THE PRODUCT IS THE PROCESS - THE PROCESS IS THE PRODUCT
The RESONANS Festival in Copenhagen is a multi-layered artistic research project designed as a dynamic platform for multimedia arts, community engagement, and cultural sustainability. It emerges from the philosophy that “the process is the product, and the product is the process,” focusing on creating a circular framework where each part of the festival serves as a container for community participation, interdisciplinary artistic expression, and cultural dialogue.
Methodological Framework:
The festival's approach is rooted in an iterative process of project management that emphasizes agile methodologies and feedback loops. This methodology ensures that the festival continually adapts to the needs of artists and the community. Over the six days, each event facilitates specific sensory experiences and mental stimulation to highlight key themes, including humanity's relationship with the environment and the diversification of the Nordic cultural landscape. Additionally, attention is given to sustaining the ecosystem of artistic production, fostering collaboration, and re-exploring pre-existing works.
Mind Map Structure:
1. VISUALIZE : Concept & Ideation
Action: Envision the Framework
This initial phase is dedicated to conceptualizing the festival's purpose and thematic scope. It involves identifying core research questions, defining the overarching theme (multimedia arts, environmental sustainability, cultural diversity), and formulating the festival’s unique motto: "The product is the process, the process is the product." Here, the emphasis is on creating a holistic vision that will guide all subsequent phases.
2. NURTURE: Community Engagement
Action: Cultivate Connections
The next phase focuses on reaching out to and engaging with the community. This involves building relationships with local artists, cultural institutions, activists, and educators to establish a network of participants. The goal is to encourage open participation and multigenerational dialogue, ensuring that the festival becomes a shared platform for collective cultural and environmental conversations.
3. FACILITATE: Artistic Collaboration
Action: Facilitate Collaborative Creation
In this phase, the focus shifts to bringing artists together for collaborative work. Instead of producing new creations, the emphasis is on curating and re-exploring existing works. Collaboration fosters a dynamic exchange of ideas between artists from various disciplines, leading to a deeper exploration of the festival’s themes. This process builds synergy and encourages cross-disciplinary interaction.
4. IMPLEMENT: Event Production
Action: Organize & Structure the Platform
Event production involves the logistical planning and structuring of the festival. This stage deals with the practical execution of the event, including venue selection, scheduling performances, and setting up spaces that allow for interactive participation. The goal is to create an inclusive environment that facilitates dialogue and participation, focusing on accessibility and sustainability in terms of both the event’s environmental impact and its economic model.
5. ACTIVATE: Public Interaction
Action: Engage Audiences Actively
During the festival, public interaction becomes crucial. This phase involves not only audience attendance but also active participation. The transformation of public spaces into venues for art is essential, as is creating opportunities for audiences to interact with the work on a sensorial and intellectual level. Here, the aim is to generate meaningful experiences that allow the audience to engage with multimedia art in a way that’s immersive and thought-provoking.
6. ASSESS: Feedback & Reflection
Action: Analyze & Learn
Once the festival concludes, the next step is to gather feedback from both participants and attendees. This stage emphasizes critical reflection on the outcomes and the process, analyzing how well the festival met its goals and identifying areas for improvement. Feedback from artists, community members, and audiences becomes part of an ongoing reflective process that ensures continual development.
7. Reiteration & Adaptation
Action: Refine & Transform
This final phase involves refining the festival based on the insights gained from feedback. Here, the festival structure is adjusted to improve sustainability, inclusivity (including neurodiversity and accessibility for those with invisible illnesses), and its overall impact. This process prepares the festival to adapt to new contexts or to be reproduced elsewhere, ensuring that the circular model continues its iterative evolution.
The provided visual diagram represents this circular development process, showcasing how each part informs and feeds into the next, creating a sustainable, adaptive model for future iterations of the RESONANS Festival (and ideally of other processes and projects that can benefit from this investigation).
The concept is to continually learn, reflect, and engage through an ongoing dialogue between artists, community members, and environmental concerns.
