321074 - so if you read Norwegian you'd probably prefer that.

The film "The greatest movie ever sold" by Morgan Spurlock, is a great example of collaborations between arts and business - a topic I worked on some years ago. He wondered how product placement affects the artistic expression, especially when it seems like the film or television series will only be made to sell things - not to tell stories. Makers are dependent on commercial financing, but is it possible to make films and television that retains its true expression in a world where advertising before the movie or the occasional TV series no longer is possible?

Here we touch upon a topic that often needs to be discussed in collaborations between arts and business. The economy is morally grounded, and artists do not want to make money in ways that are contrary to their values. The movie highlights the value debate, since films so often reflect reality better than my research reports. (It's kind of what art does).

For many centuries, innovation was almost exclusively reserved for the Arts, says Siri Meyer (2007), in her book on the innovative human. The term innovation was adopted by economists at the same time as the tempo of business has increased. “Innovative business” is really a contradiction-in-terms: innovation requires such risk that it is difficult to justify it within a standard corporate budget.

On the one hand, radical innovation might be devastating for existing business, as prescribed under the phenomenon of creative destruction. On the other hand, it is impossible to plan for radical innovation - it is characterized precisely by the fact that it is unpredictable. Nevertheless, there are the many examples of those who successfully navigate uncharted waters - it is possible to facilitate innovation processes even where it is difficult to imagine the results. In recent years, one of the strategies for encouraging innovative thinking has been to encourage artist collaborations with industry.

In a report we wrote in SINTEF (Ervik and others, 2009), on cooperation between artists and businesses, we documented successful examples, where it was largely a win-win situations. One actor on the arts side said:

"Can you through the business, a business that thinks differently- A business that is professional and innovative in its own genre - create art which is also innovative, also being ambitious and innovative in their own field ... "