This book explores – at the macro, meso and micro levels and in terms of qualitative as well as quantitative studies – theories, policies and practices about the contributions of artistic research and innovations towards defining new forms of knowledge, knowledge production, as well as knowledge diffusion, absorption and use. Artistic research, artistic innovations and arts-based innovations have been major transformers, as well as disruptors, of the ways in which societies, economies, and political systems perform. Ramifications here refer to the epistemic socio-economic, socio-political and socio-technical base and aesthetic considerations on the one hand, as well as to strategies, policies, and practices on the other, including sustainable enterprise excellence, considerations in the context of knowledge economies, societies and democracies. Creativity in general, and the arts in particular, are increasingly recognized as drivers of cultural, economic, political, social, and scientific innovation and development. This book examines how one could derive and develop insights in these areas from the four vantage points of Arts, Research, Innovation and Society. Among the principal questions that are examined include: - Could and should artists be researchers? - How are the systems of the Arts and Sciences connected and/or disconnected? - What is the impact of the arts in societal development? - How are the Arts interrelated with the mechanisms of generating social, scientific and economic innovation? As the inaugural book in the Arts, Research, Innovation and Society series, this book uses a thematically wide spectrum that serves as a general frame of reference for the entire series of books to come.

This book explores―at the macro, meso and micro levels and in terms of qualitative as well as quantitative studies―the current and future role of museums for art and society. Given the dynamic developments in art and society, museums need to change in order to remain (and in some ways, regain) relevance. This relevance is in the sense of a power to influence. Additionally museums have challenges that arise in the production of art through the use of permanent and rapidly changing technologies. This book examines how museums deal with the increasing importance of performance art and social interactive art, artistic disciplines which refuse to use classical or digital artistic media in their artistic processes. The book also observes how museums are adapting in the digital age. It addresses such questions as, “How to keep museums in contact with recipients of art in a world in which the patterns of communication and perception have changed dramatically,” and also “Can the art museum, as a real place, be a counterpart in a virtualized and digitalized society or will museums need to virtualize and even globalize themselves virtually?” Chapters also cover topics such as the merits of digital technologies in museums and how visitors perceive these changes and innovations. When you go back to the etymological origin, the Mouseion of Alexandria, it was a place where – supported by the knowledge stored there – art and science were developed: a place of interdisciplinary research and networking, as you would call it today. The word from the Ancient Hellenic language for museum (ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟΝ) means the “house of the muses”: where the arts and sciences find their berth and cradle. With the “Wunderkammer,” the museum was re-invented as a place for amazing for purpose of representation of dynastic power, followed by the establishment of museums as a demonstration of bourgeois self-consciousness. In the twentieth century, the ideal of the museum as an institution for education received a strong boost, before the museum as a tourism infrastructure became more and more the institutional, economic and political role-model. This book is interested in discovering what is next for museums and how these developments will affect art and society. Each of the chapters are written by academics in the field, but also by curators and directors of major museums and art institutions.

By dwelling on the need for the convergence of business, innovation and the arts, this book highlights the value of lowering the psychological, organizational and institutional barriers that keep them apart. For educators and practitioners, this is an in-depth discussion designed to stimulate awareness of the issues facing business education.

This book highlights the use of art in human rights, specifically within Africa. It advances an innovative pattern of thinking that explores the intersection between art and human rights law. In recent years, art has become an important tool for engagement on several human rights issues. In view of its potency, and yet potential to be a danger when misused, this book seeks to articulate the use of arts in the human rights discourse in its different forms. Chapters cover how music, photography, literature, photojournalism, soap opera, commemorations, sculpting and theatre can be used as an expression of human rights. This book demonstrates how arts have become a formidable expression of thoughts and a means of articulating reality in a form that simplifies truth and congregates resolve to advance change.

Arts education is often said to be a means of developing critical and creative thinking. This report examines the state of empirical knowledge about the impact of arts education on these kinds of outcomes.

This book focuses on the relationship between the university and a particular cohort of academic staff: those in visual and performing arts disciplines who joined the university sector in the 1990s. It explores how artistic researchers have been accommodated in the Australian university management framework and the impact that this has had on their careers, identities, approaches to their practice and the final works that they produce. The book provides the first analysis of this topic across the artistic disciplinary domain in Australia and updates the findings of Australia’s only comprehensive study of the position of research in the creative arts within the government funding policy setting reported in 1998 (The Strand Report). Using lived examples and a forensic approach to the research policy challenges, it shows that while limited progress has been made in the acceptance of artistic research as legitimate research, significant structural, cultural and practical challenges continue to undermine relationships between universities and their artistic staff and affect the nature and quality of artistic work.

This book examines Modern Iran through an interdisciplinary analysis of its cultural norms, history and institutional environment. The goal is to underline strengths and weaknesses of Iranian society as a whole, and to illustrate less prescriptive explanations for the way Iran is seen through a lens of persistent collective conduct rather than erratic historical occurrences. Throughout its history, Iran has been subject to many studies, all of which have diagnosed the country’s problem and prescribed solutions based on certain theoretical grounds. This book intends to look inward, seeking cultural explanations for Iran’s perpetual inability to improve its society. The theme in this book is based on the eloquent words of Nasir Khusrau, a great Iranian poet: “az mast ki bar mast”. The words are from a poem describing a self-adoring eagle that sees its life abruptly ended by an arrow winged with its own feathers—the bird is doomed by its own vanity. The closest interpretation of this idiom in Western Christian culture is “you reap what you sow”, which conveys a similar message that underlines one’s responsibility in the sense that, sooner or later, we must face the choices we make. This would enable us to confront – and live up to – what Iran’s history and culture have taught us.