Costa, P. (2020), “Rethinking Culture and Creativity Values in the Technological Era: Reshaping the Analytical Framework”, presentation to the International Workshop “Rethinking Culture and Creativity in the Technological Era”, School of Economics and Management of the University of Florence, Florence, Italy, 20-21st February 2020 In a global world, increasingly mediated by new technologies, but where place, communities and territories assume even more importance, the valuing of culture and creativity faces new conceptual and operational challenges. A diversity of anchoring mechanisms link global economic, social and cultural processes to the specificities of each territory. Cultural activities and creativity, which are central in these processes, are increasingly challenged by technologic mediation and by new forms of production and consumption. New intangible added values are generated, based on symbolic value and identity, where creativity, technology transfer, intangible heritage or craftsmanship are crucial components. All the traditional functions associated to cultural activities and creative processes (and the way they produced value and this value was recognized and appropriated) are facing new opportunities and threats, and the way the diverse (cultural, economic, social,…) value(s) of culture are perceived and measured need new conceptualizations and operative tools. This paper addresses these challenges in order to question the measurement tools usually applied in valuing the impact of culture in society, drawing upon a collective research-action process within RESHAPE project. RESHAPE is a research and development project, supported by Creative Europe Program, that brings together arts organizations from the Europe and the South Mediterranean to jointly create innovative organizational models and reflect on concrete answers to crucial challenges related to the production, distribution and presentation of contemporary art practices. It aims to imagine an alternative to the European arts ecosystem by rethinking its instruments and collaborative models, placing them in line with artistic and social innovation and the principles of fairness, solidarity, geographic balance and sustainability. This project is developing and testing an experimental bottom-up method to construct new narratives and new instruments that are appropriate to the evolutions of the arts sector and the society. By increasing the knowledge, competences and reactivity of intermediary organisations in relation to today’s artistic experimentations, RESHAPE aims to influence public policies and integrate future policy instruments. Within this project, a specific “trajectory” deals with the issue of the “Value of art in social fabric”, trying to understand how to encourage understanding of and promote the value of art in social fabric. For the lack of a more effective method, the value of contemporary art is often reduced to visible results or products. Processes developed by artistic practices mainly end up to be invisible or unrecognized so the audiences and decision-makers often don’t recognize the importance and the value of arts in society. How to better understand the influence of the artists and their work in the local context, urban or rural? How to encourage and support practices which create intangible value for society? The paper brings some of the results pf the work with the 8 “reshapers” (artists, curators, cultural promoters) involved in this “trajectory”, proposing a tentative conceptual grid to assess the impacts of creative and cultural activities in the societies and territories, in their diversity and multidimensionality, and some of the results of its testing with these creative actors.

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