Curating conversations across the arts: utilising Internet of Things technologies in arts audience research.

The Principal Investigator (PI) has developed a reputation for designing and leading innovative research projects across a diverse range of art forms. This study responds to a demand identified in the PI's AHRC Cultural Value project, and her AHRC Creative Economy funded project, through which she developed QUAL (www.qual.org.uk), a qualitative research web-based resource designed with and for arts practitioners and organisations. The PI has identified a need for innovative, cost-effective qualitative audience research experiences that build the in-house research capacity of arts organisations. As an experienced and highly skilled research leader within the arts, the PI's leadership will bring unique insights, cohesion and knowledge to a complex research study that explores the capacity building and creative potential of digital technology within arts research. This Leadership Fellowship will create a transformational step change in arts audience research by harnessing the complementary skills and talents of her specialist team of Research Assistants, programmers and coders based at the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Design Informatics.
This ambitious and unique project, made possible and led by the PI, will reimagine the current Ethnobot Internet of Things (IoT) App technology developed by this study's Research Assistants, by advancing the value of chatbot technology in qualitative research. The Ethnobot is an ethnographic research chatbot App for smartphones, pre-programmed with sets of questions and follow up responses in order to curate conversations and capture user's in-the-moment emotions and thoughts on a particular event. This study will advance the research on the use of IoT and AI in qualitative arts audience research through Ethnobot App specifications designed to meet multiple case studies research needs, artistic experiences and audiences. The Ethnobot audience research experiences will be developed specifically for nine artistic projects especially co-commissioned (by the PI and the case study organisation) for this project. The diverse nature of the case study organisations is one of this study's key strengths, as the Ethnobot App technology will be developed and diversified across the different audiences and creative contexts. The result will be Ethnobot Apps that have been explored, developed and stress-tested along a continuum of artistic research contexts, with mobile public art experiences at one end and performance-based research experiences at the other.
Specifically in the mobile context, the PI and the team will use the Ethnobot App mobile technologies to explore community regeneration and the lived experiences and impact of public and street art projects and installations among artists, audiences and stakeholders across Scotland's urban and coastal communities. The constellation of organisations brought together by the PI will utilise audience development research projects with: University of Edinburgh's Centre for Research Collections (https://collections.ed.ac.uk), Leith Late (digital mural trail) (www.leithlate.co.uk), Open/Close Dundee (www.openclosedundee.co.uk), The State (www.thestateleith.com), and Room 8 Studio (https://room8studio.wixsite.com/room8studio). In the performance-based context the team will create Ethnobot IoT App research experiences that become an extension and / or embedded in the artistic experience. They will do this through four specially co-commissioned projects with the Red Note Ensemble (www.rednoteensemble.com), Leith Late (film installation) (www.leithlate.co.uk), Craft Scotland (www.craftscotland.org) and NeON (www.northeastofnorth.com).
On completion of this Fellowship, the project's Ethnobot Apps will be made freely downloadable from the PI's QUAL website, together with the case study examples and a user guide.

This Impact Summary addresses two questions: Who might benefit from this research? How might they benefit from this research?

While data-driven products and services have transformed the way that audiences engage with creative and cultural experiences, there remains a huge untapped potential in the innovative ways that we can use technology and data to create innovative research experiences. There is a need and demand for R&D and increasing data literacy to enable innovative and cost-effective ways to capitalise on new technologies, particularly within the arts sector. This proposal is targeted at direct application of University of Edinburgh's Centre for Design Informatics Ethnobot Internet of Things (IoT) App technologies to benefit subsidised arts organisations that need and have a desire to remain innovative through ever changing digital technologies and user experiences. Organisations that:

- wish to create and embed innovative qualitative Ethnobot audience research experiences into their artistic practices through exploring Ethnobot IoT App technologies so that these can become an extension of, and transferable across, different art forms and creative experiences;
- wish to refine their understanding of their audiences' motivations, behaviours and perceptions using innovative qualitative rather than quantitative approaches;
- lack in-house expertise in qualitative research and wish to innovatively and cost effectively develop capacity in this area;
- wish to complement existing quantitative approaches with more nuanced and in-depth qualitative data.

For subsidised art organisations in the current climate of super-accountability combined with precarity of both public and private sources of funding for arts organisations the timing and impact of this research is crucial. Through the development of the Ethnobot Apps this proposed project will benefit creative organisations by enabling better informed decision-making leading to creative outputs and activities that will engage new, and further develop existing, audiences. The ability to undertake useful, precisely targeted and relevant qualitative research in-house will enhance understandings of the artistic values and tastes of both current and potential audiences. It could be fundamentally important to organisational development and providing best value for funders.

For the case organisations the outcome of the research activity will be collection of rigorously-collected and nuanced audience data to inform both organisational and audience strategy and development, provide evidence of audience reach and potential for funders, and broaden the scope of available funding through evidence of appeal to a broader demographic (relative to paper based and email survey approaches).

The impact of the Ethnobot Apps will be sustained beyond the life of the project, through the PI 's AHRC Creative Economy funded QUAL website (www.qual.org.uk). QUAL is a web-based resource designed specifically for subsidised arts organisations and presents qualitative research approaches that are grounded in real-life practitioner experiences. The finalised Ethnobot Apps will be universally accessible together with the case study examples from the QUAL website.

The Ethnobot Apps will have the potential to have an impact on organisational development, skills and know-how by (1) engendering in its participants an organisational 'research habit' and practical research knowledge and understandings; (2) providing access to Ethnobot Apps that have been co-created, tested and piloted with this study's case study organisations and has been specially designed to be fit for purpose, flexible and adaptable to different art forms; and (3) providing in-built training in the use of Ethnobot technologies including implementation, storage and interpretation of data.