Prototyping for Participatory Democracy : Fine Arts as Means for the Study of Multi-modal Communication in Public Decision Making

Abstract

We present a thematic art project in a suburb of Stockholm as a means to generate problem areas in focus for a research project on multimodal communication and democratic decision-making. Through art we play with different techniques and ideas about democracy in a particular location in order to obtain a better understanding of the citizens and their environments. Artists' actions, installations and mediations create a direct confrontation with the place and its inhabitants, and explore the dynamic relationships that constitute its context. The common denominator for the invited artists is that they work with situation-specific emancipatory art that in various ways relates to the physical and mediated public sphere. The art project Performing Structure is a collaborative process where the artists develop the project and take part in the contextualization in collaboration with researchers. This is achieved partly through a shared memory work on the theme of power / powerlessness. From this feminist research practice notions of democracy is examined in order to investigate, expose, enhance and / or remodel relations of the site. The aim with the art project is to put the site and the individual in a web of geographical, social and economic contexts. The aim is also to contribute to a debate on artistic research by showing how art can be viewed as a qualitative method. Through the practice of the memory work method we contribute to the development of this methodology, and map out a space for art in the field of science.

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