Abstract
The project aims at renewing the methodologies and perspectives for investigating the performing arts through dialogue and interdisciplinary cooperation between Humanities (Theatre Studies, Musicology, and Aesthetics) and Social Sciences (Economics and Law) with the help of Informatics. Despite the vast amount of literature about the creative industries, and especially about the cinema, the relationship between the performing arts, economics, public financing, and cultural policies still requires more investigation, both in a historical and contemporary perspective. A major study, dealing expressly with the analysis of primary sources and quantitative data, is necessary. The project aims at filling in this gap of knowledge through the analysis of large and hitherto unexplored archival sources that have been produced by major theatrical entities, public institutions, and single individuals on State, regional, and local level over the last 150 years. This wide documentation is of theatrical, economical, juridical, and political nature, and it represents an uncharted reservoir of quantitative and qualitative data: if correctly processed and analysed, also with the aid of machine-learning technology, it is likely to achieve ground-breaking results in terms of the capacity of reading the historical evolution of the Italian theatrical system from the unification to nowadays. The research activities investigate the evolution of the market on artistic production and consumption from a highly interdisciplinary perspective. The objective is to introduce also in Italy a methodology that has proven to be ground-breaking abroad, as the PI and the LRs have experienced in their previous international research. The project envisages four large-scale case studies, covering the chronological span that goes from the 1860s to the present. Each Unit focuses on a specific case-study, although collaboration is key to the proposal. The business acumen and the entrepreneurial behaviour of two major figures of the liberal age - the composer Giuseppe Verdi and the actress Adelaide Ristori – are investigated by the Units of Palermo and Genoa through the study of uncharted archival sources preserved in Parma, Milan, and Genoa. The Unit of Rome La Sapienza focuses on the cultural policies developed by the fascist government and their tenure during the early republican years through the unexplored documents of the Ministero del Turismo e dello Spettacolo, preserved at the Central State Archive. The Unit of Bologna investigates the contemporary performing arts market, analysing the impact of the State and regional innovations of the legislative framework that have taken place since the 2001 Constitutional reform. A selection of documents and data from the four research units will be analysed through artificial intelligence and machine-learning technology to identify trends in a possible perspective of anticipation.
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Matteo Paoletti
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento delle Arti
Coordinator:
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - Università di Bologna(Italy)
Total Eu Contribution: Euro (EUR) 200.749,00
Total Unibo Contribution: Euro (EUR) 53.560,00
Project Duration in months: 24
Start Date:
17/10/2023
End Date:
28/02/2026
