Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 3, No.3/Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter 2018/2019 | Page 10

INTRODUCTION: UNDERSTANDING MULTIMODALITIES
IN ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
A lens is trained on you; you pose for the picture. You change how you
physically present yourself for others to see. With cameras being such
an intrinsic part of contemporary society, it has become a motor reflex
to be aware of a camera in the room, extending the cognitive function
of gaze detection.
https://theartsjournal.net/2018/05/14/arts-participation-and-global/
Video 1. Overview film on the Global Cultural Fellows Programme
(Password: aia37)
But then Guy Gotto moves toward the obverse of the gaze as he records the participants’
conversations:
With this project I found being a silent observer particularly challenging,
especially in the sub-group deliberations (prior to the group discussions).
These conversations were so electric and relatable to my experiences
that I found it extremely difficult not to contribute. Coming
from a largely non-academic background, I found the discussions were
fantastic triggers not just for further thinking, but for further research.
With both broad and delicate subjects being discussed, knowing when
to put down the camera is almost as important as knowing when to keep
rolling.
Unlike the declarative argument of a research paper, it would be hard to note an overall
macro statement that stood out to describe the experience of the 33 fellows. But that
is point: the experience was complex and interactive. A social bond increasingly drew
together the fellows in intense deliberations and they both challenged and converged
around each other’s perspectives. But even such an intensive deliberation may not have
validated the Enlightenment claim that arts engender social trust. For example, the fellows
discussed how arts move people toward intense interactions and conversations,
but that societies’ ways of privileging high arts and lows arts can be divisive. Arts are
multifunctional and multivalenced: sometimes they bring issue to fore that individuals
and groups may not want to address. What the fellows’ deliberations did reveal were
the interstices and the bridges where dialogues took place. They also revealed the performative,
sensory, and reason-based potential of many participants in deliberation and
persuasion.
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