The Cultural Dynamics Project:
Mapping and Simulating the American Cultural Ecosystem
October 4 & 5, 2003
University of Wisconsin-Madison

A collaborative project of
Bolz Center for Arts Administration,
Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley, and
National Arts Strategies

Funded by
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

In all its forms and functions, “policy” comprises three elements: an understanding of the way things work (systemic knowledge), a vision for how they might work better, and specific interventions aimed at achieving the desired vision. Modern medicine, in effect, applies these three elements of policy in the course of diagnosing and treating an individual patient. In medical practice, effective “policy” for a patient consists of a thorough diagnosis of a patient’s physical/mental condition (understanding of the patient’s system, what is working and what is not), comparison of that condition to a vision of good health, and the provision of specific interventions intended to advance the patient’s condition toward that vision of health. While these three components of a systematically formulated “policy” for an individual’s health may seem self-evident, they are often missing or incomplete in public policies and organizational planning. In arts and culture, such an approach seems entirely absent.

Too often, what passes for cultural policy or organizational planning is simply a reaction to a crisis: the threatened reduction of funding for the National Endowment for Arts, the loss of artist live/work space in the face of urban development, the sudden shift in purchase patterns among traditional audiences. In these moments of perceived crisis, resources are mobilized to push back on the threat and restore the status quo. Only rarely are there thoughtful attempts to understand the broad condition of the arts and culture, to formulate integrated visions of how they might be fully healthy, and to enact well-conceived interventions at the macro and micro level.

The case can be made that the arts and culture in America constitute a unique ecosystem whose features have been shaped, and continue to evolve, through the confluence of a wide range of influences. Governmental tax policies, subventions and regulations are obvious influences, but many other factors have been even more significant. Over more than a century, trends in immigration, technology, education, labor, philanthropy, capital infrastructure, urbanization, consumer fashion, consumer spending, and the economy have affected the content, quantity, organizational structures, and creativity of the American cultural sector.

The purpose of the Cultural Dynamics Project is to map the key factors that are driving the American cultural ecosystem using the tools of systems thinking. In the course of the mapping, the principal forces and the directions of their causality will be described graphically: what affects what, and to what extent? The map will be formulated by a veteran group of about 15 authorities who have observed or researched the evolution of broad facets of the ecosystem over the last four decades. The two-day session will provide an overview of systems thinking, and the basic elements of systems mapping, but move quickly to the active application of that discipline to the arts.

Following the meeting and the creation of the map, a leading expert on systems dynamics will develop a working computer simulation. The simulation will include a user-friendly interface that will enable a variety of users to visualize the workings of the cultural ecosystem and to project policy scenarios into the future. Once the map and simulation have been created, they will be circulated into several policy, academic, and research circles to ascertain whether they are worthwhile tools. If the response is positive, wider circulation will be undertaken, and more ambitious macro and micro mapping and simulation projects will ensue.

Systems thinking has provided a useful toolset for disciplines as diverse as meteorology, biology, social science, and human systems, areas that all share a complex structure of dynamically interconnected elements. The Cultural Dynamics Project seeks to turn that same toolset and conceptual framework toward the reasoned development of cultural policy, the responsive management of cultural institutions, and the dynamic training of future leaders in the field.

ABOUT THE CONVENERS
The project is being convened by three organizations that have already begun working toward a more systemic view of arts and culture: Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley (www.ci-sv.org) has used systems simulations/games as a device for analysis and teaching in the domain of regional cultural policy; National Arts Strategies (www.artstrategies.org) has been redirecting its national consulting and support services toward adaptability and responsive management; and the Bolz Center for Arts Administration (www.bolzcenter.org) has been reshaping its graduate business degree curriculum drawing on the concepts and skills of systems thinking. All three organizations are working to expand and explore these early steps through the insights and input of the October convening, and to build a national network of experts to carry the conversation forward.

ABOUT THE FUNDERS
The project has been funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, whose representatives will also participate in the Madison event.

PROJECT SCHEDULE
All sessions will be hosted in the Fluno Center for Executive Education on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Participants should plan to arrive on the afternoon or evening of Friday, October 3, and depart in the late afternoon or evening of Sunday, October 5 (we will plan to complete our meeting by Noon on Sunday).

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