
Arts Council to impose quantitative measures of arts quality - panic
http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/arts-council-impose-quantitative-measures-arts-quality
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f_allwein
Oh dear. Even if we assume that some of the metrics can be useful
("Enthusiasm: I would come to something like this again"), they are deeply
subjective, so any measurment would lead to good metrics for mainstream,
lowest-common-denominator work. Pretty much the opposite of what art should
be, given that many great artists were mocked or ridiculed in their time.

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AlphaSite
I suspect this is an attempt to recreate the success at the olympics, apply
ruthless efficiency in selecting the very best and promoting them.

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mjn
This sounds more like standard bureaucratic graft to me, where some private-
sector middleman is going to get paid a bunch to "evaluate art quality"
according to some proprietary set of "art quality metrics". The article says
that the metrics platform will be owned by Counting What Counts Ltd, and
organizations receiving grants will have to license it from them for
£2,000/yr. Basically the business model of "shitty overpriced software you're
required to have" that Blackboard Inc. pioneered in higher education.

Also generally part of a current trend (also seen in the sciences) where more
and more grant money gets plowed back into managing the grant process itself
rather than going to the things the grants are nominally supposed to fund.

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AlphaSite
There is a very workable to blackboard.

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delinka
Did you accidentally the noun?

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mjburgess
This is a very poorly written article that provides very little information
about the method or its motivation. And the consultants they're quoting sound
like idiots.

The reality, I believe, is this: Arts Council funding is limited and decisions
need to be made about which projects will be funded _over_ others.

So they need some _transparent_ system based on info from: _the artists_ ,
_their peers_ and the public.

Without any information whatsoever its not clear on what basis they could be
making any decisions. The whims of some Art Director who happens to prefer one
thing over another?

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Veen
> The whims of some Art Director who happens to prefer one thing over another?

I'd prefer this. It's the way it's been done for years, and it's usually
referred to as curation: people who know what they are talking about making
decisions about what's best.

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ThomPete
But who then should curate the curators :)

There is nothing to the concept of "knowing what you are talking about" when
selecting who to fund and who not IMO.

You might be lucky you have someone with great intuition and bi-partisan
approach to what they select but you might as well be unlucky that they don't.
"knowing what you are talking about" does not help you select what piece of
art should be promoted over another because there really isn't any piece of
art that should be promoted over another. I.e. there are no objective
criteria.

So applying quantitive measures is as perfectly useful as relying on
individuals and it applies transparency to the process especially when
combined which I believe is is the aim of it.

There is another discussion all together about whether the public should be
funding art but thats a whole other issue IMO.

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hackuser
> There is nothing to the concept of "knowing what you are talking about" when
> selecting who to fund and who not IMO.

I disagree. For example, clearly the head of the Museum of Modern Art in NY
would make better decisions than I would about who to fund, because they know
what they are talking about.

That knowledge and its application aren't perfect, but they do add necessary
value.

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ThomPete
How do you know they would make better decisions? By all means, if you can
figure this out there is a nobel laurate waiting for you.

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fhars
Does that remind anyone else of the "understanding poetry" scene from Dead
Poets Society?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjHORRHXtyI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjHORRHXtyI)

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anotheryou
lol, if they succeeded it would be revolutionary. We can put that formula in a
fitness function for AI and don't need artists anymore.

Seriously: Who comes up with that? We finance culture because it needs to
avoid the markets not to become a dull product. At best they will aim at some
mainstream, not at all supporting any advances in art.

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gaius
Right, but what do artists want? Grants, funding, cold hard cash in other
words.

It's unreasonable to ask people to put their hands in their pockets and give
you their hard-earned money if you can't explain exactly what you're going to
do with it. That way lies Tracy Emin putting her unmade bed on display, or
whatshisname and his pickled sheep - laughing all the way to the bank.

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Fricken
Emin's unmade bed and the pickled sheep were both impactful, memorable works
of art. They were successful. I mean, just that you referenced them off the
top of your head and I know what you're on about is proof of that.

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gaius
They were memorable only for the media coverage of the controversy that other
people's money was spent on them.

This is lottery money, not taxpayer's, but that finite pot of money has plenty
of other, legitimate, causes it could be funding.

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Fricken
I've been to the first world. I noticed while there that they spend the
majority of their time and effort in pursuit of activities that hardly be
classified as basic needs. I've noticed that beyond basic needs, what can be
classified as a 'legitimate cause' gets pretty subjective pretty fast.

There is even the curious phenomenon of the 'starving artist', a class of
individuals who willingly compromise basic necessities in pursuit of things at
the highest order of Maslow's heirarchy of needs. Though few of them are
actually starving, really it just means they can't afford luxury goods
commonly found amongst even the lower classes.

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j2kun
Let's suppose that there actually were a proposed quantitative measurement
system for art. I'd try to make a piece of art that scores the lowest
possible.

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nxzero
Sounds toxic. Imagine this was created by someone that sees art as a
collection of objects.

Art is about artist, not art - and no one wants to directly be told they are
not producing "quality art" by some system.

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ThomPete
I did some work for a startup who is applying algorithm to picking up and
coming artists.

[http://tondoart.net/](http://tondoart.net/)

I think the headline is mis-representative of what it's about.

It's does not sound like a measure of arts quality, but about creating a
consistent set of metrics to judge with as a baseline.

Nothing wrong with that and everyone who don't believe in it don't have to use
the sytem.

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graeham
I think its now well accepted that there is an 'art' to math/science/code -
why should the inverse not be true? Not to say that art should become some
sort of an applied math, but is it a crime that a publicly-funded body should
have some methods, strategy, and follow up on where its grants end up?

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jkot
Some criteria are very easy to quantify. Authors race, age, gender, sexual
orientation, disability status. It reflects on quality of art and its culture.

Arts Council is already using this criteria for grants and for hiring. It is
only logical to use it on art itself.

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ryan-allen
Is there a hobo bonus?

