In the ever-evolving field of urban development, “The Future of Public Art” sets out to be a project that reimagines the role and impact of art in public spaces. At its core, the project seeks to quantify the value of public art through a systematic approach, anchored in three fundamental pillars: democracy, contextuality, and insightfulness.
The project proposes the idea that each pillar has a technique that can be quantified. For example, if a public art is democratic, this can be measured by how participatory it is. Or if a public art is contextual, this can be measured by how dynamic it is, and if a public art is insightful, this can be quantified by how data driven the public art is. This approach allows for any public art to be given a specific profile based on the score received on each sub pillar.
Furthermore, the project proposes that Future Public Art, in order to fulfill its core Axioms, should adopt an Iterative Flow. This means that Future Public Art should start from an initial unaltered state. This state is then acted upon by Public Participation, from which it gets new Value and Data. The art then Evolves based on public contributions and the the cycle starts once again.
The project recognizes the crucial dependency of Future Public Art on location and proposes a way to quantify location based on the following criteria:
- Participatory aspect score: Foot Fall | Higher foot fall means that the location allows for participatory processes to happen.
- Dynamic aspect score: Land Use and | Industrial land use is not the most suitable for public art, that is why locations that can be categorized by having residential or commercial land use receive a higher score.
- Data Driven aspects score: Demographics | More diverse demographics means that the location receives a higher score.
By doing this, location profiles can be created. The example below presents a location profile for Ciutat Vella, Barcelona.
By overlaying art profiles and location profiles, municipalities can determine if a particular artwork is feasible for a particular location. Municipalities can thus see where certain public art is overperforming or underperforming. This framework can be utilized by real-estate developers as well to select artworks feasible for different developments.
