Authenticity
As an artist you should be aware of what your artistic strengths are and what your strength is inside a company.The artistic power should be the starting point.

Authenticity of the craft would also be part of the list of personal qualities.
Is learning from knowledge about business than not a threat to the authenticity? What can often be seen in practice that acquired knowledge in the first instance is very much on the foreground and then fades away again. Whereupon the authenticity comes up again.

Tafi
The project TAFI consists mainly of intermediaries in Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands, this provides a certain perspective. It assumes that certain qualities are covered by the intermediaries such as acquisition. The question is if artists should not also have these qualities? The answer is that in most cases it is not easy for individual artists to find an entrance to a company.

Knowledge
How important is the artist’s knowledge of the industry? A certain basis of knowledge is required. But artists are more in touch with smaller groups within the company, not the whole company.
Is not it better to go in purely as an artist? Too much knowledge is probably not good.
As an artist you need some knowledge and connection with the company. On the basis of this knowledge/know how you know how to move yourself within a company. It is possible that the artist is concerned too much with himself and his own values. Without knowledge there is a risk of lack of understanding towards the company. Prior knowledge is also necessary to develop a suitable concept.

Artists sometimes expect to be welcomed with open arms within a company, this is not always so. Therefore it is important to have knowledge of the culture within a company.
The culture within a company is perceived as normal, for the people within the company it is difficult to identify. Therefore, it is the artist himself to seek out the culture on the basis of asking questions and observations.

Counter thought
An important skill of the artist is that they are able to (constructive) counter thinking. This also requires prior knowledge. Regarding knowledge we should look at the long term as well as short term interventions. Especially in the short term it is important to keep an open mind.
It is recommended that the knowledge that an artist needs is broken down in different parts.

Difference in disciplines
What kind of artist is best suited for this line of work? Communication skills play a major role. A distinction can be made between visual and performing arts. Many visual artists tend to more internally oriented, performing artists are often more outward looking.

The attitude circle should be larger, because this is the most important. More important than the knowledge circle.

Conceptual versus skills
You see in practice that there are artists who delve into the issue and their intervention is a concept based upon their research and there are artists who are good at a certain skill and their intervention is always based on the same skill. For the first type conceptual questions are well suited, for more skills-oriented issues the second type is more suitable.
The artist must have the motive to contribute something within the company. Do they start from being an artist or from the issue? This also determines the match between artist and company. Artists are sometimes more goal focused than process-oriented.
A criterion which rises above it is that cynicism should be avoided, this applies to both the artist and the company. It is also important that artists have the skills to deal with cynicism within the workplace.

How do you get inside companies?
What kind of businesses are open to artists? This is very dependent on the management, you need the right person at the table who is interested. Bringing change is difficult, there is often resistance. In this case the intermediate plays a role.

The recession makes people want to think otherwise. This creates opportunities for artists.
It is not so much that the artist brings art, but that the artist as a person contributes to the change process (he brings a new perspective and it is capable of other questions). The feeling among people that something else happens than usual, arouses interest.

As an artist you should also know what you cannot do. This part is also taken up by the intermediary. But should the artist be an allrounder? There are few allrounders, there are more artists who are good at what they do.

Role of the intermediary
Each intermediary takes a different role. You have the intermediaries which do all and then involve the artist and other intermediaries delegate a substantial part of the process to the artist. These are choices that affect the process and the kind of artist that you involve in the process.
As an intermediary, you can make space for the artist on the content and keep more control over the process. Also, because you maintain the relationships with the company. Here is a distinction between long and short projects, where within the short-term projects the artist has more freedom concerning the process.

In the process it is important that the company puts the same trust in the artist as it expects to receive from its customers.
As an intermediary, you can first set the scene, after which the artist has the freedom to organize it himself.

Evaluation and Customer Satisfaction
What kinds of follow-up do you encounter? This does not happen much, but we have been there only 5 years now, so this may be yet to come. In one company there has been follow-up, but here it is dependent on one very motivated person.

Customer satisfaction is not measured. How can customer satisfaction be measured? This is difficult because it is more an experience than knowledge, which is difficult to assess. There will be evaluations.

What role plays the intermediary holding in aftercare? This is often intuitive. The aftercare is often very valuable experience.

Finally,Within co-creation you are not looking for the solution, but for different directions in which solutions might be found. Often it is not known in advance what direction the process will lead you and if there is a solution at all.

Video om Kunstgreb from Kunstgreb Danmark on Vimeo.

Interview James Hill Unilever

During the month long intervention an initially normal-seeming marketing trainee starts to apply peculiar working methods. Gradually she shifts from the position of someone others believe normal to the object of avoidance and speculation. The videos and slideshow reveal a spectrum of ways of looking after the odd member in a group. Sincere interest and bewildered amusement is juxtaposed with demands directed at the superior regarding the strangely behaving worker.

We see the trainee sitting at her workstation in the consults’ open plan office space or in the tax department library all day doing nothing. One of the videos shows her spending an entire day in an elevator. These acts or rather the absence of visible action slowly make the atmosphere around the trainee unbearable and force the colleagues to search for solutions and come up with explanations for the situation.

Masking laziness in apparent activity and browsing Facebook during working hours belong to the acceptable behavioural patterns of a work community. However, sitting in front of an empty desk with your hands of your lap, thinking, threatens the peace of the community and breaks the colleagues’ concentration. When there is no ready method of action, people initially resort to avoidance, which fails to set their mind at ease when the situation drags on.

What provokes people in non-doing alongside strangeness is the element of resistance. The non-doing person isn’t committed to any activity, so they have the potential for anything. It is non-doing that lacks a place in the general order of things, and thus it is a threat to order. It is easy to root out any on-going anti-order activity, but the potential for anything is a continual stimulus without a solution.

Supported by Finnish Cultural Foundation

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Artlab’s collection of case studies offers a glimpse of the unique and growing array of services that artists are able to offer the business, and outlines their effect upon companies. Read how a painter trains pharmacists in co-creation; how actors train managers in collaboration and help doctors to decode patients; and how 15 artists are actively
involved in revitalising a whole region.

Download 15 cases artists & businesses (PDF)