Whether it’s folk music, a theater festival or game design: culture thrives on encounters between people, their works and their activities. Technology has always played an important role in this. But what are the current interdependencies between digital possibilities and cultural creation? A three-part TA-SWISS project is taking a close look at the opportunities and risks of digitalization in the cultural sector.
Hardly any art or its distribution today can do without digital means. On the one hand, this can open up new opportunities for artists to express their creativity, collaborate with others beyond the boundaries of physical space or make their works accessible to a global audience. On the other hand, it also presents them with new challenges: For example, with ’digitally powered’ reach, the competition for attention is also taking on entirely new dimensions. And the arrival of generative artificial intelligence in the art world raises the question of what role human performance, creativity and authenticity, in the sense of a unique, unmistakable form of expression, should play in cultural production in the future. In addition, the social and legal situation of cultural workers, who are already working precariously today, could become even worse under the conditions of digitalization.
A multifaceted triptych
The three sub-studies of the TA-SWISS project take a differentiated look at the effects of digitization on cultural creation and cultural promotion. They show where there is room for manoeuvre to shape digitalization in the cultural sector in such a way that it strengthens cultural diversity, creates easily accessible new spaces for reflection and thus promotes cultural participation for as many people as possible.
Many artists are ambivalent about using digital applications: although they can be helpful in the creative phase as well as in communication and marketing, these advantages only come with additional time, financial and emotional investment, often borne by the artists themselves. The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) presents this ambivalence with fictitious but realistic artist personas. Its comprehensive examination of the social, economic, political and legal effects of digitalization on the art forms of music, theater and visual design is based on literature research as well as several qualitative surveys and focus group workshops with artists.
This qualitative analysis is supplemented by the quantitative study by the Swiss Music Council (SMR), which sheds light on the specific effects of digitalization in the music sector and uses two surveys to determine how the Swiss music industry is affected by current digital developments, how it perceives them and how it deals with them. The results show that most musical institutions and musicians take a very pragmatic approach to new technological developments. Digital applications that offer the right balance between individual effort and return are used, while all others are abandoned. This applies to digital sheet music programs as well as generative artificial intelligence applications.
The reasons for this are not least economic in nature. Digitalization creates new market mechanisms that are driven in particular by attention. IT giants, artists and amateurs are coming together in global virtual competition. At their core, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are an attempt to decentralize market power and bring buyers and sellers into direct contact with each other. In its discourse analysis, the Think & Do Tank Dezentrum examines the hype that the introduction of these blockchain-based certificates of authenticity has triggered in the art market.
Shaping digitalization together
The three sub-studies arrive at the same conclusion in different ways: Only in combination with the strengths of the analog world, its commitment, closeness and warmth, can the digital sphere play out its advantages in favor of artistic creation and strengthen its role as a social space for reflection. This results in a number of options for action. For example, measures to create fair income conditions, the continuous revision and adaptation of copyright law, as well as targeted information and training opportunities for creative artists are recommended.
It is important to note that the interplay between culture and digitalization depends not least on structural factors. The effects of digitization on cultural creation and cultural promotion should therefore become a multi-year focus of the National Cultural Dialogue: Political decision-makers, cultural organizations and artists must actively monitor developments in order to be able to initiate course corrections if necessary.
