Art works and communicative process of knowledge co-creation

The paper proposes a perspective to theorise the relation between knowledge creation and art works based on a synthesis of systemic, phenomenological and constructivist approaches. Art works are considered as knowledge objects that carry significant appresentations and thus allow correlations between individually embedded meanings building the ground for knowledge. The latter emerges and evolves through continuous use of art works as mediums of communication between artists, creative communities and publics in common experience spaces. Therefore, to explain how artists, creative communities and publics co-create knowledge using art works we analyze the communicative process centered on art works creation, promotion, discussion, perception and (re)interpretation at three interconnected levels. At the first level is the artist, who expresses his/her aesthetic experience of the world using tacit knowledge of the artistic techniques and being influenced by the existing body of knowledge. At the second level we find creative community that joins the communicative process of knowledge creation and puts professional restrictions on the legitimacy of art works and appresentations they carry. The third level is comprised of publics consisting of other artists, art specialists and audiences, who express evaluative opinions and implicit requests for representation in art works. Audiences get involved in the development, reproduction and promotion of correlations of meanings suggested by the artists and creative communities. We argue that to succeed art works are to provoke an inclusive ‘democratic’ communicative process of knowledge co-creation at all the three levels described above and thus promote social knowledge creation.