Creative connections:  the value of digital information and its effective management for sustainable contemporary visual art practice
Keywords: qualitative social science
digital preservation
digital curation
information literacy
creative research
visual art
digital information

This study examines digital information use in contemporary visual art making in the UK using a practitioner-centred approach. This research employs innovative approaches to establish new understanding of visual artists’ tasks and skills in contemporary practice. Based on evidence derived from a substantial series of detailed qualitative case-study interviews, the research particularly clarifies the value of digital information use in contemporary visual art practice in the UK and the implications of the current digital information management skills base in the UK visual art community.
This study deploys Bourdieu’s theory of cultural production to test its analytical power in the setting of contemporary visual art practice in the UK, interlinked with Becker’s art world theory which conceptualises art as a group activity. Bourdieu’s field theory was particularly mobilised as a tool to analyse artists’ endeavours, whilst understanding those endeavours as a result of interaction between a network of individuals and organisations. These approaches were coupled with a practitioner-focused, qualitative methodology to produce deep understanding of how artists spend their time, how they value particular resources in making their work, and the relationship between the two.
I explore and specify how artists search for, retrieve, manage, use and circulate digital information, described in artists’ own terms, and how they understand and value digital information and digital objects in their practices and careers. Particular attention is given to artists’ tasks that require digital technologies, the skills that are needed by the artist to perform these tasks, the extent to which these tasks and skills are considered valuable by the artist, whether the artist feels confident in their ability to perform these tasks competently and effectively, and the extent to which they rely on their social and professional networks, as foregrounded by art world theory, to ameliorate skills gaps.
The study identified that artists vary their habitus to contribute labour to different Bourdieusian fields, particularly: a) as a private individual, b) as an artist working outside their practice, and c) as artist-within-practice. Further findings include the critical value of digital technologies and digital objects to the workflows of contemporary artists in a range of ways across these fields. This research also shows that much of the work in contemporary professional art making can be understood as invisible labour, whilst the skills around effective use of critical digital technologies can be understood as similarly invisible to this professional population.
Taken together, the study findings provide an evidence base for the use of policy makers when designing funding activities or programmes in the visual arts sector. Findings also support important suggestions for providers of education and training in the visual arts, with profound implications for the fit-to-need of current curricula in tertiary and professional art education. Finally, this study analyses and clarifies the extent to which the information sciences are reaching this profession, and how the professional art community may benefit from engagement with information science concepts and practices as a tool in the struggle to stay in practice.