Valuing the cultural monuments of Armenia: Bayesian updating of prior beliefs in contingent valuation

The most appropriate way to measure the social benefits of conserving built cultural heritage sites is to ask the beneficiaries of conservation interventions how much they would be willing to pay for them. We use contingent valuation - a survey-based approach that elicits willingness to pay (WTP) directly from individuals - to estimate the benefits of a nationwide conservation of built cultural heritage sites in Armenia. The survey was administered to Armenian nationals living in Armenia, and obtained extensive information about the respondents' perceptions of the current state of conservation of monuments in Armenia, described the current situation, presented a hypothetical conservation program, elicited WTP for it, and queried individuals about what they thought would happen to monument sites in the absence of the government conservation program. We posit that respondents combined the information about the fate of monuments provided by the questionnaire with their prior beliefs, and that WTP for the good, or program, is likely to be affected by these updated beliefs. We propose a Bayesian updating model of prior beliefs, and empirically implement it with the data from our survey. We found that uncertainty about what would happen to monuments in the absence of the program results in lower WTP amounts. © 2008 Pion Ltd and its Licensors.

‘Med Hondo’s Sarraounia: The musical articulation of cultural transformation’

This article examines music in Med Hondo’s Sarraounia, considering how it contributes to the dramatic form of the movie while concurrently articulating narratives regarding cultural transformation through both its extrinsic (cultural) and intrinsic (formal) dimensions. Examining how the use of traditional and contemporary African music politicises diegetic space by referring us to the relationships between indigenous musical forms and their global, culturally hybrid descendents, it then demonstrates the complex manner in which the film uses the formal specificities of African and Western musical idioms to articulate a narrative regarding the cultural transformations that occur when an oral culture (Africa) encounters a literate, modernised culture (the West).

Collaborative artistic laboratories. Transfrontier spaces of cultural production

The appearance of the open code paradigm and the demands of social movements have permeated the ways in which today’s cultural institutions are organized. This article analyzes the birth of a new critical and cooperative spatiality and how it is transforming current modes of cultural research and production. It centers on the potential for establishing the new means of cooperation that are being tested in what are defined as collaborative artistic laboratories. These are hybrid spaces of research and creation based on networked and cooperative structures producing a new societal-technical body that forces us to reconsider the traditional organic conditions of the productive scenarios of knowledge and artistic practice.

Museums and youth: between misunderstanding and disappointment. Youth perceptions and arguments about the cultural consumption of museums in Chile

Young people are less explored in museum audience research; this is a paradoxical situation when considering its strategic location in the cultural reproduction and if considering the high performing cultural consumption compared with other sectors. The phenomenon of museums consumption by young Chileans who are self recognized as public and non-public museums is explored from a qualitative approach. It was conducted with focus groups in the three largest cities in Chile (Santiago, Valparaíso and Concepción). They identify the museum as a cultural institution in full force. However, in questioning museums activity youth reveal the specificity of their cultural matrix. This is referred to a social temporality based on the fragment, the discourse of familiarity, proximity and instead of breaking and critical. They claim a museum aesthetic / historical experience based on pleasure and enjoyment. An overview is proposed to further clarify the youth cultural consumption to characterize more precisely the place of the museum in the set, to design more effective policies museums.

The use of cues for attention in ancient Greek art: aspects that influence concentration in the work of art and its elements

The goal of this study is to identify cues for the cognitive process of attention in ancient Greek art, aiming to find confirmation of its possible use by ancient Greek audiences and artists. Evidence of cues that trigger attention’s psychological dispositions was searched through content analysis of image reproductions of ancient Greek sculpture and fine vase painting from the archaic to the Hellenistic period - ca. 7th -1st cent. BC. Through this analysis, it was possible to observe the presence of cues that trigger orientation to the work of art (i.e. amplification, contrast, emotional salience, simplification, symmetry), of a cue that triggers a disseminate attention to the parts of the work (i.e. distribution of elements) and of cues that activate selective attention to specific elements in the work of art (i.e. contrast of elements, salient color, central positioning of elements, composition regarding the flow of elements and significant objects). Results support the universality of those dispositions, probably connected with basic competencies that are hard-wired in the nervous system and in the cognitive processes.