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Interactive Design and Community Participation: The Case of Mullae Art Village
Abstract
This article considers the role of community participation, interactive performance art and global ambition in the case of the artistic community in the village of Mullae, South Korea. Mullae Art Village emerged as a commune of artists and performers from an industrial slum and has transformed the community's identity and function. The author examines the importance of user-focused event design and examples of participatory and interactive art through an extended case study of Mullae. Drawing on ethnographic observation, document analysis and an in-depth interview, the case study charts the shifting priorities of the artists' village, its events and its artistic projects. The article concludes by considering the implications for management of this grassroots "unmanaged" community.
The transition from an industrial to knowledge-based economy is impacting urban growth across Asia. Many cities now seek to lure educated professionals through arts and cultural amenities, with a common focus on disinvested neighborhoods. The underlying planning tactics often favor top-down intervention over multi-sectoral collaboration, marginalizing and displacing the politically weaker constituencies that give neighborhoods their authenticity. Many studies have examined the drivers and impacts of this process in Western contexts, but further research is needed to understand collaborative governance for urban art districts in neoliberal contexts. Mullae, an artist-originated district in Seoul, illustrates collaboration between civil society and local government in such a context. Based on in-depth interviews, document analysis, and observational research, this study examines tensions among parties participating in and affected by urban development in art districts. Empirical findings are interpreted through a framework that focuses on three dialectics: economy, policy, and culture. Government overtures to collaboration are found to provide only limited avenues of policy influence among artists. This suggests the need for further research about the role of neoliberal forces in replicating elite place-building power structures, which remain at theoretical and practical odds with the concept of collaborative governance.
Claire Bishop argued that the ethical lens applied to socially engaged arts practice encourages 'authorial renunciation' in favour of collaboration and limits the opportunity to expose such practice to critical reception (2006: 4). This article responds to Bishop's implicit call to envision an artist-centred framework for participatory arts, by identifying the motivations and beneficial discoveries that artists make when they seek out the creative involvement of others. Based on interviews with Australian performing artists who have established socially engaged practices, the article aims to bring about a form of 'authorial reinstatement' into the value system around participatory arts practice. It identifies a range of motivations for artists who establish socially-engaged or participatory practice, from self-developmental to altruistic; and from arts-focused to community and society-focused. The article argues that using these motivations to inform indicators of achievement for participatory practice provides new opportunities for critical interrogation of those practices. Theme: Participatory arts, artistic quality, relational arts.
Objectives The purpose of this study was to examine parents' perspectives of children's free play and sport using a socioecological lens. Design Qualitative, interpretive description. Method Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 12 parents of children in middle childhood (ages 8–10). Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed inductively according to interpretive description and deductively using a socioecological model. Results The overarching theme, ‘times have changed’, captured the ways in which children's sport and free play have evolved since parents' own childhoods. Within this overarching theme, two primary themes were identified: 1) not so ‘free’ play and 2) the privileging of sport. Conclusions Both free play and sport were viewed as important to middle childhood, however, experiences gained in children's sport were seen to be of greater value to the overall development of children, and were therefore prioritized. Ultimately our findings demonstrate the complexity of parenting and the pressures exerted from various levels of influence on the decisions they make with regard to their children's wellbeing in the contexts of free play and sport. How to inform and best support parents in this process remains a significant challenge in moving forward.
The purposes of this study were to (a) document the frequency and types of disciplinary incidents directed toward men’s soccer referees and (b) examine stakeholders’ perceptions of factors that contributed to such incidents. A two phase sequential mixed methods approach was used. In phase one, a provincial soccer organization’s disciplinary files from 2010 to 2015 were subjected to a document analysis. Descriptive statistics for frequency and type of incident over time were calculated. In phase two, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 players, 9 referees, and 3 disciplinary committee members. Results from the document analysis showed that 98 incidents were reported over the five-year period, with the most incidents occurring in 2015. Incidents occurred more frequently in indoor versus outdoor soccer, and the highest number of incidents was reported at the lowest competitive tiers of play. Qualitative data showed that factors at different levels of social ecology contributed to the occurrence of incidents. Microsystem level factors, which appeared to directly contribute to the occurrence of incidents, were players’ and coaches’ lack of knowledge, coaches’ attitudes, physical environment (indoor versus outdoor soccer), inconsistent refereeing, referees’ communication, number of officials, and importance of game (score, stage of season). At a broader exosystem level, the training and mentoring of referees, rule changes, and the disciplinary procedure were associated with incidents. At the macrosystem level, cultural background and discrimination were distally associated with incidents. These findings provide information that may be used by sport organizations to inform educational efforts to reduce disciplinary incidents.
This article considers the changing role of exhibition design and its contribution to interpretation in the increasingly audience-centred museum environment. By examining the case of the Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa, this article considers the designers' creative role in framing the problem and connecting with the needs and desires of potential users to reshape both the institution of the museum and visitors' experience. This article concludes with a preliminary map of the key interpretive design considerations of concepts, contexts and narratives as a guide to the exhibition design process in contemporary museums, and for those who seek to bridge the gap between expert knowledge and public audiences. This creative interdisciplinary role for design in bridging the gap between growing expert knowledge and satisfying an increasing desire for democratic participation in its dissemination can be seen as an important cultural role for design and one worthy of further critical consideration.
This article applies aspects of Jürgen Habermas, Manuel Castells and Lawrence Lessig’s theories to demonstrate how digital communication and new media platforms enhance cultural participation as well as how cultural policy affects the cultural behaviour of users who produce and are consumers in a digital convergence culture. The digital platforms and new media used in the analysis include an open source animated short film, Elephants Dream, the social networking sites YouTube and MySpace, and the BBC’s Creative Archive. The aim of this article is to study how cultural policy makers can learn from these examples and how they can make use of the participatory, self‐publishing characteristics of Web 2.0 in order to create accessible digital cultural public spheres.