COMMON LAB MANUAL: CASE STUDY
KEY RESULTS & FINDINGS

​Text: Max Spielmann

Media competencies / Capacity building
A part, about 100 of the 184 active participants, were primarily interested in the media training offered. These were often people from the educational and cultural sectors who wanted to apply these new skills in their own field of work. Around 70 people were also interested in becoming active and drawing attention to something or changing something concretely with their own media productions. Participation in the project phases reflects these motivations. The participants were very active and continuously involved in the first part (training) or in both parts (training and production). The success of the training can be seen in the results, the available media productions. We judge 82% of all works to be directly usable professionally, or to be brought into a professional state with a manageable amount of additional support. How can this be explained? In the last 20 years, audiovisual media skills have greatly improved; we can speak of a solid cultural-technical foundation. Cameras and simple editing programs are ubiquitous, available in every smartphone and computer, and visual material is also ubiquitous on YouTube or in a wide variety of television programs and streaming services. The step into an own practice mainly includes the strengthening of self-confidence, the skills for a critical self-reflection and some practical assistance. Of course, there are limitations especially in the intermediate field. How do the sub-media sound, image and text complement each other, and how does the narrative work with references to literature, theatre, film, auditory and visual arts? But the central goal is to empower people to use audiovisual media to develop a language to communicate on social issues and to participate in regional development. Tale of X Cities encourages more educational projects in the media field for goals of civic participation and social transformation. 

Hybridization / Concrete methodical approach 
Digital teaching elements are an important part of the future. The success of Tale of X Cities is directly related to digital exchange. Three points are of importance. First, the cost - with relatively little additional cost, it would also be possible to have twice as many participants in the educational part of the program. The program is easily scalable. Secondly, the convenience - for a lot of participants, participation from home brings many advantages in terms of convenience, time savings, partially time-shifted work and also the possibility to briefly attend to a household task. The high percentage of female participants is directly related to this. Thirdly, the limbo effect - in the digital space, more open forms of collaboration are easier to realise. The encounters between the participants are less characterised by social differences and power imbalances, and the boundaries between professional and amateur are also partially erased in the creative sphere. This supports a mood of joint action and exchange and this is to be interpreted as a great potential. In future projects, these effects are to be examined and further developed. It cannot be ruled out that after the pandemic and with the digital experience, the effects may also partially reduce or disappear again. 

Art and Design Thinking / Resources of Creativity
A large number of participant:s come from the education and creative industries. There are strong indications that many are not professionally employed according to their qualifications (overqualification). In the timing of Tale of X Cities, their great engagement and interest in regional and social work is evident. 

Connections between the creative industries and the socio-economic development of cities and regions have been widely described and researched over the past two decades. Combining issues of regional development with cultural institutions as social actors and the involvement of civically active co-inhabitants in Tale of X Cities makes sense. However, there were limits to the implementation. Easily explainable is the connection with the pandemic and the explorative design of the project. In addition, the lack of concrete exchange on site in combination with the scarce resources was a hindrance for the project. Centrally, an inter- and transdisciplinary issue emerges here between the different actors involved. The central capacities and resources of designers and artists lie in their ways of working and thinking, how they recognize problems, deal with them and develop solutions. For designers, it is about iteration, a step-by-step questioning and repeatedly trying out alternatives. For artists, it is more about the way they perceive problems and put them up for discussion in a condensed symbolic and at the same time abstract way. These two points are representative for the way of thinking and acting in the creative sector, they are a capital to initiate important social renewals. But for this to happen, time is necessary for the concrete collaboration of those involved on the ground – it takes time to understand to appreciate the different methods and approaches. These conditions were situationally insufficient in Tale of X Cities. 

Social benefit 
Economy in its original sense means the doctrine of the good management of a house. Understanding economics as such a holistic discipline has little to do with our current understanding. For urban and regional development, for Tale of X Cities, such an understanding is important; with activities in the neighborhood, cultural institutions as a multiplier and resonance space, a festival that connects activities, motivates the participants and promotes the exchange of experiences, and municipalities that promote civil society activities with framework conditions and funding instruments. In this way, innovations; social, ecological, cultural and economic can emerge and spill over from one field to another. In the study of Tale of X Cities, the interest in local social conditions and their changes can be clearly seen. What is missing are concrete implementations in the local space based on a combination of digital teaching and exchange, as well as the concrete collaborations with local cultural institutions. In some cities, such in-depth collaborations already took place in the first version of Tale of X Cities. The potential of highly qualified actors is available and should be used.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
About Common Lab
​Background
Timeline

ACTIVITIES RATIONALE 
​Tale of X Cities & media competences for community building
State of the Arts & the digital public spheres

KEY THEORETICAL CONCEPTS
​Social innovation through art
​Art for social change
​Post-industrial design
Cultural and creative industries
Bibliography

CASE STUDY: TALE OF X CITIES
​About the case study
​Tale of X Cities key results & findings
​Lessons learned & recommendations 
Model project flow
​Media productions as evaluation tool
​Digital events and communication formats