**1. Introduction**

In a complex and rapidly changing business world in which planning is falling to growing uncertainty, creativity has become a key resource [1,2]. "Wicked problems" as discussed by Rittel and Webber [3] (p. 160) cannot be solved by rational, analytic approaches. When proven action patterns malfunction, approaches that help to develop novel, future-proof ideas are required.

As "art is a question and an attempt to answer it" (Alicja Kwade, visual artist) [4] (para 16), artists are used to coping with uncertainty and well adapted to moving in complex environments. The artistic process is about exploring unknown paths, radically changing directions if necessary, making detours, abandoning failure and starting anew. Artists are working with methods that differ from rational, systematic managemen<sup>t</sup> procedures by candour, mindfulness and intuition [5,6]. As artistic labour reaches far beyond analytical methods, artistic attitudes open different interpretations of reality (sensemaking) [7,8].

Discussing the relevance of the artistic process, Grant notes that artists are able to master ambiguous, uncertain situations with "unregulated inspiration, ... and a lack of rules and limits" [9] (p. 9). Inventive rule-breaking as an essential artistic guiding principle is supposed to start innovation in business contexts just the same. Artists are turned into role models: "Like artists, business people today need to be constantly creating new ideas. As we enter the 21st century, organizations' scarcest resource has become their dreamers, not their testers", Adler claims linking artistic qualities to leadership [7] (p. 492).

Applying the arts to business environments is supposed to add value to corporate identity and branding, to leadership, human resources development and organizational change [10–12]. Companies involve artists in strategic development [13], entrust them with operational activities, such as in brand communication [14] or simulate workflows common in performing arts [15]. In project and product management, the self-organization within ensembles has inspired agile methodologies like scrum in software development.

Since the end of the '90s, arts-based or artistic interventions respectively have established themselves in organizational and personnel development. In their most widespread form, artists have company staff pass through a creative process based on the visual arts, the performing arts, music or poetry [10,16,17]. The different approaches usually aim at improving problem-solving skills and the development of key competencies particularly with regard to social skills. The empirical research at this intersection between art and business focuses both on presumed individual effects (see, for example, [18]) and organizational impact (see [19] for an overview).

Arts-based interventions that are more ambitious and putatively sustainable range from coaching [20] to residency [21]. They are meant to initiate a system change within the organization. In fact, the support of corporate change and a positive impact on the capability for innovation belong to the most prominent empirically based effects of arts-based interventions [12]. In this context, it is noteworthy that for the academic discourse on arts-based interventions as well as for the approach itself a western understanding of creativity is formative. Eastern cultural traditions prioritize collectivism and usefulness. According to western traditions, however, creativity tends to be associated with individuality and is commonly equated with novelty, originality and innovation. From the western point of view, creativity is closely linked to problem-solving [22].

Manifestations of collaboration between artists and companies that target a mutual transfer of knowledge and innovative practices seem to be less prevalent than interventions for staff and organizational development. They are a blind spot of empirical research—despite their long historical tradition in engineering and technology. There are well-known examples for successful residency programs but none of them has turned into an object of research.

Technologists at Bell Labs have partnered with artists for more than 50 years. Within the scope of Experiments in Arts and Technology (E.A.T.), nine performances emerged involving big names like John Cage, Lucinda Childs and Robert Rauschenberg. The Arts/Industry residency program hosted by Kohler Co. has been fostering exchange since 1974 with the participating artists stretching technical boundaries engineers and craftspeople would not have turned to. During PAIR (PARC Artist-in-Residence), the artist in residence program Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) established in 1993, artists and scientists were working on similar ideas or shared materials and methods. In 2013 Microsoft started studio99, a project that has granted artists access to technologies and know-how ever since. The resulting artworks are presented in a gallery space maintained by the company's research and development division.

Bosch recently had two artists arrange a whole floor as an unpredictable and challenging experimental space at its research campus. To the artists it is "no idea machine but a place that is putting out questions" [23] (p. 578, translation from German by the author). In between misset clocks and other irritation objects on platform 12, employees commit themselves to Design Thinking. Visiting artists, who independently create their own works in reaction to these surroundings, are constantly challenging the Bosch researchers by their mere presence [23,24].

Whereas there is a growing pool of research on the mechanisms of action of arts-based interventions (see [19]) and learning (see [25]), aimed studies on artistic activities in research and development or business innovation are rare. That is particularly true with respect to the role artists play in collaborations that are meant to support product development or idea finding for organizational issues (see [8,26]).

The potential of collaborations lies in the disclosure of implicit knowledge. Artists do not have the same perception as managers and construct knowledge differently than engineers would. For the company hosting a residency, the artists' intuition becomes a resource that opens up new vistas on working contexts and points out alternative courses of action [8]. Artists encourage new ways

of thinking, when they interfere as "artistic agents" [23] (p. 558, translation from German by the author), who are constantly around, reflecting and commenting on the situation. On the other hand the encounter of artists and employees is causing friction [23] and due to cultural differences, there may be communication problems the actors have to overcome [26].

Other than such general observations and propositions there seems to be little evidence about artistic behaviour in situations that are meant to spark innovation. Artists are introduced as moderators or facilitators of arts-based interventions or creative labs and the course of their intervention is described (see [13,23,26,27]) but it remains unclear what is genuinely artistic in their approach and behaviour.

Against this background, the aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it will introduce Art Hacking, a creative method that is based on artistic strategies and work attitudes. Secondly, it will explore if and how artists demonstrate profession-specific attitudes in dealing with non-artistic assignments. The elements of Art Hacking provide the conceptual background for the examined case: an intervention with the participation of four artists aiming at idea generation for a business problem. The case is used to go into the following research questions on the roles of artists in business innovation.

How do artists operate in a collective idea generation process with heterogenous actors? How do they unfold their individual creative personality competence in an unfamiliar professional environment? How do they apply artistic strategies such as gathering, irritation, improvisation, alienation and derangement [28] to a non-artistic subject? Which typical professional behaviour patterns are shown beyond individual idiosyncrasies?

The answers to these questions are supposed to provide clues for arts-based intervention frameworks with goals like innovation or organizational change. Does it make a difference if the artist is present?

#### **2. The Conceptual Framework of Art Hacking**

#### *2.1. Core Idea and Theoretical Background*

The intervention format Art Hacking, which was created by the author, aims at collective idea generation and the development of solutions for complex, possibly socially constructed business problems afflicted with uncertainty, which from a managemen<sup>t</sup> point of view cannot simply be solved with common economic tools.

In a workshop for Art Hacking, groups of multidisciplinary stakeholders and artists from different genres work on a business problem that the participating organization brings in. The process is set off in a laboratory-like environment, which ideally includes inspiring architecture and allows for a change of location. In this respect, the design of Art Hacking is based on four insights from innovation research.


(4) There are necessary conditions for emergen<sup>t</sup> innovation, meaning radical change. These are certain attitudes, values and behaviours such as openness, perceptive faculty, reflectivity and the ability to recognize the "right moment" [37].

The latter point is key for the method presented here, as it is artists who are gifted with all these traits [38]. The core idea of the approach is to apply artistic attitudes and ways of dealing with an issue to problem-solving in a non-artistic environment. Insofar, the approach is both an instruction for idea generation and a training in artistic strategies. In this context, the immediate participation of artists in the process is supposed to facilitate access to artistic attitudes for other participants.

Apart from positive side benefits to human resource development, Art Hacking is a chance for organizations to incorporate the expertise of outside parties (artists, scientists, customers, etc.) in organizational change or product development. As regards the latter, a joint Art Hacking workshop can be part of an open innovation strategy serving an outside-in process. In general, the approach aims at business innovation in the sense of improving or even inventing processes, products, or services. By targeting idea generation however, it is limited to the very first stage of the innovation process.

#### *2.2. Objective and Philosophy*

The basic idea of the intervention is to convey artistic working styles to members of other professional groups and to apply characteristics of the artistic process to a business problem. The solution for the problem, the relevant ideas or a final concept respectively are quasi the work the players are creating together while they are exploring and solving the matter.

The method simulates the artistic process: picking up on an issue, doing preliminary research and conducting a dialogue with the material without preconceived views as to its outcome [39]. Artists choose a motif or an issue they love to explore but they do not have a clearly defined objective in doing so [28]. Artistic labour is about finding solutions in "non-linear explorative movements" [28] (p. 127) and on creative roundabout routes. In the words of composer John Cage "the residual purpose of art is purposeless play" [40] (p. 71).

An arts-based intervention is not purposeless in its nature even if its course and outcome are unpredictable. Adopting artistic strategies to idea generation and problem-solving has if any at all connections to applied art. However, the playful, sensuous approach is an essential feature, because "ideas are discovered by intuition" (Sol LeWitt, visual artist) [41] (p. 79). Art Hacking initiates a process, in which artistic attitudes and strategies are used to solve creative challenges without going digital though.

Basically, the word "hacking" refers to a technique for doing or improving something. The term has its roots in journalism referring to unorthodox methods. It spread to computing and is currently transferred to areas such as cultural change and the arts [42,43]. In the artworld, hacks "have been used ... as a strategy to generate discourse, collaboration and a starting point for new artworks and ideas" [44] (p. 27). However, those hacks are usually about building digital prototypes from specific arts data sets [44].

Hacking is associated to creatively improvised solutions and a targeted undermining of patterns and attribution of meanings. It is about ignoring rules and rewriting them in favour of innovation. Therefore, a typical hack will combine the serious game with playful seriousness and an experimental, tinkering approach. A hacker is a person who explores a foreign system and finds his way in it thus being able to implement a disorientation and initiate new structures without predetermining their precise features [42]—a working principle that strongly resembles the systemic nature of arts-based interventions in business.

In idea generation, letting go of rules and routines and making up new ones is of similar importance as in a genuine artistic process. Therefore, there are elements in Art Hacking that encourage participants to leave their thinking patterns aside, bend reality and sound out alternative solutions they would not have dared to even think about in the beginning. The format shall set up a space for purposeful play and divergent thinking [45].

In this space, experimenting is meant to be safe, although expectations of clients towards the players may be high. Aiming at a certain outcome would not correspond to artistic attitudes. Even if they have to subject themselves to time schedules of rehearsals and are working towards the premiere, performance artists do not expect something predefined to happen in a given timeframe or predictable order [39]. They "trust the process" [46]. As with artistic labour itself the artistic intervention entails the risk of failure. Clients need a minimum of courage to take the plunge into the experimental arrangement.

In order to minimize this risk, the different stages in the process are scripted. Art Hacking has a certain sequence of elements that may be varied, switched and even skipped sometimes if the situation or the progress of the working groups require adjustments. The elements are chosen and arranged in a way that seems most suitable for the issue. For instance, if the workshop is essentially about leadership other film footage and image material will be used than if the matter was customer communications. However, the participants do not receive any schedule or detailed information on the process sequence before and during the workshop in order to have them experience the uncertainty of being in an open-ended and unpredictable creative process full of surprises.

At every stage of the process, the participants are confronted with tasks that are supposed to convey artistic attitudes and/or meant to foster an in-depth reflection and debate about the issue. In order to establish the next step in the process, each assignment is introduced by a story about the genesis of an artwork or by statements from artists who comment on a certain phase in their labour. These examples are implemented in the plenum as well as flanking rituals (varying welcoming and farewell routines) and energizers (active breaks). The assignments are elaborated in the working groups or in even more fragmented constellations through to pair work. Within this frame, specific activities of participants and the interaction within the working groups are free to unfold.

The tasks the players have to complete explicitly refer to artistic strategies such as deconstruction, reversal, improvisation, cut-up and chance operations. The players are using dictated artistic media that may support or undermine their almost unavoidable verbal discourse. The permanent change of work techniques and varying content-related approaches results in a change of perspective. Both the issue and possible solutions are patiently and persistently turned back and forth.

The joint quest is not finished when the first viable idea appears. Ideally, it is pursued for several days. Participants usually reach solutions that are more inventive this way. Experience shows that the starting problem always recedes into the background during the process and gives way to a fundamental question, the players were not able to see in the beginning. This question will lead them "out of the box" and to more original and sometimes even disruptive solutions.

Although Art Hacking does not claim to be a variety or a distant relative of applied arts, it latches on to the view that other than design art is not about solving problems but "finding solutions for questions ye<sup>t</sup> unknown" (Daniel Richter, painter) [47] (para 27, translation from German by the author).

#### *2.3. Process Sequence*

Artistic labour never begins with a cold start. An ensemble will start their rehearsal process by warming up so as to focus and tune into each other [48]. Visual artists have similar rituals for getting connected with the task they address themselves to. The next step of the process is an in-depth analysis of the chosen issue or the material, respectively. It is a playful, explorative and non-linear questioning [28,39]. Based on these insights, the artwork is formed organically in a constant interplay of tentative action, perception and reflection—a process in which the space of possibilities gradually narrows. The artwork is finished when a harmonious expression is achieved [39]. In performance arts, this is not necessarily the date of the premiere: often artists will continue filing after the first performance. Visual artists usually let their work rest and finally abandon it while presenting it to the public.

Art Hacking picks up on these stages but leaves them as overlapping, as they are in a genuine artistic process. The format has five phases during which solution approaches for the given issue are developed: attunement, creative research, single-minded play, composition, and showing (see Figure 1). These phases are not strictly separated. Some explorative tasks are only introduced at the third stage and there are tricks to keep both the penultimate stage playful and to overcome blocks.

**Figure 1.** The process sequence of Art Hacking.

The five phases are described below. Each passage is illustrated by an artists' quotation that reflects a typical attitude to the respective part of the artistic process to be emulated. Empirical studies show that other artists usually share these attitudes regardless of their genre or reputation [38,39].

#### **Phase 1.** Attunement

*The great thing about the band was that whoever had the best idea (it didn't matter who) that was the one we'd use.* (Ringo Starr, musician, on The Beatles) [49] (p. 241).

*The radar is on whether you know it or not.* (Keith Richards, musician) [50] (p. 183).

At the beginning of the joint work, the participants are transformed into an ensemble-like entity. Meeting each other without prejudice is more important, the more heterogenous the group is. The first objective at this stage is to have the participants develop mutual trust and esteem for the different qualities they are bringing in. Targeted team building activities shall equalize any difference in status and sensitize the players in taking turns as leader and followers. The participants are invited to reflect on the actual and the desirable distribution of roles within their working group.

The second objective of "attunement" is to focus, sharpen the senses and invite intuition. Suitable training tasks, which address different levels of perception, support attentiveness. Moreover, there are exercises in depicting, listening and understanding for improving the dialog capability and avoiding killer phrases.

A simple creative exercise with a minimum of rules allows the players to experience an inventive process that has no preconceived result. Each player is asked to transform a cheap everyday object whose form and material composition will prevent a functional, assessable solution. This exercise is a foretaste of the open process that is to follow.

**Phase 2.** Creative Research

> *You're doing research. You're exploring, in the really deepest sense. When I start to work on a piece, I talk to people, I read.* (Meg Stuart, choreographer) [51] (para 11).

*Anywhere I ask the dancers questions* ... *and everybody thinks about them.* ... *Initially, all this together is only a material, a collection of material, yet it is not a piece at all.* (Pina Bausch, choreographer) [52] (p. 92, translation from German by the author).

The real process of idea generation starts with creative research on the issue. Participating representatives of the organization introduce the problem in small groups. This very first input is not given by a classical presentation but in the form of a controlled dialogue in order to deepen mutual understanding and to avoid premature interpretations.

Afterwards, the players actively explore the issue. The most important tool for drilling out the problem is to ask consecutive questions without answering them and to follow just the crucial questions later on. The players gather information on the problem, including approaches that have not worked in the past.

Similar to a process of artistic inquiry, the players are requested to visualize the problem. They may work on a common collage, a sculpture or some other form of visual expression. In search of a suitable shape they are getting to the bottom of the problem. The object will probably uncover aspects that were underrated or out of sight beforehand, as well as bringing irrational influences to light.

The creative research results in a common understanding of the problem within each working group. As this phase partly overlaps with the next one—single-minded play— the players are usually working on the obvious symptoms first, before they ge<sup>t</sup> to the real cause of the problem. Since this insight is more a flow than a moment, it is unpredictable. It is rooted to the act of decentration: while turning the gaze away from the starting position its meaning will change.

**Phase 3.** Single-minded Play

> *Mostly I will do the work that I am afraid of. If I am really afraid of an idea this is exactly the point I have to go.* (Marina Abramovi´c, performance artist) [53] (4 min, 14 s).

> *You always reach for the easy solution before you, in defeat, submit to the more difficult solution.* (Jonathan Franzen, novelist) [54] (p. 45).

The first assignment for the participants in the so-called single-minded play phase is gathering ideas between two workshop units without evaluating them. This is brainstorming outside the group, so to say. Back at the workshop, the challenge is not to take up the first agreeable idea that comes along. Therefore, the discussion begins with the rejected ideas the players did not even note because they seemed weird or unfeasible and then expanded with the presumably good ideas. With the help of deepening questions and a successive comparison of alternatives, the idea pool is downsized.

The players continue with selected ideas and are working on the approaches in a mode of purposeful play. The objective of this stage is to be prolific and to produce material. The participants shall find different solution variants to play with. In doing so, improvisation principles are helpful. Other than a destructive "Yes, but ... " an open attitude will expand the potential space of possibilities. "Yes, and ... " means accepting whatever another player states and to expand on that line of thinking by adding new information or insights.

Improvisation is only one of several artistic strategies the players are taught to apply during the process. They are encouraged to abandon premises, question everything, break patterns and disobey rules. By changing restrictive framework conditions and parameters of the situation, in their minds they will imagine solutions that are feasible.

Each element at this stage is an arts-based impulse fostering fluency. The players are urged to alter the familiar and change definitions. They use metaphors and indulge in absurd analogies, such as envisioning the organization and its environment as a zoo. In addition, there are random irritations that distract them from linear, convergen<sup>t</sup> thinking. An example for combining incompatible things is to integrate a term like 'sauce thickener' in an emerging concept.

#### **Phase 4.** Composition

*Ideas flow out of work. You open a door, you are looking around. And if you do not like it, you shut the door and open the next one.* (Chuck Close, painter) [55] (p. 54, translation from German by the author).

*Sometimes adding words or verbalizing an idea is actually counterproductive* ... *So sometimes I just make a model.* (Olafur Eliasson, visual artist) [56] (2 min, 11 s).

In the next-to-last stage, particular ideas are elaborated and merged into a concept. The players file the elements of a looming solution. The fourth stage marks a state of continuous reflection and doubt as well as a procedure of gradual refinement. The approaches are meant to be condensed and reduced to the point while the concept is visualized as a collage, sculpture, installation, storyboard or mini drama. The artistic maxim at this point is: "Kill your darlings!" Despite positive experiences with the format, it cannot be ruled out that the process ends in an act of complete destruction and will start over at an earlier stage or begin completely anew.

#### **Phase 5.** Showing

*Each exhibition is* ... *an inspection. Will my work last?* (Thomas Schütte, visual artist) [57] (para 35, translation from German by the author).

*I change things in each performance series. I skip breaks, I shift sequences.* (Sasha Waltz, choreographer) [58] (para 11, translation from German by the author).

Depending on the timeframe of the workshop, the stages of composition and showing are more or less intertwined and extended. Showing may refer to the presentation of a draft to other participants or uninvolved external persons who are confronted with the embodiment of the idea and engaged in conversation. Based on the criticism of the draft and a possible exchange of ideas, a refined solution and another object are developed, respectively.

Other times showing may mean just a single presentation. With a tight schedule, the reality check is skipped in favour of a display among the participants, followed only by a debate of the different ideas in the plenary.
