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Springer Series in Design and Innovation 15

Alessandro Deserti
Marion Real
Felicitas Schmittinger Editors

Co-creation for
Responsible
Research and
Innovation
Experimenting with Design Methods
and Tools
Springer Series in Design and Innovation

Volume 15

Editor-in-Chief
Francesca Tosi, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

Series Editors
Claudio Germak, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
Francesco Zurlo, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Zhi Jinyi, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China
Marilaine Pozzatti Amadori, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria,
Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Maurizio Caon , University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Fribourg, Switzerland
Springer Series in Design and Innovation (SSDI) publishes books on innovation
and the latest developments in the fields of Product Design, Interior Design and
Communication Design, with particular emphasis on technological and formal
innovation, and on the application of digital technologies and new materials. The
series explores all aspects of design, e.g. Human-Centered Design/User Experience,
Service Design, and Design Thinking, which provide transversal and innovative
approaches oriented on the involvement of people throughout the design
development process. In addition, it covers emerging areas of research that may
represent essential opportunities for economic and social development.
In fields ranging from the humanities to engineering and architecture, design is
increasingly being recognized as a key means of bringing ideas to the market by
transforming them into user-friendly and appealing products or services. Moreover,
it provides a variety of methodologies, tools and techniques that can be used at
different stages of the innovation process to enhance the value of new products and
services.
The series’ scope includes monographs, professional books, advanced textbooks,
selected contributions from specialized conferences and workshops, and outstand-
ing Ph.D. theses.

Keywords: Product and System Innovation; Product design; Interior design;

Communication Design; Human-Centered Design/User Experience; Service
Design; Design Thinking; Digital Innovation; Innovation of Materials.

How to submit proposals

Proposals must include: title, keywords, presentation (max 10,000 characters), table
of contents, chapter abstracts, editors’/authors’ CV.
In case of proceedings, chairmen/editors are requested to submit the link to
conference website (incl. relevant information such as committee members, topics,
key dates, keynote speakers, information about the reviewing process, etc.), and
approx. number of papers.
Proposals must be sent to: series editor Prof. Francesca Tosi ([email protected])
and/or publishing editor Mr. Pierpaolo Riva ([email protected]).

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/16270

Alessandro Deserti · Marion Real ·
Felicitas Schmittinger
Editors

Co-creation for Responsible

Research and Innovation
Experimenting with Design Methods
and Tools
Editors
Alessandro Deserti Marion Real
Department of Design Fab Lab Barcelona
Politecnico di Milano Barcelona, Spain
Milan, Italy

Felicitas Schmittinger
Department of Design
Politecnico di Milano
Milan, Italy

ISSN 2661-8184 ISSN 2661-8192 (electronic)

Springer Series in Design and Innovation
ISBN 978-3-030-78732-5 ISBN 978-3-030-78733-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78733-2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2022. This book is an open access publication.
Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribu-
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface

The relationship between science, technology and society is being rethought towards
logics of permeability and dialogue, rendering the needs, desires and expectations
of the latter as important drivers for innovation. A paradigmatic shift concerning
the role of citizens in science, research and innovation is witnessed, as well as in
Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policymaking. In particular, the discourse
on public engagement and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) powerfully
became a matter of spread interest, showing the need of models that lead to an
effective integration of co-design and bottom-up co-creation initiatives for encour-
aging/stimulating scientific and technological advancement as the result of a synergic,
inclusive cooperation among actors that usually work autonomously. To address the
topic, 17 cross-sector partners from all over Europe started the three-year EU-funded
project SISCODE (Society in Innovation and Science through CO-DEsign). Inter-
connecting an analysis of the theoretical background and existing cases with real-life
experimentations (RLEs), the investigation sets up a reflective and learning frame-
work to explore the transformations in initiatives and policies emerging from the
interaction between citizens and stakeholders.
The book presents a critical analysis of the co-design processes activated in 10 co-
creation laboratories addressing societal challenges across Europe. Each laboratory
as a case study of a RLE is described through its journey, starting from the purpose
on the ground of the experimentation and the challenge addressed. Specific atten-
tion is then drawn on the role of policies and policymaker engagement. Finally, the
experimentation is enquired in terms of its output, transformations triggered within
the organisation and the overall ecosystem, and its outcomes, opening the reasoning
towards the lessons learnt and reflections that the entire co-creation journey brought.

Milan, Italy Alessandro Deserti

Barcelona, Spain Marion Real
Milan, Italy Felicitas Schmittinger

v
Contents

Between Science, Technology and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Alessandro Deserti and Francesca Rizzo
A Framework for Experimenting Co-creation in Real-Life Contexts . . . . 11
Marion Real and Felicitas Schmittinger
Framing Real-Life Experimentations as Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Stefano Crabu, Ilaria Mariani, and Felicitas Schmittinger
FabLab Barcelona—Co-design With Food Surplus: Better
Redistributing, Upcycling and Composting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Marion Real, Anastasia Pistofidou, and Milena Juarez Calvo
Polifactory. Transforming Playful Movement into Sound:
Co-create a Smart System for Children with Cerebral Palsy . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Carla Sedini, Laura Cipriani, Mirko Gelsomini, Stefano Maffei,
and Massimo Bianchini
Maker—Plastic In, Plastic Out: Circular Economy and Local
Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Asger Nørregård-Rasmussen, Malte Hertz-Jansen, and Felicitas Schmittinger
KTP—Collectively Improving Air Quality in Krakow: A New Air
Quality Plan for the Małopolska Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Agnieszka Włodarczyk-G˛ebik, Aleksandra Gabriel, Maria Dubis,
and Monika Machowska
PA4ALL—Innovative Learning Methods for Education
in Agriculture: An ICT Based Learning Programme for High
Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Isidora Stojacic

vii
viii Contents

ThessAHALL—A Life-Long Learning Programme for the Social

Inclusion of “Early-Stage” Older Adult Researchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Despoina Mantziari, Evdokimos Konstantinidis, Despoina Petsani,
Nikolaos Kyriakidis, Vassiliki Zilidou, Efstathios Sidiropoulos,
Maria Nikolaidou, Aikaterini-Marina Katsouli, and Panagiotis Bamidis
Ciência Viva—Promoting Marine Activities Around Lisbon:
Self-Constructed Boats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Gonçalo Praça
Cube Design Museum—Empathic Co-design for Societal Impact . . . . . . . 109
Anja Köppchen
Science Gallery Dublin—Open Mind: Improving Mental Health
of Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Grace D’Arcy and Ilaria Mariani
TRACES—In 2030, Artificial Intelligences Will Visit Museums? . . . . . . . 129
Matteo Merzagora, Aude Ghilbert, and Axel Meunier
Assessing Co-creation in Relation to Context for RRI
Operationalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Francesca Rizzo and Alessandro Deserti
Between Science, Technology and Society

Alessandro Deserti and Francesca Rizzo

The intersection and permeability of science, innovation and society result in a series
of benefits and challenges, underlying the important role the latter can and should
play. The following paragraphs present the theoretical background and the objectives
of the SISCODE (Society in Innovation and Science through CO-DEsign) project
investigating this interconnection, the issues that emerged through its journey and
the results gained. Therefore, it frames the knowledge obtained throughout the three-
year duration of the project, situating the notion of Responsible Research and Inno-
vation (RRI) in the co-creation domain, and introducing the issues that emerge when
moving from the theoretical concept to practice [1, 2]. It inspects how co-creation
and design knowledge and tools can be applied to engage citizens in shaping solu-
tions that are meant to be more inclusive, responsible and sustainable, and how these
approaches and methodologies could be applied to operationalize RRI. Particular
attention is drawn to how small-scale experimentations can lead to significant scale-
in, scale-up and scale-out processes. The book will show how these processes can
lead to organizational learning and transformation, but also how they can provide
evidence-based knowledge which nurtures policy making processes with the poten-
tial of achieving broader societal impacts in Science, Technology and Innovation
(STI) policy making [3]. Investigating the benefits and implications of applying
participatory research and innovation approaches in society, this chapter embraces
a context-sensitive perspective [4] and explores the crossroads of diverse forms of
innovation: not only research-driven but also practice-based, and not only technolog-
ical but also social. This reasoning provided the theoretical background which led to
the construction of a learning framework, adopted as a guide for the 10 co-creation
labs in which the real-life experimentations described in this volume were conducted.

A. Deserti (B) · F. Rizzo

Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, 20158 Milan, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2022 1

A. Deserti et al. (eds.), Co-creation for Responsible Research and Innovation,
Springer Series in Design and Innovation 15,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78733-2_1
2 A. Deserti and F. Rizzo

1 Areas of Interest of the SISCODE Project

SISCODE combined diverse fields of study and areas of work. In particular, the
research and innovation project investigated the relationship between RRI and co-
creation, with a specific focus on STI policy making. These distinct matters have been
reconnected in theory and practice, identifying a potentiality of achieving positive
results and impacts when applying co-creation approaches, methodologies and tools
to operationalize RRI [5].
Responsible Research and Innovation
Innovation and science are powerful drivers when it comes to the development
of all factors that influence modern society and therefore the direction of trans-
formation of societies and all the single individuals that are a part of it [6]. The
recognition of this influence has led to the emergence of a new approach in the fields
of science, research and innovation, to make them more responsible impacting STI
policy making. The emergence of the approach within the framework and context
of European policy making dates back to 2011 having been introduced as a top-
down approach for research policy which contrasts with the concept itself promoting
bottom-up initiatives and pathways to innovation [7].
RRI entails the transition from solutions developed internally within the research
community and only tolerated passively by society towards ones that are taking
citizens and other actors actively into consideration as part of the development of
solutions that are more apt to achieve desirable results with a high impact [6].
This reflection on the societal impact of innovation calls for a change in innovation
processes and a shift of roles of its actors, including all players into the innovation
process, which should lead to sharing and redefining power, privileges and respon-
sibilities [2]. Apart from the aspect of inclusion, RRI aims to anticipate impacts
by analyzing the contexts of implementation and taking into account all the actors
and factors that influence the implementation of a solution. Furthermore, findings
throughout the development are planned to impact on the process itself, making it
more reflective, flexible and responsive to new insights and perspectives [8].
Witnessing this shift towards the involvement of citizens and other actors in the
innovation process, it is necessary to understand its potentialities as well as its impli-
cations: this calls for new approaches, techniques, processes and mindsets for the
effective integration and involvement of society in innovation.
Despite having been widely discussed in theory as a relevant opportunity to move
towards more sustainable futures [9], there’s still a lack of evidence of impacts of
RRI in empirical settings, which leaves open issues especially in terms of context-
sensitivity and translation from theory into practice for real and measurable impact
[10].
It has been recognized that the full adoption of RRI requires an in-depth trans-
formation in organizations and ecosystems or institutional settings, to be embedded
as a general approach towards innovation that requires the reflection not only on the
outcomes of innovation itself but also the purpose and process of innovating leading
to a shift in the overall mindset and way of working.
Between Science, Technology and Society 3

The scientific and technological advancement and the responsibility related to it

discussed in RRI directly refers to the substantial societal challenges that are being
tackled with innovation [2].
Co-creation
Co-creation has received significant attention in the context of innovation in recent
years, in particular as a part of the field of participatory design. It has been identified
as a potential booster for the implementation of new and experimental solutions
due to both its practicality and its versatility in adapting to diverse and changing
environments and contexts [11].
One of the central points of co-creation is the transformation of passive actors like
end-users into operating ones, involving them actively in the development processes
of products, services and systems [12] to define and create value commonly and
taking all actors and their needs into account [13].
Co-creation considers users and actors not only during research phases, but aims
to actively involve them across the phases of ideation in co-design processes until
the prototyping and implementation of a solution, thus including co-production [14].
From a business point of view, this active involvement in participatory processes
usually aims at the co-creation of value, shifting the focus from a business-centric
one towards personalised and satisfying customer experiences [15].
These characteristics led to expanding the fields of application as well as the
notion of co-creation. In particular, it has been experimented as a promising means
to engage neglected actors and stakeholders in other fields of innovation (e.g. in
public sector innovation) and as a way to set up collaborative processes like those
that are needed to better include society in innovation [5].
The SISCODE project explored this pathway of operationalizing RRI through
co-creation to investigate the potentialities, opportunities and barriers of co-creation
in the RRI context. In particular, the project analysed the favorable conditions for
co-creation, the dynamics activated during the process of adoption of co-creation,
and how capacities for co-creation in organisations are built.

2 The SISCODE Project and Its Objectives

SISCODE (Society in Innovation and Science through CO-DEsign) is a three-

year EU-funded project within the Horizon 2020 programme with 17 cross-sector
partners, completed in April 2021.
It aimed to explore the application of co-creation, and co-design specifically, for
the operationalization of RRI in different contexts.
Its investigation is based on the triangulation of the results of different but inter-
connected research streams: the theoretical framing of the single areas of work
(primarily RRI, co-creation and policy making) and their interconnection; the anal-
ysis of existing cases where co-creation has been applied in the context of RRI in
Europe and beyond; and finally, the conduction of ten real-life experimentations. For
the conduction of the experimentation, an analytical, reflective learning framework
4 A. Deserti and F. Rizzo

was developed to explore the provoked shifts and transformations in projects and
organizations, as well as in policies and policy making processes triggered by the
interaction between citizens, stakeholders and policy makers. Therefore, the project
frames the knowledge obtained throughout the three years of the project, situating the
notion of RRI in the co-creation domain, and introducing issues that emerge when
moving from the theoretical concept to practice [1, 2].
Objectives
To grasp and further explore the circulation and establishing of the phenomenon
of co-creation as an approach for bottom-up and design-driven development as well
as its potential for replication and scaling when applied in the context of RRI, the
SISCODE project was carried out according to three main objectives:
1. The production of a study extended across Europe to investigate existing co-
creation ecosystems at different scales ranging from local and regional to
national levels and identify and extract patterns of dynamics, drivers and barriers
encountered when integrating society in science and innovation. It specifically
addressed the cultural, organisational, institutional and regulatory conditions
that may favour or hinder co-creation. Furthermore, particular attention was
posed to the engagement of stakeholders, the techniques and dynamics of their
involvement and how their diversity influenced and affected the process and the
final solution.
2. The experimentation of (co-)design not only as an approach, but also as a set
of skills and competences, to see how the building of these capacities can be
favoured and supported to enable the application co-creation in RRI and STI
policy making.
3. The understanding of the transformation needed beyond the development of
capacities in terms of organisational, procedural and cultural shifts for the
permanent and stable embedding of co-creation in organisational processes and
culture and how eventual barriers identified can be overcome.
In essence, SISCODE aimed to explore the operationalization of RRI by investi-
gating the application of co-creation to reach this goal, starting from the theoretical
background and existing cases to then conduct its own transnational experimentation
across Europe.
This book describes this system of co-creation labs and provides insights drawn
from their experimentation of applying co-creation in their single contexts while
being in constant exchange with each other, with the networks that they created to
conduct the experimentation and with the other partners in the research consortium,
to foster peer-to-peer learning and cross-fertilisation.
Between Science, Technology and Society 5

3 RRI in SISCODE—From Theory to Practice through

Co-creation

SISCODE investigated how knowledge, methodologies and tools from the field
of design can be applied to shape concrete solutions to relevant societal chal-
lenges towards Responsible Innovation taking the inclusivity, responsibility and
sustainability of these solutions into account.
The activities conducted are aimed to function as a bridge for the identified gap
between theory and practice in RRI through the collaborative development of specific
solutions.
In these processes, citizens and other stakeholders are engaged to collaboratively
develop solutions for specific local and global problems. The research project inves-
tigated and reflected upon the broader transformations triggered by the experimen-
tations and the exchange within the project, both at an organisational level of the
single labs as well as within their surrounding ecosystem.
Co-creation has been applied as a means to deal with and overcome the barriers
identified in the operationalization of RRI and to trigger the shift within organisations
needed to fully embed the new approach to then influence the entire ecosystem.
A series of activities were planned and conducted to support these processes in
the frame of the project and provide concrete support to the pilots:
• Training
Knowledge on co-creation was transmitted in specific training sessions, providing
background knowledge, tools for the conduction of co-creation activities, like
canvases, cards and instruction, and building capacities for the planning, conduc-
tion and facilitation of workshops and other co-creation activities.
• Opportunities for peer-to-peer learning
Acknowledging the diversity of the pilots and the influence of these differences and
the entirely distinct contexts, confrontation has been identified as an opportunity
to exchange best practices, ideas and collaboratively find solutions to specific
problems. For this reason, regular meetings and calls have been organised as a
space for interrelation, conversation and peer-to-peer learning.
• Dialogue between researchers and practitioners
Recognizing the gap between theory and practice not only identified in literature
but in the project itself among academic partners and practitioners, a series of
meetings have been organised to discuss specific research topics from the various
points of view, aiming to bridge this gap within the project and identifying points
of connection and dialogue between researchers and practitioners.
• Reporting as an instrument for self-reflection
Material to be produced for reporting and assessing the experimentation has been
mainly collected following templates composed by a series of reflective questions
to trigger reflections on the conducted activities and ongoing transformations
while reporting them.
A learning framework, described in detail in Chap. 2, was set up to support and
guide this process of moving from theory to practice having all pilots following the
6 A. Deserti and F. Rizzo

same general framework adapting its elements to the specific context and condi-
tions. This is relevant in terms of reacting to the previously identified importance
of the context while preserving the possibility to still assess and compare the
single experimentations notwithstanding their diversity.
The overall project adopted an approach to place these small-scale experiments
within larger ecosystems of co-creation exploring opportunities for scaling and
reconnect the findings to the general issues identified during the initial desk
research.

4 The Importance of Small-Scale Experiments

The necessity of impacting ecosystems on a broader scale to influence policies

requires impact at not only local, but regional, national and international levels [16].
Small-scale pilots have been identified as a potential to experiment new approaches
and concepts to then ‘scale, what works’ [17].
The advantage of pilots conducted on a smaller scale is not only related to their
feasibility but also to their focus on a limited and very specific environment adopting
a sensitive perspective in relation to the surrounding context [4]. This context-
sensitivity becomes particularly relevant when investigating RRI initiatives where
significant levels of context-dependence have been found as one of the barriers for
implementation [13, 18–20].
This aspect underlines both the importance of small-scale experiments conducted
in very specific contexts to then make considerations on their scaling as well as the
necessity to consider these scaling processes and integrate them into pilots like the
ones conducted in SISCODE from the very beginning.
Moore et al. have divided the scaling process into three different elements, scaling
up, scaling out and scaling deep, and all three of them combined are necessary to
impact larger systems [16].
• Scaling out refers to the wider dissemination and replication of the solution
to impact a larger number of addressants in this way [16]. In SISCODE, this
dimension has been addressed with a variety of dissemination activities in each
lab together with business model workshops and considerations on replication to
reflect and collect feedback on opportunities of scaling the single solutions out
beyond the project context.
• Scaling up relates directly to the influence on laws and policies transforming
existing institutions [16]. The pilots have addressed this dimension seeking direct
contact, exchange and confrontation specifically with policy makers and decision
makers in their respective field of work to collaboratively understand barriers and
opportunities within the current policy framework together with potentialities
to influence and transform this framework participating and contributing in the
shaping of new policies.
Between Science, Technology and Society 7

Here it is worth to be mentioned, that especially the value of evidence-based

knowledge has been explored to reach out to decision makers to achieve broader
impacts on society.
• Scaling deep introduces culture and mindset as an additional dimension to be
influenced to achieve impact at a greater scale. The cultural and visionary shift
that is required to deeply embed a new solution, its mindset and approach to ensure
not only its integration in a context but also create a fertile ground for replication
and scaling with the involved actors eventually becoming advocates to further
distribute innovation.
Particular attention has been posed at this dimension in SISCODE investigating
the changes in mindset and way of working, that the pilot has triggered both in the
organisation and the surrounding ecosystem together with the dynamics of these
transformations.

5 Levels and Dimensions of Investigation

The specific levels investigated in SISCODE range from the micro and meso up to
the macro level. While the micro level refers to the internal activities and dynamics
as well as the immediate surroundings of an organisation, the meso level zooms
out to networks of stakeholders and bigger groups often still limited to a regional
level, while the macro level takes a focus on national and institutional governance
processes up to transnational dynamics and systems [21].
While the experimentations did mainly take place and directly impacted on a
micro-level, the project explored and reflected on how each of the experimental
solutions could be scaled or replicated to influence systems on meso- and even macro
levels.
These levels of analysis are taken up in the final chapter, the comparative analysis,
where the ten experimentations conducted are compared identifying essential differ-
ences and common aspects with a specific focus on policies and policy making when
applying co-creation in RRI contexts, reconnecting them to the theoretical back-
ground of the project by drawing initial conclusions on barriers and opportunities
considering a wider scale from a future perspective.
The following chapter presents the empirical reasoning at the ground of the exper-
imentation and its methodology with the learning framework set up to plan, conduct
and monitor the pilots. In particular, it shows how the process has been established to
support the tackling of challenges for the single organisations in terms of stakeholder
engagement, dealing with communities and society and managing transformations.

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Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.
A Framework for Experimenting
Co-creation in Real-Life Contexts

Marion Real and Felicitas Schmittinger

The chapter describes the methodology applied throughout the experimentation, the
application of co-design, the tools used and their role briefly illustrating the single
cases. The underlying assumption is that design methodologies and tools are more
suitable to support co-creation for the inclusion of society in science and inno-
vation since their aim is to implement co-creation processes from the ideation of
new products, services and processes to their real implementation. What differenti-
ates design from other co-creation methodologies is the role of prototypes and their
experimentation in real contexts.

1 Introduction

In the following the results of a practice-based approach are presented that aims
to tackle the challenges of active actor engagement, the effective integration of co-
creation in STI policymaking, and the operationalisation of RRI practices. In this
context, exploring those practices in real-life opens up the possibilities to cope with
constraints, identify new opportunities and explore ways to effectively embed co-
creation.
The reasoning is situated in a context where many barriers are still in place,
hindering the development of ecosystems of co-creation aimed at better inclusion
of society in science and innovation. Still, the situation is evolving, pushed by a

M. Real (B)
IAAC, Fab Lab Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
F. Schmittinger
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, 20158 Milan, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2022 11

A. Deserti et al. (eds.), Co-creation for Responsible Research and Innovation,
Springer Series in Design and Innovation 15,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78733-2_2
12 M. Real and F. Schmittinger

growing interest towards co-creation that led to its integration in European research
and innovation policies. Looking at the bigger picture, however, some of the main
obstacles need to be outlined that researchers and practitioners are encountering
when addressing RRI in practice. First of all, there is a general lack of awareness
and understanding of the potentialities of co-creation among researchers, innovators,
intermediaries and policymakers. The STI approach to policymaking, to which RRI
is bounded, is known for being “sectorialised”. This hampers collaboration among
sectors and organisations. However, one of the main hindrances is the shortage of
competences and methodologies to rely on for filling the gap between constructing
solutions and policies and their real implementation. Eventually, there is a scarcity of
learning frameworks to sustain and encourage the replication of co-creation mecha-
nisms. In consequence, the main need of a framework able to include and leverage
practical knowledge on how to cope with those constraints and barriers that come
along during co-creation processes and their implementation has been identified.
In many fields, Design has been already recognised as a key actor in operational-
ising co-creation. Especially, co-design and its iterative cycles of understanding,
ideating, prototyping, and verifying, resulted in successfully supporting co-creation
along the process, that is to say from the ideation of new solutions and policies to
their real implementation. In doing so, especially prototypes stood for contributing
in bridging the gap between co-production and its outcomes. This is made possible
by prototypes’ ability to trigger and feed processes of real implementation where to
experience all the aspects that come along when designing solutions. On a smaller,
but real scale, everything is experiences: from coping with resources available, need
and interests, conflicts with opportunities and barriers, organisational cultures and
values, and larger cultural, institutional and regulatory frameworks. Such an inherent
feature constitutes a strong rationale for understanding the potentialities as well as
the implications of co-creation as a design-driven approach for better including
society in science and innovation. Moreover, in the light of the main obstacles
depicted above, especially building an evidence-based learning framework becomes
paramount, allowing for the integration of co-creation with larger STI governance
systems.
In this volume, other than exploring the theoretical background of co-design in
RRI and analysing existing cases of the application of co-design in a European context
and beyond, conducting RLEs is a way for grasping concrete and situated knowl-
edge about a complex interaction where several actors participate throughout the
entire process. These actors can be either members of the organisation conducting
the experimentation or external to this organisation, but are relevant actors in the
context of the activity. These actors can be users of a product or service or stake-
holders of its delivery. Potential stakeholders can be public institutions, enterprises
or policymakers.
To advance knowledge on the topic, a set of field experimentations were conducted
and monitored purposely identified as cross-disciplinary and varied in their nature.
The results and outcomes obtained from such high-impact experiments in real-life
contexts allowed to gather concrete knowledge on the operationalisation of RRI
and the integration of co-creation in STI policymaking. By engaging citizens, local
A Framework for Experimenting Co-creation in Real-Life Contexts 13

actors, stakeholders such as policymakers and the wider scientific community, the
experimentation has the objective to increase knowledge on co-creation through
action research [1]. At the same time, the effectiveness of design methodologies is
tested to better combine co-construction or ideation with the co-production or actual
implementation of the ideated solutions and policies for the integration of society in
science and innovation.
Those experiments took place in 10 co-creation labs across Europe, each of them
is a member of one of three following networks that will be described in detail later
on:
• The Fab City Foundation managed in part by Fab Lab Barcelona,
• The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), and
• The European network of Science Centres and Museums (ECSITE).
The three networks as a system of trans-national collectors and areas of encounter
and exchange for their member labs provided first insights on co-creative environ-
ments within their networks. They contributed already in the initial phase of the
project with drivers and barriers previously identified by their members regarding the
effectiveness of the above-mentioned co-creation approaches, processes and tools;
during the ongoing experimentation they actively supported their respective members
in their journeys.
Although the experimentation was initially supposed to last around 18 months,
the period has been extended to 21 due to the manifold restriction caused by the
Covid pandemic. In these experiments, each lab tackled a specific societal challenge
and engaged a set of stakeholders in a co-creation process. from the stage of co-
design where stakeholders will analyse the context, reframe the problem and envision
alternatives, to that of co-production of prototypes within an iterative process.
The following sections detail the approach to co-creation on the base of the experi-
mentation consisting in a learning framework and process guideline and an accompa-
nying, modular toolbox. Furthermore, the objectives of this approach are illustrated
in detail together with the single labs and networks and how their experimentations
have been both supported and assessed throughout the process.

2 SISCODE Approach to Co-creation

Co-creation is approached in this volume as a design-driven and currently flourishing

phenomenon across Europe occurring in bottom-up initiatives like innovation labs,
social innovation initiatives, communities, and regions.
The experimentation aims to analyse significant conditions for the successful
introduction, scaling and replication of co-creation practices while cross-pollinating
RRI initiatives and the field of policymaking [2]. To achieve this, the approach applied
throughout the experimentation is using design practices and processes as a base for
the development of a process and attributive tools to build capacities and competences
for the implementation of RRI and STI policymaking [3]. This approach consists in
14 M. Real and F. Schmittinger

a learning framework and a toolbox specifically developed for the RLE conducted
aiming to overcome barriers and resistances to change. Both the organisation at the
core of the initiative as well as all the external actors and stakeholders involved in
the development are considered and targeted by this approach.

Experience-based learning framework

The way SISCODE looks at co-creation is seeing it as “a non-linear process that
involves multiple actors and stakeholders in the ideation, implementation and assess-
ment of products, services, policies and systems with the aim of improving their effi-
ciency and effectiveness, and the satisfaction of those who take part in the process”
[1, 3, 4]. The integrated core structure of the design processes can be complemented
with appropriate tools associated to one or more phases to support the co-creation of
new solutions while the (organisational) learning process can be complemented with
appropriate structures and actions, and applied to the introduction and integration of
new knowledge.
By interpreting an organisation not only as a structure closed in itself but as an
actor in a greater network where other actors like municipalities, public services or
enterprises play their function and relate, the learning process can be extended to all
those actors being actively involved in the learning process through the application
of the principles of co-design [5].
In the light of this reasoning, to develop the theoretical framework at the ground
of the experimentation Kolb’s cycle of experiential learning [6] has been combined
with the iterative process of co-design. The scheme below represents the framework
integrating experimentation and learning. This framework will be used to connect the
activities conducted in the 10 co-creation labs with policymakers at local, regional,
national, and EU levels (Fig. 1).
The developed learning cycle basically foresees four stages within an iterative
process:
• Concrete Experience: the learner encounters a new experience or situation, or
reinterprets an existing experience.
• Reflective Observation: the learner reflects on the experience on a personal basis,
trying to map the gap between experience and understanding.
• Abstract Conceptualisation: the learner elaborates new ideas based on the previous
reflection or on modifications of the existing abstract ideas. This phase focuses
on envisioning alternatives.
• Active Experimentation: the learner applies the new ideas to his/her surroundings
to see if there are any modifications in the next appearance of the experience.
Beginning from the analysis of the context to then move from the reframing of the
initially defined problem and the envisioning of alternatives into an iterative cycle
itself of developing and prototyping. In the following each phase is detailed, pointing
out their main features and output.
Analysis of the context
The phase of context analysis has the scope of providing the space and instruments
needed to clearly define the context in which the chosen challenge is addressed with a
A Framework for Experimenting Co-creation in Real-Life Contexts 15

Fig. 1 The design-based learning framework

focus on specific local particularities, stakeholders, and current policies. Defining the
context through research is meant to form the base to explore the relation between the
context and the challenge itself, as well as to clarify the competences that the lab needs
to be able to frame and define the problem. Since this first phase, the involvement of
a variety of stakeholders and users is already required with them being part of the
ecosystem in which the lab operates. The aim is to obtain a complete picture of the
context and needs of the various actors: such knowledge is in fact key to precisely
frame the problem.
Problem framing
The precise definition of the root of the problem is essential for the ideation of an
efficient and effective solution. Moreover it is necessary to consider that the initial
challenge might be linked to other, greater problems underneath, which have to be
acknowledged and tackled all together in order to provoke real change.
This phase is entirely dedicated to the understanding of the problem, its roots and
the influencing factors. As in the first phase of context analysis, the active participa-
tion of stakeholders is fundamental to explore not only influencing factors, but also
different perspectives from which the problem could be seen. This is crucial to gain
a multi-perspective view and a complete understanding of the problem itself.
Envisioning solutions
Moving from problems to opportunities and solutions during the third phase, the
detailed challenge and needs defined previously are addressed to improve the current
situation. This phase is dedicated to ideating potential solutions imagining an ideal
scenario in which the problem is solved.
16 M. Real and F. Schmittinger

Building the ideal scenario itself and reasoning on its elements can already be a
starting point for the gathering of new ideas. To keep the variety of points of view
and needs to be satisfied the involvement of stakeholders needs to be kept consistent
also throughout this step. The presence of multiple perspectives leads to shaping a
value proposition from the different ideas generated.
Developing and prototyping
The last phase of the journey is dedicated to the application of the newly developed
concepts to turn them into implementable prototypes. The prototypes designed are
then tested and assessed through an iterative process aimed at identifying the best
possible solution step by step together with users and concerned actors.
As illustrated in Fig. 2, the framework is presented as cyclical, emphasising the
importance of iteration when designing and experimenting in real-life.
In addition to this learning model, a toolbox has been developed to operationalise
and support the learning effect and favor capacity building in a variety of contexts.

The toolbox
The toolbox has been created as an open set of tools to operationalise the single phases
of the learning framework to facilitate both the design and the implementation of
the co-creation journeys of the labs while focusing on a better understanding of the
particularities within each context.

Fig. 2 Application process of the design-based learning framework

A Framework for Experimenting Co-creation in Real-Life Contexts 17

A premise to the construction of the toolbox is an extensive desk research aimed

at analysing co-design in RRI in literature as well as investigating existing cases in
Europe and beyond. The needs and gaps identified during this research led to the
definition of a set of goals to be translated in specifications for development of the
toolbox as pictured in Table 1. This toolbox was developed before the start of the
experimentation, composed by a set of important instruments to use in an entirely
flexible way throughout the co-creation journey. In the following, the main goals and
their sub-goals are reported that were identified as key elements in the design process
to be translated in specification that lead the construction of the toolbox (Fig. 3).
The learning framework and the toolbox as the two main aspects of the applied
experimentation concept are meant to give a clear framework to the experimentation
itself and support the process to reach the objectives stated in the following.

Table 1 Goals of the experimentation and resulting specifications for the toolbox
Goals Details Specifications for the toolbox
design
Fill the identified RRI gaps Complexity of societal Context-based approach using
problems systemic tools
Engagement of Use of stakeholder canvases all
stakeholders along the journey
Tangibility of RRI Use of prototypes as boundary
projects objects
Make the single tools modular Context Matters Adaptable selection of tools
and customisable according to cases
Tools appropriation Support provided to enlarge the
practical knowledge about tools.
101 methods design cards
Trigger reflexivity through the Comparison necessities Process characterised by
use of tools common macro-phases that can
be freely organised in
sub-phases, and on the other
hand the adoption of a limited set
of common tools that synthesize
the outcomes of each phase
Common knowledge Organisation of interactive
spaces moments with partners like lab
exchange day, skype call and
communication spaces (social
media, website…)
18 M. Real and F. Schmittinger

Fig. 3 Idea card—an example from the toolbox

3 Key Objectives and Originality of the Approach

As anticipated, each experimentation aims at the conduction of high-impact inves-

tigations in a real-life context. Through the direct engagement of a variety of users
and actors in a process of action research as well as the tackling of a relevant societal
challenge it aims to influence current organisational structures and policies at a wider
scale. In this, the effectiveness of design methods is tested in an RRI context to move
from sheer ideation to implementation.

Prototypes as a means to move from co-design to co-production

Having identified the issue to move from ideation to implementation [7], bridging
this gap is one of the main objectives in the experimentation. The underlying assump-
tion is that design methodologies and tools are suitable to support co-creation for the
inclusion of society in science and innovation and exploit their practical orientation to
bridge the aforementioned gap between ideation and implementation. What differen-
tiates design from other co-creation methodologies is the role of prototypes and their
experimentation in real contexts [8]. Prototypes can provide support in shortening
the distance between “co-construction and its outcomes as they are refracted through
practicalities embedded in existing institutions and interests” (SwafS-13-2017 topic)
[9].
The experimentation of this potential in a real context is crucial to explore the
possibilities of bridging the gap between ideal and real outputs that the application
of co-creation and RRI can produce.
A Framework for Experimenting Co-creation in Real-Life Contexts 19

Prototyping all revolves around giving people the space and time to materialize
and concretize their ideas, it brings an experience to a vision by creating objects of
dialog and designs that can afford interaction with people and place, to evoke debate
to capture the potential and risks involved in innovation.
Prototyping arouses empowerment, dialog, acts of creation and intents of empiri-
cism and allows practitioners to connect with realities and representations when
navigating towards the unknown.
Prototypes are objects manifesting the interconnection between ideas, matter,
theory and practices, bringing together soft systems and Hard Technologies. In the
approach, it is hypothesised they can create bridges between projects, scales and
stakeholders to support innovation.

Implementing RRI
While the potential of RRI as a new approach has been widely discussed in theory,
a lack of its translation into practice has been identified [7]. With its attitude of
previously evaluating impacts on the entire ecosystem of operation and society RRI
involves a variety of actors, including users and stakeholders, in the entire develop-
ment process from the very beginning. The experimentation concretely explored the
engagement of a variety of stakeholders using techniques and processes from the
field of design to operationalise this element of RRI involving actors from an early
stage keeping them engaged throughout the process.
Therefore, material is being produced to feed theoretical studies with experi-
ences in practice and application in real life. Concretely, theoretical concepts found
during the desk research on how RRI are experimented and verified for their imple-
mentability to undermine or confute the research statements from a practical point
of view.
This new approach together with the active participation is also meant to provoke
a learning process within the world of policymaking. The objective is to create a
fertile ground where to show possibilities and functioning of different approaches
opening up policymaking as a field that has been found to be often restricted and
closed in itself creating a safe playground for policymakers to experiment further,
acquire new knowledge and build themselves capacities in applying this knowledge.

Capacity building and organisational change through co-design

The objectives of capacity building within the pilots’ ecosystem are twofold: On
one hand, the capacity of co-creation within the lab leading the pilot is aimed to
be enhanced through the training provided during the project and the frequent and
iterative application and use of co-design tools. This knowledge generation on co-
creation is planned to go beyond the members of the labs involved, extending beyond
that to the application in other projects and to their spread over the entire organisation
as a means to co-create and lead co-creation initiatives themselves. On the other hand,
a further learning effect is meant to be provoked in the entire ecosystem, including
all actors and stakeholders involved in the activities of the experimentation. In a
learning-by-doing process their knowledge on the use of design methodologies and
their capacities to cope with barriers and constraints that may occur in the process
20 M. Real and F. Schmittinger

are expected to be built in consequence of practical activities. In this case, this

means developing knowledge because of their involvement in the co-design and the
prototyping of specific solutions.
To support and further exploit the bridges built between policymakers and prac-
titioners as well to give other interested policymakers the tools and possibilities to
experiment with new approaches, the best practices, learning outcomes and direct
feedback from policymakers are to be analysed and used to produce an open reposi-
tory of material, tools and instruction that have been proven successful in introducing
design into policymaking to spread and disseminate precious evidences collected
throughout the project.

4 The Networks and Labs

The cases of application of new processes and visions to involve actors that have not
been considered in the development process of new initiatives to date are constantly
growing. Greater, international networks function as a collector for those often
smaller initiatives and labs to provide support and foster the exchange among different
realities in local contexts and challenges to provide a broader view on small-scale
experiments and reflect on interconnections, scalability and replicability in diverse
contexts.

Description of networks and labs involved

The experimentation took place in 10 co-creation labs spread across Europe. All 10
labs are members of one of the three networks mentioned in the following.
The Fab City Foundation
The community of Fab Labs spreads over more than 78 countries with approxi-
mately 1000 members including fabricators, scientists, educators and professionals
of labs of all sizes from community-based small labs to research centers. Their
common goal is the democratization of access to the tools for technical inventions
and the spread of the culture of making. They are also experimenting with new
approaches and engagement of stakeholders to create new urban models within the
Fab City initiative.
European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL)
The European Network of Living Labs with headquarter in brussels, Belgium
is composed of more than 400 recognised Living Labs as environments for open
innovation and promoting co-creation, stakeholder participation and active actor
involvement in real contexts.
European Network of Science Centres and Museums (ECSITE)
Ecsite connects science communication professionals from more than 400 insti-
tutions located in 50 countries. It connects member institutions through projects and
activities facilitating collaboration and the exchange of ideas and best practices on
current issues. Their members engage citizens in science fostering creativity and
critical thinking to inspire and empower society (Table 2).
A Framework for Experimenting Co-creation in Real-Life Contexts 21

Table 2 Overview of the labs taking part in the experimentation

Lab Description
Maker Maker is a non-profit association with the core objective of
Copenhagen (Denmark) connecting and supporting communities of makers and their
Fab Lab methodologies to the public and new sectors to facilitate new
relationships and collaborations among makers, civil society,
private and public organisations as well as policymakers
Fab Lab Barcelona Fab Lab Barcelona is a part of the Institute for Advanced
Barcelona (Spain) Architecture of Catalonia supporting a variety of education- and
Fab Lab research programs related to the human habitat on different
scales. Its mission is the provision of access to knowledge, tools
and financial means to foster technology-based and digital
innovation and invention for the improvement of life quality
Polifactory Polifactory is the makerspace inside Politecnico Milano as a
Milan (Italy) multidisciplinary research lab between design, mechanical
Fab Lab engineering, electronics and bioengineering. By the promotion of
a new culture of making new ways of manufacturing and
production systems are explored including areas like research,
experimental and peer-to-peer education and cultural
dissemination
PA4ALL Applying a multidisciplinary approach, PA4ALL, part of the
Novi Sad (Serbia) Biosense Institute, is focused on Precision Agriculture operating
Living Lab between the fields of ICT, Agriculture, Environmental
Engineering and Ecology
Involving multiple stakeholders PA4ALL combines user needs
with technology and innovative methodologies bring together
users, public institutions, researchers and technology
ThessAHALL The Thessaloniki Active and Healthy Ageing Living Lab
Thessaloniki (Greece) (Thess-AHALL) is governed by the Laboratory of Medical
Living Lab Physics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki operating in
real community settings with a wide network of collaborators in
Greece and the Balkan region. Adopting co-creation approaches
they enable user-driven innovation in the field of Activity &
Health
KTP The Krakow Technology Park is a key actor in the development
Krakow (Poland) and implementation of Regional Innovation Strategies promoting
Living Lab user-driven innovation and smart specialisation. With an
ecosystem of 300 companies they support innovative
technology-oriented businesses at different stages of
development with a variety of services testing their products and
services in a Living Lab environment involving end users and a
variety of stakeholders
(continued)
22 M. Real and F. Schmittinger

Table 2 (continued)
Lab Description
Cube design museum Cube design museum is part of Stichting Museumplein Limburg,
Kerkrade a foundation that tells the story of the earth, sustainability,
(Netherlands) science, technology and design, in the context of society and
Science Centers & Museums education
Cube’s exhibitions are dedicated to design for human needs and
ambitions including a lab to co-create with the public to provide
open access to design tools and enhance their use for society
TRACES As a non-profit association between participatory science
Paris (France) engagement and social inclusion and a strong orientation towards
Science Centers & Museums innovation in research TRACES aims to create space for
reflection, experimentation and innovation for science in society,
science education and communication
Ciência Viva The Portuguese agency for public awareness of science and
Lisbon (Portugal) technology is a non-profit association in the fields of science
Science Centers & Museums awareness, science education and open science. One of its main
focus is on ocean literacy
SGD Science Gallery Dublin (SGD) is a living experiment by Trinity
Dublin (Ireland) College Dublin to encourage young people in an encounter of art
Science Centers & Museums and science. Unique exhibitions that allow participation and
social connections of visitors while exploring different aspects of
one topic

5 Support and Assessment Procedures

During their co-creation journey, the labs have received support from the various
project members and partners of SISCODE to fully exploit all present capacities to
combine the knowledge and abilities of practitioners and research partners. Apart
from active support to acquire knowledge on co-creation and its potential application
during the co-creation journey a peer-to-peer learning among labs and other interested
partners has been fostered to enhance exchange on experiences, practices, issues and
identified opportunities not only to confront with other, similar realities, but also to
self-reflect on current practices and how they could be improved in the future.
One of the main struggles that RRI is facing when moving from theory to practice
is the assessment of its impact within the context on application. To tackle this in the
specific project, an assessment framework has been set up to gather, mainly qualitative
data, from the pilots during their journey to monitor and evaluate their progress.
Initially planned to measure solely the success of the single pilots, the assessment
framework soon turned into an instrument to measure impact on a greater level
retrieving data on changes and transformations caused in the pilots’ organisations
and ecosystems beyond the single prototype.
The assessment explores three different dimensions to be explored specifically,
namely the ones of:
A Framework for Experimenting Co-creation in Real-Life Contexts 23

1. Stakeholder engagement, previously named as a fundamental aspect of the

entire project being both a crucial part of RRI and co-design identifying and
involving a variety of actors
2. Co-creation, the means for operationalisation and the base for the methodology
applied in the overall project investigating the effectiveness and appropriation
of the techniques and tools used
3. Dissemination, the opportunity and capacity to share successes and failures,
practice knowledge exchange and foster capacity building beyond the project’s
borders.
Three tools have been developed to assess the dimensions throughout the process:
• Excel spreadsheet focused on the reporting of activities conducted and numbers
of actors involved to keep track of direct outputs in the process
• Self-assessment questionnaire a questionnaire exploring the outcomes on a
broader dimensions and from a qualitative point of view triggering self-reflection
on current practices in the organisation as well as organisational change
• Scenarios to illustrate possible near futures to create an outlook on how the pilot
could impact the organisation and the ecosystem in the long-term.
The goal of the monitoring and assessment activity is the evaluation of the
single cases applying the three tools described previously either in a continuous
way throughout the experimentation like done with the spreadsheet or accurately at
specific points of the journey.
Its results are not only meant to assess the single prototypes, but also allow a
comparison among them and feed broader reflections on the application of co-
creation in RRI contexts and its impact assessment that is elaborated in the final
chapter of this book.
To allow this comparison and further evaluation of the cases, it has been decided
to elaborate them singularly as case studies after the conclusion of the prototyping
phase. The following chapter goes in detail on the choice of the methodology and
the guidelines developed to guide and regulate the writing.

References

1. Rizzo F, Deserti A, Crabu S, Smallman M, Hjort J, Hansen SJ, Menichinelli M (2018) Co-creation
in RRI practices and STI policies. SISCODE deliverable D1.2, https://ec.europa.eu/research/par
ticipants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5bedc3a0d&appId=PPGMS, last
accessed 2021/03/21
2. Jakobsen SE, Fløysand A, Overton J (2019) Expanding the field of responsible research and
innovation (RRI)—from responsible research to responsible innovation. Eur Plan Stud 27:2329–
2343
3. Deserti A, Eckhardt J, Kaletka C, Rizzo F, Vasche E (2019) Co-design for society in innovation.
In: Atlas of social innovation, vol 2. Oekom, Munich, pp 91–96
4. Rizzo F, Deserti A, Komatsu TT (2020) Implementing Social Innovation in real contexts. Int J
Knowl Based Dev 11(1):45–67
24 M. Real and F. Schmittinger

5. Blomkamp E (2018) The promise of co-design for public policy. Aust J Public Adm 77(4):729–
743
6. Kolb DA (1983) Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development, 1
edn. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
7. Von Schomberg R (2013) A vision of responsible research and innovation. In: Responsible
innovation: managing the responsible emergence of science and innovation in society, pp. 51–74
8. Rizzo F, Cantu D (2013) From designing in protected environment to designing in real contexts-
Piloting digital services for elderly independent living. In: IASDR conference, International
Association of Societies of Design Research, 2, pp 2585–2596
9. European Commission: Integrating Society in science and innovation—an approach
to co-creation, https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportuni
ties/topic-details/swafs-13-2017. Last accessed 2020/10/12

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.
Framing Real-Life Experimentations
as Case Studies

Stefano Crabu, Ilaria Mariani, and Felicitas Schmittinger

The chapter describes the case studies methodology on the ground of the volume: their
use and comparison are investigated from a theoretical point of view. This chapter
has a twofold aim: (i) contextualise case studies and the experimentation/prototyping
conducted by the pilots, then (ii) to provide a compass for going through the next
chapters in which it is detailed the experience of each pilot as a case study. This
reasoning is a premise for understanding and situating the relevant points emerged
in the larger picture of the RRI framework.

1 Introduction

This chapter has the purpose of presenting the overall methodological framework in
which the volume is rooted. It is aim to discuss the case study approach adopted for
orienting the production of self- and reflexive narrations about ten RLEs carried out
by as many pilot organisations across Europe (Fab Labs, Living Labs and Science
Centers and Museums) engaged in addressing relevant societal challenges entangled
with various STI domains. In doing so, a meaningful methodological compass is
provided for understanding the rationale and the structure of the next ten “empirical
chapters”. More in detail, the following chapters are consecrated to discuss each
“pilot experimentation” as a case study, which allow to critically present, analyse and

S. Crabu (B) · I. Mariani · F. Schmittinger

Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, 20158 Milan, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
I. Mariani
e-mail: [email protected]
F. Schmittinger
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2022 25

A. Deserti et al. (eds.), Co-creation for Responsible Research and Innovation,
Springer Series in Design and Innovation 15,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78733-2_3
26 S. Crabu et al.

assess the effectiveness of the adopted co-creation approaches, processes and tools
(see Chap. 2). Thus this chapter serves as a methodological premise for clarifying
how data from the ten RLEs, in the form of self-narrative case studies, has been
gathered allowing: (i) a deeper understanding of the major dimensions at stake in
co-creation practices within STI domains and; (ii) a comparative analysis of these
major dimensions within the context of the RRI frame.

2 The Case Study Approach

As mentioned above, a methodological frame was adopted according to which each

RLE has been framed as a case study. The heuristic power of the case study approach is
well recognised in different fields, such as social research, design, law and policy, due
to its potential for eliciting in-depth, multi-faceted explorations of complex issues in
their real-life, naturalistic settings. According to Yin [1], a case study can be defined:
“as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its
real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not
clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used.” In this sense,
the case study approach is one of the most relevant research strategies to employ
for producing an in-depth and thorough appreciation of an event or phenomenon
of interest occurring within its natural real-life context. In research, the case study
approach can be mobilised, for example, to describe in details patient-physician
relationships within different hospitals and how the mutual consent is shaped; or
how different practitioners in high-tech firms cooperate for developing an innovative
technological solutions for monitoring the air quality; or again to investigate causal
links and pathways emerging by the implementation of a new regulatory initiative, or
a public service in a concerned geographical area. As a rule, a case study framework
selects a small geographical area or a limited number of organisations, or social
groups to be scrutinized. Thereby, the case study approach allows a researcher to
closely examine data within a specific context. So, case studies enable exploration
and investigation of both ongoing real-life processes by means of contingent analysis
of specific settings of interactions, and how interactions and conditions under study
can influence, and are influenced by the cultural, economic and political landscape.

3 Eliciting Experiential Knowledge on Co-creation in STI

Policymaking

A case study approach was adopted with the aim to investigate real-life co-design
and co-creation practices in STI as a way to (re)shape the missing links between
strategic objectives (to make research and innovation more “responsible”), topics and
communities (domains of science and technology, groups of stakeholders, citizens
Framing Real-Life Experimentations as Case Studies 27

and society at large), and the activities on the ground (research and innovation).
This approach allowed to generate data and information around the “how”, “what”
and “why” questions at different levels (i.e. national, regional and local), and about
different dimensions (i.e. economic, political and social). For example, it opens up
reasonings about questions such as “how pre-existing culture of engagement and
dialogue between citizens and stakeholders influenced the experimentation”. This
can support both in developing and refining fresh knowledge about the current forms
of public participation in STI policymaking and beyond, as expected within the RRI
frame. However, it is worth noticing that a case study is not aimed at exploring
an entire organisation. Rather, the analytical gaze focalised on particular issues, by
framing the specific RLE as the unit of analysis. This approach allows to understand
the complexity of the RLE, by carefully designing and implementing what was
called “the self-narration guidelines’ (see Sect. 4). This tool enables the production
and consistent organisation of the experiential knowledge shaped by the different
kinds of practitioners engaged within the concerned RLE, e.g. designers, science
communicators, engineers, students, patients and lay people in general. By means
of the self-narration guidelines it was aimed at generating “thick description” [2] of
what is going on within the experimentation. This work can be considered primarily
as an observation activity of ordinary practice occurring in a specific setting. More
critically, it is a reflexive activity oriented at producing a thorough account about
the multiverse co-creation activities, thus to make sense of local meaning and local
knowledge, and relating them to the broader organisational, social, political and
economic context. This is provided by the fact that this self-narration casework is
based on the direct participation of the authors in the real-time experimentation,
spending extended time on site, personally organising co-creation activities of the
case, reflecting and revising the descriptions of what is going on. Therefore, it is an
analytical and reflexive effort aimed at understanding what is important about the
specific experimentation within its own environment, which is peculiar and different
for each case. The goal set by the self-narration guidelines is not to describe data as
they occur during the RLEs; but to produce a detailed emic account able to provide
actionable and analytical insights about how the co-creation experimentation took
place, in its different phases, such as the definition of the challenge to be addressed
and the process of designing the solutions.
As it will clearly emerge in the next section, in designing the self-narration guide-
lines specific attention was paid to the mutual engagement between the situated
and specific practices for conduction the RLE, and the broad economic, political and
social contexts. As a consequence, practitioners were asked to clarify regulatory land-
scapes and social values and beliefs that entered as a relevant dimension in the course
of the experimentation. It is worth noticing that this strategy engendered complex
relationships. Indeed, the self-narration guidelines pull attention both to the situated
ordinary practices and experience of the practitioners and stakeholders engaged in
the RLE and also to the broad large socio-political and regulatory contexts in which
each experimentation is located. In this way, self-narration orients to complexities
connecting ordinary practices of co-creation occurring in specific settings of interac-
tion to some more broad concerns related to the regulatory and societal environments.
28 S. Crabu et al.

Thus, in this approach the self-narration guidelines enabled the consideration of the
case study both as a process of learning about the specific RLT and the product of the
learning produced in SISCODE. Under the aegis of this methodological approach
firstly the RLEs are considered as a bounded system that allows to capture specificities
at stake in STI co-creation around certain societal challenges developed according
to the RRI. Furthermore, the self-narration guidelines work as an “instrumental case
study”, aimed at highlighting the specific methodological choices, the tools mobilised
in the experimentation, and its interpretations in relation to the specific context in
which the RTE has been performed.
Finally, in the last chapter the 10 case studies will be analysed as a whole, or
as a “collective case study” [3] in order to develop a comparative investigation that
can lead to a better understanding of co-creation processes in relation to the STI
policymaking. This strategy offers an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of
co-creation in Europe, and across different STI domains (such as health, ICT and
environmental issues) as a bottom-up and design-led phenomenon together with its
corresponding suitable framework conditions. In this way it is aimed to analyse and
compare the outcome and condition of the RLEs under scrutiny, thus to assess the
result of the impact of co-creation in STI policymaking in relation to the RRI frame.
In doing so, the results of the comparative analysis (Chap. 14) will provide insights
on suitable strategies for coping with the limit of the current implementation of co-
creation in STI policy. Therefore, the comparative analysis is carried out according
to the following dimensions:
i. phases of the engagement process they support (i.e. research, Conceptualisa-
tion, development, prototyping and testing, assessment);
ii. expected output (i.e. opinions, feedbacks, ideas, product, and service);
iii. sectors of application (i.e. private, public, and third sector);
iv. typology of innovation (i.e. technological, social, scientific, and business).
Overall, innovative knowledge is offered on what works and what does not work
to boost the operationalisation of RRI through co-creation.

4 The Self-narration Guidelines: Rationale and Layout

The reasoning that follows stems from the awareness that the RRI field reports a
general lack of a learning framework aimed at supporting the validation and repli-
cation of virtuous mechanisms of co-creation for RRI. In such a context, gaining
understanding on how to cope with constraints and barriers that frequently come
about along the process constitutes relevant knowledge that can contribute to the
successful result of other initiatives.
As stated in the previous paragraph, the basic concept of creating guidelines is
based both on the concept of having the participants of the RLE themselves narrating
the cases, as well as aligning different pilots in terms of typology of organisation,
domains and addressed challenge, thus to make them comparable to some extent.
Framing Real-Life Experimentations as Case Studies 29

Moreover, introducing a unique format shared among the actors engaged in the RLEs
paves the way for mutual understanding, contributing in building useful knowledge
and consistent narrations about the processes of experimenting.
Exploiting their extensive knowledge of the process, the guidelines are meant to
encourage those who compile them—namely the team involved in the co-creation
within the labs—to describe their experience as a case considering all fundamental
aspects while self-reflecting during the writing.
Given these premises, the objective of asking the team of each RLEs to represent
their experimentation through the practice of self-narrations built upon the same
guidelines is twofold.
At first, the pilots should have the possibility to narrate their co-creation journey
themselves as protagonists of the process, without too much influence of third parties
but providing a direction on the desired outcome. This has not only the scope to create
a purely first-hand report from the people being directly involved in the experimen-
tation, but also stimulate self-reflection during the writing activity itself. As a matter
of fact, the reflective activity is valued that reaches across the process of writing as a
moment of fundamental learning per se. On the other hand, providing guidelines as
a general layout with key points and questions as an orientation is a way for aligning
the very diverse pilots in a similar form, making their process and experiences to
some extent comparable to each other. Notwithstanding their diverse background and
context, and the fact that each lab focused on different challenges/experimentations,
providing them with the same basic structure to follow was key for opening up
comparison and critical analysis, nurturing a discussion that goes beyond the singular
cases.
Therefore, the guidelines are the result of a methodological process applied to
gather information on some aspects fundamental for the experimentation.
In the following the layout is reported as an index, anticipating that each part will
be laid out later on sharing the rationale on their ground.

1. Synthesis of the pilot’s journey.

2. Initial context.

2.1. External context and ecosystem.

2.2. Organisational background.

3. Challenge.
4. The co-creation process of the envisioned solution.

4.1. Context analysis.

4.2. Problem framing.
4.3. Envisioning solutions.
4.4. Developing and prototyping.
4.5. The role of policies and policymaker engagement.

5. The Final Solution.

5.1. Final concept.

30 S. Crabu et al.

5.2. Sustainability strategy.

6. Transformations triggered and outcomes.

7. Conclusive reflections.
8. References.

In addition to this index as a basic guideline, every section unpacks into key points
referring to the desired content and contains a few questions aimed at triggering a
detailed and in-depth description of the experimentation, while further stimulating
reflection during the writing.
For example, in the final chapter on conclusive reflections, one of the questions
had been “Did you come across some unexpected opportunities that you weren’t
aware of?” to invite the pilots to a broader reflection on alternatives and opportunities
identified during the process.
The logic of the layout roughly follows the general co-creation journey that each
lab underwent during the experimentation process (see Chap. 2), hence starting
from the analysis of the context to the phase of developing and prototyping of the
solution. As previously mentioned, the layout is directed towards the collection of
specific information related to the main dimensions explored, namely the implemen-
tation of RRI in practice, the exploration of capacity building through co-design
and prototyping as an approach to transform ideas into implementable solutions.
Such dimensions and their enquiry were also carefully inspected during the desk
research conducted in the first year of the SISCODE project, and consisting in an
extensive literature review and an analysis of existing co-creation cases across Europe
(n:138). This preliminary study grasped the potential of co-creation approaches, RRI
practices and policies, and their cross-fertilisation to inform the experimentation on
the dynamics and outcomes that spurred form of integrating society in science and
innovation in a long-term perspective.
As a matter of fact, while RLEs benefited from the investigation of the state of the
art regarding practices on co-creation in contexts, as well as from the knowledge base
generated in such an enquiry to enrich their processes [4–6], the hereby presented
guidelines leaned on such scholarship for defining the dimensions to specifically vet
through its self-narrative approach.
Considering the overall objective of delivering insights into the use of collabora-
tive approaches for RRI and policymaking, the analysis of RLEs as case studies needs
to keep in mind that a successful implementation of co-creation strongly depends on
the interaction with the context [7]. Such interaction has a high degree of complexity,
since it is characterised by multilayered social dimensions on various levels. Grasping
its logics is primary for a more precise understanding of the dynamics triggered in the
ecosystem, as well as their opportunities and barriers [8, 9]. These can be attributed to
three levels related to as many scales. The macro-level identifies a “process of change
in the social structure of a society in its constitutive institutions, cultural patterns,
associated social actions and conscious awareness” [10]. The meso-level refers to
the intermediate structures as interactions with organisations and alliances. Finally,
the micro-level covers the individual scale of the person, its needs and role-conflicts,
Framing Real-Life Experimentations as Case Studies 31

and it allows to understand “how stakeholders and their everyday practices interact
with environmental factors” [4].
To gain such an accurate knowledge, the guidelines pose specific attention to
the exploration of the context of dependency, the way in which stakeholders are
involved, the co-creation practices operated, and the transformations triggered, from
the dimension of the team to at an organisational scale.
Table 1 unpacks the question starting from the overall goals of the experimentation,
to their sub-elements, up to the link to the dimensions explored.

Context dependency
Context and its specificities constitute a structural factor to consider when dealing
with co-creation and RRI, since it reflects established cultures, mindsets, practices,
and policies characterising the specific environment [11]. Since co-creation practices
take place in contexts as ecosystems that contain actors with their specificities and
inter-dependencies, their understanding can highly impact the success of an initia-
tive. Therefore, introducing this dimension is a way for asking labs to describe and
reflect on the context where the experimentation is taking place. Taking this into high
consideration means gaining understanding about the networks and partnerships the
initiating body upholds, as well as about local culture, structures and policies. As
its importance is meant to instruct the self-narrative of the labs, so it also exert its
influence in terms of tools. When creating the toolbox (see Chap. 2), the recognised
presence of extremely diverse contexts led to the need for modular and customisable
tools and activities. The inherent heterogeneity and diversification of contexts had
been identified as one of the barriers to the implementation of RRI. In consequence,

Table 1 Overall goals of the experimentation, sub-elements, and dimensions explored

Goals of the experimentation Details Dimension explored in case
studies
Fill the identified RRI gaps Complexity of societal Context dependency
problems
Engagement of stakeholders Context dependency
Stakeholder involvement
Co-creation practices
Tangibility of RRI projects Context dependency
Stakeholder involvement
Co-creation practices
Make the single tools modular and Context matters Context dependency
customisable & test their Tools appropriation Context dependency
functionality Co-creation practices
Capacity building and
organisational change
Trigger reflexivity through the use Comparison necessities Context dependency
of tools Common knowledge spaces Co-creation practices
Capacity building and
organisational change
32 S. Crabu et al.

several tools were inserted in the toolbox aiming at encouraging to explore the influ-
ence of this dimension, valuing the surrounding context specifically relevant and its
investigation in the policy context. In parallel, specific attention is drawn on how
tools and methodologies are adopted individually by each lab in relation to the envi-
ronment, as well as differences and similarities in regard to barriers and opportunities
identified in diverse contexts.

Stakeholder involvement
The engagement and constant relationship with concerned actors is crucial both in co-
design and RRI. Considering the relationship between the context where the problem
is situated and the network that will co-create the solution is central [12–14]. Espe-
cially in co-creation processes, the interaction between people with different cultures,
backgrounds and forms of knowledge within a frame of collaboration enables the
opportunity for both conflict and a learning process where knowledge is shared
among peers. Knowledge and expertise lies among different stakeholders, and their
involvement enables them to grasp complementary and critical insights. Therefore, it
becomes fundamental to identify the various stakeholders groups and local actors to
be actively involved throughout the entire process. Being it simple user experience,
social knowledge or ‘expert’ technical knowledge, the benefits from engaging the
public goes beyond the verification of hypothesis. Relevant advice, then, regards the
possibility to extract both behavioral schemes and best practices from their various
domains of knowledge. Public participation is a way to recognise and value their
motivation, needs and behaviors, as well as a way to develop context-based solutions
[7].
Moreover, recognising that policymakers often do not value social knowledge as
equal or valuable as ‘expert’ technical knowledge [7], the experimentation specifi-
cally focused on the inclusion of this group of stakeholders. Investigating possible
interplays and interactions by involving policymakers along the entire co-creation
becomes a way to better frame the context of STI policymaking in particular as one
of the core objectives of the study.
Specific aspects to be explored in the analysis are the level of engagement (active
or passive), the constancy throughout the various phases and their overall role.

Co-creation practices
Co-creation as the way to operationalise RRI in this experimentation is inspected
under various aspects. On one hand, its general efficiency and efficacy in RRI contexts
is to be explored together with the potential need to be adapted and modified to
entirely satisfy the needs for its application in an RRI context.
Aspects to consider in this dimension are its changeableness and potential to
be modified for specific contexts and situations, and how this variability can be
communicated minimizing the risk of being too broad and open hindering the actual
adoption. Finding this balance is specifically important for an effective introduction of
co-creation. Here it is particularly relevant to reason about the risks that come across
skepticism and resistance, especially in fields with very different current practices
like policymaking. Ways to deal with this resistance are to be investigated as well.
Framing Real-Life Experimentations as Case Studies 33

Addressing how such aspects have been tackled by going through a process of self-
narration is a way to encourage labs to gain further awareness about their learning,
turning them into shareable knowledge.
Particular attention is drawn to the phase of prototyping as the transition from
sheer ideas to potential implementable solutions [15]. This is a particularly crucial
point to be investigated to evaluate the potential of the design approach to bridge the
gap identified in RRI of moving towards real implementation [16].

Capacity building and organisational change

Co-creation can bring knowledge and assumptions about who contributes in creating
solutions and defining policies, also challenging existing or established practices
[7]. To ensure a long-term change and a full embedding of the design approach,
the capacities related to it need to be fully incorporated into the organisation and its
members to be applied successfully and trigger substantial change in the organisation
[17].
The specific focus here lies on two kinds of knowledge acquisition. On one hand
the capacities built within the organisation and their influence on its culture and prac-
tices beyond the project. On the other hand, the capacities acquired by participants
that are not members of the organisation like stakeholders or users are investigated.
This is relevant to explore the possibilities and methodologies of triggering change
in external entities and actors through concrete involvement in a project. In fact,
since they introduce practices and tools able to challenge an established order, co-
creation and co-design are political acts. In consequence, it is paramount to invite
labs to ruminate about the transformations they activated during their co-creation
processes, especially focusing on aspects and situations that encountered resistance
to change reflecting on potential futures and an outlook on long-term change.
Moreover, this dimension is also meant to encourage reflection about capacities
developed along the way, as well as about barriers to capacity building encountered.

5 Implementing the Guidelines: 10 Experiences

of Co-creation

Examples of realities where new visions and processes of co-design aimed at actively
involving stakeholders in the co-creation of solutions and favourable policies and
frameworks are flourishing across Europe in innovation labs exploring citizen science
like policy labs, Living Labs, Fab Labs or Science Centers and Museums. Within
this context, the experimentation has been implemented in three main domains, that
of Fab Labs (n:3), Living Labs (n:3), and Science Centres and Museums (n:4).
Recognising that the range of practices depends on the several variables of the
complex landscape where co-creation and design take place, innovation labs come to
the fore for being spaces where design-led practices are translated into implementable
solutions. In particular, they emerge as characterised by a variety of approaches
and tools not only adopted but often further developed to meet their needs and
34 S. Crabu et al.

better answer to local conditions and challenges, showing an inherent openness to

experimentation while being adaptive and flexible.
In the following chapters it will be explored how the structured process of self-
narration intended for connecting the practice with the capacity to set up an analytical,
reflective and learning framework, encouraged to frame and make the experiential
knowledge gathered intelligible. Although they all aim at a better inclusion and partic-
ipation of society in science, technology and innovation, each experiment presents
its own challenge, context, features and peculiarities, as demonstrated and discussed
in the following chapters.

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FabLab Barcelona—Co-design With
Food Surplus: Better Redistributing,
Upcycling and Composting

Marion Real, Anastasia Pistofidou, and Milena Juarez Calvos

The chapter analyses a co-designed project in the food value chain. Looking at how
to identify and stimulate new synergies among the local community in order to co-
develop educational, logistic and environmental supports for better redistributing,
upcycling and composting food locally, it critically presents the case of a symbiotic
system for food surplus and bio waste valorisation at a neighbourhood scale.

1 Introduction

IAAC|Fab Lab Barcelona is renowned as a key educational organisation in the

Fab Lab Network since 2007 participating in the strategy and coordination of
programs involving more than 1800 Fab Labs worldwide. IAAC|Fab Lab Barcelona
is promoting innovation for sharing and circular cities with a focus on educa-
tion, community empowerment and seven strategic areas of expertise: Sense
Making, Productive Cities, Materials and Textiles, Future Learning, Civic Ecology,
Distributed Design, and Emergent Futures. They have a pioneering and original
approach of co-creation at the crossroad between peer learning, citizen science [29],
digital fabrication and distributed design, central to engage with local communities.

M. Real (B) · A. Pistofidou · M. Juarez Calvos

IAAC, Fab Lab Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
A. Pistofidou
e-mail: [email protected]
M. Juarez Calvos
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2022 37

A. Deserti et al. (eds.), Co-creation for Responsible Research and Innovation,
Springer Series in Design and Innovation 15,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78733-2_4
38 M. Real et al.

This practice has been built along the years thanks to European projects especially
like Making Sense,1 DDMP,2 ISCAPE3 [6, 14, 16].
The co-creation journey in SISCODE started with the wish of creating a play-
ground for atterizing the Fab City vision [5] into the locality of Barcelona, in
the creative neighbourhood of Poblenou. Since 2019, the team explored how
makerspaces such as fablabs can foster local transformations guided by circular
community and distributed manufacturing principles. After a first contextual analysis,
the local team could emphasise the importance of food and plastic waste in Catalunya
and discover new design practices emerging from new bioeconomy trends [8]. They
opted to address the issue of food waste creating synergies with the maker ecosystem,
food stakeholders and organisations of civil society in the area.
Cycles of collective activities, individual coaching and access to infrastructure
were proposed by the lab to support an emergent community group to learn, nest and
co-produce new design practices with food waste. Named Remix El Barrio, is now
defined as a collective of designers who propose projects with food leftovers using
artisan techniques and digital manufacturing to foster circular transformations in
Poblenou.

2 Ecosystem, Context and Challenge Addressed

Catalonia region and the city of Barcelona are the cradle of the Fab City network
and many innovative practices related to bottom-up approaches, participative policy
design processes and citizen-led platform like SmartCitizen, SuperBarrio and
DECIDIM4 [4]. As many cities and regions, they have also initiated the develop-
ment of circular economy action plans [18]. The climate action (from 2018 to 2030)
is highlighting actions for responsible consumption, zero waste and food sovereignty
and dedicating a specific part for the design of new training programs in the circular
economy [2]. Beyond that, they have been really active in the food-chain value trans-
formation especially with the program of the World Capital of Sustainable Food
2021. Concerning food waste, an important and innovative law [1] has been signed
in 2020 and a dynamic network of stakeholders is now operationalising the strategy
with promising changes to accelerate a better valorisation of food cycles in territories.
When zooming in the territorial distribution, the crucial role played by the neigh-
borhoods (aka barrio) in reconnecting people’s intentions and communities to public
institutions becomes visible [15]. The city originally introduced a plan for creating
self-sufficient neighbourhoods and relevant solutions to empower citizens and face
social struggles.

1 http://making-sense.eu/.
2 https://distributeddesign.eu/.
3 https://iscapeproject.eu/.
4 https://www.decidim.barcelona/ and http://superbarrio.iaac.net/.
FabLab Barcelona—Co-design With Food Surplus: Better … 39

Poblenou is one of the neighbourhoods situated in the Sant Marti district, an

old industrial area in urban regeneration since 17 years, Poblenou is now a mixed
place that joins the old and the new, hosts many creative designers and innovative
companies while fostering a large ecosystem of cooperatives and social enterprises,
an interesting and complex playground for prototyping with the Fab City framework
and move towards circular and bioeconomy transitions.

Challenge
The rise of material flows due to linear supply chain models is critical in urban context.
Plastic production and related pollution are no longer viable for sustaining the biodi-
versity while food waste represents one third of the food present in the supply chain
[13]. Waste Management strategies, circular initiatives and new design practices for
reducing or designing with food waste are recently seen as great opportunities to
better close the loop of systems and create materials from alternative sources that
potentially reduce the environmental impact of more conventional materials. This
will depend on the fabrication processes and local realities of production and uses.
Thus, there is an interest in developing local communities that explore and sustain
this new form of craft (neocraft) and manufacturing in a co-creative and responsible
way.
The SISCODE journey of IAAC|Fab Lab Barcelona explores the following
challenge with an intervention in the neighborhood of Poblenou:
How could co-creation foster the development of innovative ecosystems by
crafting and micro-fabricating with food surplus and waste?

3 The Co-creation Journey

Context analysis
The journey started by analysing the local context and identifying the policies and
local ecosystem relating to circular economy, social innovation and urban develop-
ment. After conducting desk research, participating in 5 public events, conducting 35
interviews, the team gathered a common base of knowledge and future interven-
tions. This preliminary grounding resulted in three outputs: an illustrated timeline
of initiative’s interviewees, a patchwork of the neighbourhood diversity and a stake-
holder mapping based on different models of food value chains and food waste
hierarchies.

Problem framing
To better frame the challenge, the local team has organised an original event to share
the first bases of knowledge to a real group of stakeholders of the neighborhood
and focus on the effective needs and motivations highlighted by thems. In this first
co-creation workshop named “Synergy Soup” (“Sopa de Sinergias”), invited stake-
holders took part in creative activities while preparing and eating a soup made with
local collected food ingredients. The organisers could collect and discuss 58 needs,
40 M. Real et al.

36 resources and 31 ideas of projects. An interactive categorization of ideas were

proposed in an open exhibition in IAAC (The Open Day of Poblenou) where visitors
could discover and classify each idea in a matrix that allowed to show and draw
how to locally improve material and food cycles at the neighbourhood scale. As a
result of those activities, a first group of stakeholders engaged in the co-creation
project with five categories of concepts to explore deeper: how to create a collective
bank for vegetable seeds and design a Fab Yurt (a mini Fab Lab designed in and for
an urban garden)? How to support the local collection of recovered food? How to
design with bio-based materials? How to build a library of things? How to promote
collective composting?

Envisioning solutions
To better envision the future solutions while keeping on rising community engage-
ment, the team has organised a series of five 3-h-events that took place in different
places of the neighborhood, between the 28th May and 28th June 2019 and that
were communicating in a same flyer diffused both online and off-line in restaurants
and community places:“¡Haz Comunidad!” (28.05.19), Practicing making (8.06. +
11.06.19), Eco-design and future narratives (18.06.19), convivial agora (28.06.2019).
Those events ranged from ideation sessions with customised tools (like 6Ws,
backcasting value opportunity mapping, idea cards, eco-design and scenario building
convivial design methods) to learning-by-doing experiences on digital fabrication
tools and biomaterial design.
The participants had the opportunities to refine concept proposals, network
with other stakeholders and get introduced crafting new materials using different
processes.
The events strenghtened connections and enabled the rise of a local symbiotic
system model representing each stakeholder with food waste project solutions at the
neighbourhood scale. Fructifying from the discussions, the core team could integrate
a layer of community services needed to support the development of such systems,
consisting in new infrastructures for synergy stimulation, shared learning and design,
production and logistics.
The workshop on biomaterial organized by Fabtextiles and based on past
researches from the Fabricademy network and aimed at exploring the potential of
material innovation from food waste raised a particular attention among the stake-
holders that clearly demonstrate an interest in exploring further techniques and social
experiences to scale it at the neighborhood scale.

Developing and prototyping

The prototyping phase started after a reflective summer and a creative phase of
planning where the team could publish their initial model and participate in various
local events to reconnect with the community members. The governance of the pilot
and local team were revised to adjust the new needs for co-production, creating
operational internal teams and a more strategic committee at Poblenou’s scale.
The prototyping phase went into two main iterations. The first loop was
composed of three fuzzy explorative projects: the co-design of a cargo bike km0,
FabLab Barcelona—Co-design With Food Surplus: Better … 41

the exploration of products based from locally collected eggshells and an awareness
campaign endorsing food waste valorisation initiatives. All projects ran in parallel
and ended with an open event to showcase the results and ideate on future actions.
In the second loop, the team co-developed and facilitated an incubation
programme about circular systems from food waste and surplus. Through an open
cal for ideas, the extended co-creation team selected 13 projects, and invited them to
start the incubation programme and engage through an agreement with the Fab Lab
offering material provision, access to infrastructure, a shared online access, weekly
collective session and individual coaching.
With the pandemic context, the program has been extended. It was beneficial both
for the team and the participants who could reinforce their cooperation, better finalise
their projects and go deeper in the definition of contents and external interventions.
It allowed the creation of a series of online events “Remix in conversation”, the
implementation of individual feedback assessment. The programme ended with a
final intervention: the co-design of an exhibition aiming at showcasing their projects
and campaign in the barrio to activate new bonds and more awareness about food-
waste-material making. More than 400 people, from newbies to gurus of design,
from neighbors to policymakers visited the exhibition which took place in the Leka
restaurant [26] following the barrier gestures and necessary restrictions imposed by
COVID-19.

The role of policies and policymaker engagement

Since its initiation 17 years prior, IAAC has collaborated with a wide scope of
strategic policy partners in the fields of urbanisation, computerised economy, culture
and schooling. Barcelona City Council worked intimately with IAAC and Fab
Lab Barcelona through numerous projects to advance new models of development,
uphold the maker district backing the Fab City agenda. They worked on the project
mode, collaborating according to circonstances and necessities. IAAC does not use
formalised methodologies or approaches for connecting with policymakers. Internal
dialogs remind primordial to initiate and sustain contacts with policymakers. In the
SISCODE pilot, it is impossible to say that they effectively take part actively in the
daily co-creation activities, however they had impacted the process or encouraged
the team. The team realised that the presence or absence of policymakers associ-
ated as direct partners in such co-creation projects has a direct influence on their
involvement.
Facing the difficulties to directly engage them in co-creation activities, IAAC
team used more indirect strategies to reach them and benefit from their feedback and
support. Here the most impactful ones:
• Conducting informal interviews with civil servants in the early stage of the process
• Be aware and active in local political events
• Create a climate of mutual trust to facilitate direct logistics and communication
• Co-organising activities and events led by the city (beyond the label of service
providers)
• Applying for city funding and local communication calls.
42 M. Real et al.

Finally, the team has created a policy brief at the end of the project in the format
of a manifiesto to communicate the recommendations of the collective Remix El
Barrio for the design of future policies on scaling circular ecosystem crafting and
micro-fabricating with food waste. This document has been transmitted to local and
european stakeholders via direct mailing, catalogue online diffusion and diffusion in
social media.

4 Experimentation: Output, Transformations, Outcomes

Remix El Barrio is now a collective of designers who propose projects with food
leftovers using artisan techniques and digital manufacturing. They collaborate with
agents from the Poblenou neighborhood to foster a more local and circular ecosystem.
9 main projects were developed: Kofi developed proposed to make paper and pack-
aging from coffee waste; Naifactory and En(des)uso is creating lamps, chairs and
pots from olive pits, eggshells, mate; Squeeze the Orange has designed an entire
jacket made with orange peels; Colores is creating natural dyeing from avocado pits;
Dulce de Piel is designing soap from used oils; Look Ma No Hand and Circular Gos
are cooking snacks respectively for neighbors and dogs from restaurant leftovers.
Remix El Barrio is more than the sum of individual projects mentorised by the Fab
Lab. Members are united around the values of local cooperation, solidarity, new form
of crafts and circularity in Barcelona. They are supporting each other, campaigning
together and co-producing a set of new experiences.
Beyond two research publications [19, 22], three main outputs were recently
co-created: the design of exhibitions and its catalogues in two languages,5 the devel-
opment of video tutorials6 and the co-elaboration of Gitbook7 [3, 23, 24]. The initia-
tive were awarded as Grand Prize for Innovative Collaboration by the Starts Prize
2021 [28].
The exhibition “Remix El Barrio—Co-design of biomaterials from food leftovers
in Poblenou” first took place from 14.10.2019 to 23.10.2020 in the open source
Restaurant LEKA [26]. It contains the nine projects accompanied by other artefacts
of the SISCODE co-creation journey, a special creation from the Fabricademy, locally
crafted labels and posters. The exhibition benefit from the visibility of the Fab City
Summit,8 the Poblenou Urban District open day/night,9 the Foodture event10 and
the local FOOD SHIFT pilot kick-off11 [7, 11, 12, 20]. The exhibition has been

5 https://issuu.com/iaac/docs/remix_el_barrio_catalogo_en__1__compressed.
6 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL33KKs9g8Y1K4MJGAUHpMZn-wMcbOVhnV.
7 https://flbcn.gitbook.io/remix-el-barrio/.
8 https://fablabbcn.org/calendar/fabcitysummit2020.
9 https://www.poblenouurbandistrict.com/es/category/poblenou-urban-district/podn12h/.
10 http://www.foodture.barcelona/.
11 https://foodshift2030.eu/labs/food-tech-3-0-lab/.
FabLab Barcelona—Co-design With Food Surplus: Better … 43

replicated from March to May 2021 in the design hub of Barcelona in collaboration
with Materfad [17] and the attendance of more 1000 visitors.
In times of COVID-19, online tutorials appeared as a relevant media to transmit
practical hands-on knowledge. Fab Lab Barcelona Communication’s team has
collaborated with the team of Remix El Barrio to shoot and edit a set of 9 trial
videos reviewing biomaterial recipes step by step from preparation, cooking and
use.
The book describes the narratives of the co-creation journey, presents the 9 key
design projects and associated educational materials such as a map of interactions
with business models and emergent future stories, presents a list of tips, tools, recipes,
courses, and protocols to better develop educational and incubation programs.
The team of IAAC|Fab Lab Barcelona experienced new learnings on co-creation
and became more familiar with the respective processes and competences needed
to apply it in a more structured way for long term projects. The co-creation lab
has made explicit and challenged ongoing practices about stakeholder engagement,
design processes, lab management, communication, policy context analysis.
Internally, the co-creation lab has contributed to the structuration of a circular
community expertise and the creation of knowledge crossing the strategic areas of
productive cities and Material and Textiles. It occured at the same time that many
organisational changes in Fab Lab Barcelona. The core team members could learn
about the agile environment and benefit of time to reflect on those practices dialoguing
with SISCODE partners.
In terms of stakeholder engagement, it can be said that Remix El Barrio engaged
with a dense network of stakeholders from local to global community. It is interesting
to highlight the position of the lab as an interface between the members of the collec-
tive, the local community partners and the distributed networks, allowing synergy
making, knowledge and technological infrastructure sharing and project incubation.
The stakeholder management process is echoing with ongoing models and practices
developed within the distributed design communities while really giving value to the
importance of “real-time” situated supports, interaction and attitudes.
Beyond SISCODE, the team is now offering a panel of approaches not only to
integrate circular principles and projects in existing global Fab Lab academies, but
also to sustain circular community engagement locally and provide service support
at the city scale destined to policymakers, makerspaces, civil society, industrials.
As an example, it can be mentioned the Pop Machina Circular Maker Academy,12
the development of new Fab City Hub open to public, new local collaborations
about biomaterial like Remix the School,13 new training, incubation and acceler-
ation programs elaborated through EU projects (FoodShift, Centrinno, Shemakes)
[21, 25, 27].

12 https://fablabbcn.org/projects/pop-machina.
13 https://fablabbcn.org/projects/remix-the-school.
44 M. Real et al.

5 Lessons Learnt and Reflections

This co-creation journey was a rich learning journey for the participants who could
have the chance to experience the benefit of research-action, distributing their time
between local co-creation management, activity design and reflective moments with
the SISCODE consortium.
The co-creation process also conducted the project members to envision and
test a set of indicators to monitor circular community projects emphasising the
importance of demonstrating the changes of material flows, being transparent about
the state of environmental impact analysis, commenting the learning curves and
cross-pollination of knowledge between members, showing the effective interactions
between stakeholders and expliciting honestly the capacity of the lab infrastructure
to respond to the local needs.
The team entered into the intimacy of the co-creation processes and could have
faced many complex situations. Some lessons learnt from this particular case could
be noted:
• Co-creation is about creating safe and accessible learning spaces to ensure people
have trust in themself, rising autonomy, regardless of their profiles or expertise,
while connecting them with ideas and realities, proposing innovative forms of
dialoguing with uncertain futures.
• Facilitating co-creation in Labs come with many soft skills to acquire and could
benefit from various profiles such as the “gurus”, technical experts passionate
about making, systemic designers acting as interfaces between people, design
artefacts and new policies and community managers that have a natural sense of
connecting with people embedded in the local territory.
• Co-creation processes are value-centred. The Remix collective all shares the
common motivation to create positive changes, rethinking how to better co-
create “commons” through knowledge cross-pollination and learning by doing
philosophy, and caring, by being curious and caring about others.
Co-creation is about dealing with creativity, uncertainties and tensions. Constant
efforts are being done to reframe the action, maintain the cohesion, dialoguing about
potential doubts of participants. Pollinating co-creation processes such as the ones
initiated through the Siscode project (letting open spaces for expressing common
aspirations and concerns has a strong role in better engaging with citizens and over-
coming tensions present in territorial dynamics.

References

1. Agència de Residus de Catalunya—Food waste. http://residus.gencat.cat/en/ambits_dactuacio/

prevencio/malbaratament_alimentari. Last accessed 2021/03/29
2. Climate Plan BCN—Climate Plan 2018–2030. https://www.barcelona.cat/barcelona-pel-
clima/sites/default/files/documents/climate_plan_maig.pdf. Last accessed 2021/03/29
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 Aussi bien, l'impressionnisme est à court de ressources; à sa
place nous attendons qu'on mette autre chose. Nous demandons des
œuvres, mais on ne nous propose encore que des théories,
promettant un retour à des formes classiques. Certains artistes,
gonflés de sensualité, s'infligent de sévères règles de composition,
préférent se guinder au risque de se dessécher. Les autres se
déboutonnent et montrent une fausse parure, un vulgaire
clinquant [11] .
[11] En relisant ces lignes (janvier 1920), je m'aperçois que M. André Lhote eut
des prédécesseurs avant la guerre.

Qui dira tout ce qu'il faut être ou ne pas être aujourd'hui, pour
mériter le nom d'artiste dans certains milieux? Je ne sais qui
fréquenter. Vous sentez-vous à l'aise hors de votre atelier ou de
votre cabinet? J'aimerais à causer avec des confrères, mais nous ne
nous entendons pas; alors quoi? Féliciter cette dame de sa jolie
toilette ou de son thé? Mais elle veut causer d'Art. Attention! vous
allez, madame, perdre le meilleur de vos attraits et nous ne nous
comprendrons pas non plus. A la minute où je suis entré chez vous,
vous vous êtes mise à penser aux choses que j'ai laissées chez moi.
J'y ai consacré ma vie, et elles ne sont pour vous qu'un aimable
passe-temps. Je sens que vous préparez une danse, un livre ou
peut-être une fresque…
*
* *

Le véritable intérêt de l'esprit humain s'est peut-être éloigné de

l'Art. L'homme, tout occupé à la conquête des airs, regarderait-il
ailleurs? Nos enfants préfèrent une dynamo ou un semblant de
télégraphie sans fil, aux plus alléchantes images. On en vient à se
demander s'ils sauront, plus tard, regarder un tableau ou un
paysage, réciter un poème.
Impossible, pourtant, de ne pas constater un redoublement
d'énergie chez les artistes, peut-être à la façon des jeunes malades
si pleins de hâte et de fièvre, parce qu'ils sentent leurs jours
comptés.
Je nous croirais plutôt parvenus à la phase extrême d'un long
développement intellectuel; notre sensibilité se modifie dans des
conditions compliquées par nos trop nombreuses connaissances, par
la désastreuse information mondiale, qui nous internationalise et
nous dissémine. Dans l'avenir, la France restera-t-elle encore à la
tête du mouvement? Va-t-elle présenter au monde étonné une
magnifique fleur nouvelle, double, le résultat d'un nombre infini de
croisements et de sélections? Le vent nous apportera-t-il de l'Est des
graines qui, tombant sur un sol différent, donnent une floraison sans
analogie avec les plantes d'où elles furent soufflées dans les airs?…
Paris est devenu une vaste gare centrale. Nous ne sommes que
tolérés chez nous, quoiqu'on nous prie, par habitude, de donner
notre suprême verdict.
*
* *

Une autre cause de désarroi et de méprise, nous la trouverions

dans les rapports qui unissent, nous l'avons vu, les artistes au
«monde». Les vrais et les faux, pêle-mêle, sont appelés de leurs
ateliers dans les salons. Deux éléments, qui jamais n'eussent dû se
mêler, on essaye de les incorporer l'un à l'autre; en vain, l'artiste et
le client étant d'irréductibles ennemis. Le créateur est un solitaire, il
épouvante par ses hiéroglyphes. Alors même qu'il s'exprime
sincèrement, ceux qui l'écoutent se méprennent sur le sens de ses
paroles. Quelquefois il est à moitié compris, alors c'est la confusion.
L'influence d'un artiste d'exception, pourra être désastreuse. Mais
l'éducation de l'œil et de l'oreille sera sans limite et je crois
volontiers qu'un nouveau message apporté par le génie d'un
Rimbaud, d'un Mallarmé, d'un Cézanne, renouvelle notre vision ou
une langue. Néanmoins, l'œuvre originale d'un écrivain, d'un peintre
ou d'un musicien est un tout. Ceux qu'elle influence n'ont pas le
droit de s'appuyer sur elle pour commander à notre admiration.
 Agréables pour l'amour-propre d'un maître, les contrefaçons de
sa manière, son école, ses imitateurs de la première heure; mais, au
moment où il paraît, ses faiblesses et ses formes les plus extérieures
servent seules de modèle.
Aujourd'hui, le succès et l'insuccès d'un ouvrage ont leur
importance sociale. Réjouissons-nous qu'il y ait encore une place
réservée pour les questions d'art. Mais la qualité de notre
production, si différente de tout ce qui précéda, imparfaite,
nerveuse, fruste, ou visant trop «à l'effet», n'est-elle pas comme
l'incertitude de l'opinion, la conséquence d'inéluctables conditions
d'époque? Mercure est entré dans la ronde des Muses.
Le public se dépouille de ce qui est sa raison d'être, par vanité et
esprit d'imitation. Et il croit qu'il va s'amuser… car on ne veut plus
s'ennuyer, en compagnie de l'art.—Fort bien, sage parti! mais ce
n'est pas le moins comique du spectateur, calé dans sa stalle, que de
temps à autre, en de solennelles circonstances, il s'agite, tâte son
portefeuille, croie qu'on l'a volé! Alors, il s'agit le plus souvent d'un
chef-d'œuvre. Le monsieur siffle, insulte. A ces représailles, on ne
peut opposer qu'un sourire. Ce serait, pour le convaincre, toute une
éducation à recommencer.
*
* *

LES RUSSES.—LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS

Une œuvre, peut-être la plus audacieuse que nous ayons vue

depuis longtemps, fut jetée en pâture à un public composé de tous
les éléments auxquels nous venons de faire allusion, dans une salle
où rien d'étranger à la scène n'aurait dû troubler le spectateur, dont
l'attitude fut curieuse à observer, en face des plus récentes formes
de l'art du décor, de la danse et de la symphonie. Paris n'avait à
offrir pour de tels spectacles que de vieux locaux, tout au plus
convenables pour des reprises et du vieux neuf. Des hommes hardis
se sont réunis pour doter un quartier, où l'on se rendait jusqu'alors
pour jouir de la fraîcheur du soir dans les cafés-concerts, d'un
théâtre à la fois luxueux et sévère d'aspect, dédié à la Musique, à la
Poésie, au Drame et à la Comédie. La danse y serait honorée au
même titre que l'architecture, la statuaire et la grande décoration
murale. La genèse de cette «subversive», de cette «folle
entreprise», que n'avons-nous la place ici de la raconter, ne fût-ce
que pour mieux illustrer l'état de l'opinion, les mille ruses des
sociétés ennemies, les rivalités des «cénacles», la résistance des
institutions officielles, et la routine d'un peuple dont le jugement a,
comme nous le voyons, tant de prestige!
Les échafaudages étaient encore dressés contre la façade, que
l'on prit parti. «C'est un Hammam; c'est un temple pour les
Théosophes; c'est munichois; c'est belge.» Certaines personnes se
firent un point d'honneur de déclarer, que jamais elles n'iraient dans
cette salle-là. Mais M. Maurice Denis nous convia à juger de sa noble
et grave peinture, déjà marouflée au plafond; les nombreux
privilégiés admis sur le chantier, saluèrent le jeune maître comme
«le digne successeur de Puvis de Chavannes». Il était «seul capable
d'un tel ouvrage». Une placide maturité succédait à une jeunesse
«indépendante». L'auteur des plus délicates improvisations, l'ex-néo-
impressionniste, qui sut si bien allier le rêve et le symbole à un très
moderne sens de la vie, s'attestait, du coup, «assagi», certains ont
dit: «académique».
Alors, les ennemis du nouveau théâtre, déjà mis en mauvaise
humeur par les bas-reliefs de la façade, sculptures trop
conventionnellement archaïques de M. Bourdelle, se calmèrent au
cours de ces visites propitiatoires. D'autre part, les cénacles des
avancés retiraient leur confiance à l'initiateur. Il arrivait à M. Denis
l'aventure habituelle des artistes qui eurent de bonne heure un
succès d'audace, puis se calment. M. Vuillard n'avait décoré, de
façon d'ailleurs délicieuse, que le foyer du «petit théâtre de
comédie»; de timides concessions à l'ex-impressionnisme, dans des
coins obscurs de l'édifice, étaient comme des fiches de consolation
pour les retardataires de l'école où M. Maurice Denis fit ses
premières fredaines, nos quotidiennes délices d'antan. On
commença de regretter l'ancien opéra de Charles Garnier, le blanc, le
rouge et l'or, les girandoles, l'aspect «chaud» de théâtres
poussiéreux et franchement combustibles. On retourna voir le
plafond de Lenepveu à l'Académie Nationale de Musique, les mièvres
muses de Paul Baudry, depuis des âges oubliés. Le théâtre des
Champs-Élysées fut immédiatement décrété intermédiaire entre les
théâtres réguliers et les «scènes d'à côté» [12] .
[12] L'ancien théâtre libre, le théâtre de l'Œuvre, le théâtre des Arts de M.
Rouché, le théâtre du Vieux-Colombier.

C'est justement cela que devait être l'entreprise! Elle faisait appel
à ces amateurs mixtes et sérieux, qui souhaitent un retour vers un
art plus sage, plus traditionnel. M. Denis est leur peintre, M. Vincent
d'Indy leur musicien. Il est bon que la Pénélope de M. Gabriel Fauré,
le doyen de nos maîtres compositeurs, ait servi de premier
programme à la «Grande Saison»; elle lui a donné une signification
très «noble». Mais le péril était que le théâtre des Champs-Élysées
ne pût compter que sur la seule clientèle des lecteurs fidèles des
jeunes revues, des mélomanes entraînés, de ces amateurs qui
visitent toutes les expositions, possèdent au moins quelques notions
et le respect de certains noms. Ceux-ci montent, en effet, aux
galeries supérieures, et il fallut remplir les loges de diamants et de
perles, rendre luxueuses des représentations «de gala» et compter
sur le snobisme de puissants mécènes. Le Barbier de Séville,
Freischütz, la Passion de Bach allaient alterner sur l'affiche avec un
nouveau et terrible chef-d'œuvre: le Sacre du Printemps.
Nous proposant d'étudier les rapports du public et des artistes
d'aujourd'hui, nous avons pensé que l'entreprise du théâtre des
Champs-Élysées (puisque la forme dramatique est la plus populaire,
la plus accessible à la masse) devrait nous y aider.
Dès le vestibule, une tendance s'y avoue, un parti pris. La
simplicité des lignes, le marbre uni, des panneaux archaïques de M.
Bourdelle, représentant des mythes et des théogonies, tout concorde
à créer une atmosphère de recueillement. On a tenu à ce que cet
édifice nous mît en disposition—par sa sobriété, élégante mais un
peu froide—de mieux suivre des représentations d'art, sorte de
«Bühnenfestspiele» comme Wagner les voulut à Bayreuth. Peut-être,
pensions-nous, pourrait-on réussir ici ce qu'on dit impossible à
l'Opéra? Cette organisation serait le contre-pied des entreprises
subventionnées et des théâtres des boulevards; nous voulions à la
fois jouer du classique et accueillir les audaces modernes; une
galerie d'exposition, sous le même toit, servirait d'annexe et de
prolongement à celles des Durand-Ruel, des Bernheim, des Druet,
où la lutte fut déclarée contre l'Académisme et la «convention». Les
gros succès d'«auteurs favoris de la foule» n'y seraient pas enviés.
Il serait puéril de soutenir qu'une œuvre de génie ne s'adresse
pas à la foule, témoin nos chefs-d'œuvre du répertoire, même ceux
qu'on discuta à leur origine. Wagner, qui eut sans cesse pour objectif
de parler à toute la Germanie, écrivit des poèmes nationaux,
aujourd'hui patrimoine de l'univers entier. Mais combien d'années
s'écoulent avant qu'un tel révolutionnaire passe, des ténèbres de ses
premières luttes, à la pleine lumière de la gloire mondiale? Aussi
bien le cas d'un Wagner, pour être le plus illustre, déborde les limites
ordinaires de l'esprit humain et n'est pas concluant. Nos directeurs
de théâtre n'ont pas à choisir entre des astres de pareille grandeur.
Le nombre des ouvrages courants, de «belle tenue» et de solide
valeur, reste infime, et l'on regrette, chaque fois qu'est publié le
programme d'une saison théâtrale, de s'avouer à soi-même: Je
resterai souvent chez moi!—Si nous confessons ainsi notre
découragement, nous provoquons la pitié des gens qui ne
demandent qu'à s'amuser, ou plus modestement encore, à ne pas
s'ennuyer pendant trois heures de suite. Ceux-là ont leur goût aussi,
et qui fait recette.
Le danger couru par les initiateurs du théâtre des Champs-
Élysées tient à ce qu'ils espérèrent pouvoir faire «communier dans
l'art» ceux qui vont au spectacle pour s'exhiber ou prendre un plaisir
anodin, et ceux qui y vont pour s'exalter. Ils voulurent imposer aux
premiers les habitudes d'esprit des seconds. Il se peut qu'il y ait
unisson, tout au moins respect chez tous, à l'occasion d'un festival
Bach, Beethoven, à la reprise de vieux chefs-d'œuvre que la
bienséance et la bonne éducation font un devoir, même à ceux qu'ils
ennuient, d'écouter en silence; Parsifal sera reçu avec enthousiasme,
même si quelques wagnériens des premiers temps de Bayreuth en
regrettent l'exportation… en subissent l'ennui.
Je surprendrais bien des lecteurs de la Revue de Paris, en leur
énumérant des artistes, inconnus d'eux et illustres dans des cénacles
où tel dramaturge, tel musicien, tel peintre, célèbres pour la foule,
ne comptèrent jamais, même avant que la gloire et l'Institut aient pu
leur susciter des jalousies et quoique nul ne conteste le remarquable
talent de ces personnages officiels. Il s'agit pour un artiste de créer,
autour de son nom, une atmosphère qui commence par sembler
irrespirable à la foule. De tout temps, il en fut d'ailleurs ainsi, mais la
roue tourne aujourd'hui avec une telle vitesse, que les plus encensés
d'hier doivent envisager avec philosophie les retours de l'opinion.
Aussi, un autre malentendu gêne la discussion, dès que vous
essayez de faire une liste de ce que vous croyez être
d'«incontestables chefs-d'œuvre»; et encore, parmi ceux-ci, y en a-t-
il qui se démodent assez vite, pour ensuite reprendre leur valeur
réelle.
«Le gros public» ne sait pas encore qu'il faille admirer les génies
chers aux «cénacles» et l'ennui demeurera ce que personne ne
tolère, même par snobisme, pendant le temps, qui peut paraître si
long, d'une représentation.
Il y eut dès le début de cette première saison et il y aura encore
—si l'entreprise ressuscite—des soirées de bataille indécise ou de
malaise. Les ouvrages étrangers, qui furent le principal attrait du
théâtre des Champs-Élysées, sont sans appas pour une notable
portion des auditeurs, puisque les incomparables spectacles de Boris
Godounow et de Kovanchina, défendus par un interprète comme M.
Chaliapine, ne remportèrent pas les triomphes prévus par les
bailleurs de fonds.
Un fait inquiétant pour l'École française, de plus en plus engagée
dans ses espoirs et ses promesses d'une renaissance classique et
nationale, c'est l'arrivée des Russes qui, d'un coup de baguette
magique, ont une fois de plus animé, fait vivre un nouveau théâtre
et prouvé par une œuvre audacieuse, d'une saveur âpre, d'une
puissance déconcertante, les dangers du fâcheux individualisme où
nous nous égarons.
Le Sacre du Printemps marquera une date dans l'histoire de l'art
contemporain, peut-être dans l'Histoire.—Deux actes seulement; un
ballet (mais est-il bien équitable d'appeler ballet ce tableau
chorégraphique, cette production à peine classable, cette étrange et
grave chose?) oui, un court divertissement, comme on disait jadis à
l'Opéra, mais quasi religieux; est-ce là ce que nous retiendrons de
l'année 1913, quand la mémoire aura déjà confondu le reste de la
meilleure contribution française avec celle des années précédentes?
J'ai hésité longtemps, avant d'oser prendre le Sacre du Printemps
comme principal objet de ces notes. C'est après mûre réflexion que
je me suis convaincu de l'importance de ces soirées tumultueuses
où, enfin, nous avions de quoi nous passionner et un prétexte pour
prendre position. Pendant ces quarante minutes, le public et les
artistes se montrèrent à l'observateur dans la nudité de leur plus
intime nature. La salle nouvelle, telle que nous l'avons décrite,
ajoutait encore au sens du «phénomène.» Il y a des heures où nous
déposons, malgré nous, l'uniforme que d'anciennes habitudes nous
imposent et que de fortes émotions, seules, obligent à rejeter.
C'est un beau spectacle, et trop rare dans une société lasse et
sceptique, que celui de la ferveur et de l'indignation spontanées.
Tout cela pour deux actes de danse et une partition de quatre-vingt-
neuf pages? Nous ne sommes plus au temps d'Hernani et de
Tannhäuser. Il y a tendance à tout raccourcir: c'est ce que les
Russes ont senti et ce à quoi ils s'évertuent. Cherchez à côté et
derrière le Sacre du Printemps, apprenez à connaître des
collaborateurs, presque impossibles à y distinguer dans leur
contribution personnelle, on dirait anonyme. Il faut les avoir vus de
près, pour que tombent les derniers scrupules qu'on aurait à parler
un peu longuement d'eux et de ce qu'ils viennent d'accomplir.
Un grand coup de vent a passé sur les steppes, qui, traversant
l'Europe, nous est soudain venu rafraîchir pour quelques instants,
interrompant notre sommeil aux rêves confus. Le réveil fut si
brusque et la secousse si brutale, qu'il nous fallut un peu de temps
pour nous remettre d'aplomb. Avions-nous pris nos dispositions,
étions-nous en état de comprendre? Certains croyaient y être, parmi
les fervents de la musique et de la chorégraphie slaves.
1913 était la sixième saison russe. M. Serge de Diaghilew,
infatigablement, s'est dévoué à notre initiation, organisant des
expositions de peinture et d'art décoratif, louant le Châtelet ou
s'associant avec les directeurs de l'Opéra, pour y amener des
interprètes admirables d'admirables ouvrages. Nous connûmes
Moussorgski et son immortel Boris Godounow, Rimsky Korsakoff
avec Ivan le terrible et son ballet de Shéhérazade, Glazounow,
Borodine, enfin les meilleurs des compositeurs d'hier et
d'aujourd'hui, puisque d'Igor Stravinsky sont l'Oiseau de feu,
Petrouchka et le Sacre du Printemps: la phalange des génies russes,
moins admirés chez eux que l'anodin Tchaïkowski, ou qu'Antoine
Rubinstein; les novateurs et les révolutionnaires de la seconde moitié
du XIXe siècle, grâce à M. de Diaghilew, sont devenus nos intimes
amis et nos maîtres.
Un art plastique de la même saveur orientale et barbare, frère de
la mélodie religieuse ou populaire, fonds où puisèrent tous ensemble
les réformateurs de l'école musicale (lyrique et symphonique); des
couleurs vives, agencées avec un raffinement barbare, des formes
primitives, une simplification apparente des ressources de la
décoration théâtrale; des chœurs qui agissent comme la foule dans
la rue et participent au drame; des danseurs qui nous ont prouvé la
décadence de notre corps de ballet et l'indigence de notre fade
chorégraphie: voilà, et nous sommes bien forcés de le rappeler ici
aux mémoires fragiles, voilà ce avec quoi, depuis dix ans, les
«saisons russes» ont refait l'éducation de nos sens.
Je ne sais quelle influence étrangère a jamais marqué une telle
empreinte sur la production française. La littérature déjà, avec
Tolstoï, Dostoïewski, Tourgueneff, commença de détourner nos yeux
des images où ils se fixaient trop paresseusement; l'odeur de la
terre, au parfum aigre mais pur, s'est propagée jusqu'à nous; la
vertu de l'inspiration populaire et nationale ne pouvait qu'enrichir
notre esprit alerte et nous conseiller un examen de nous-mêmes.
L'avenir nous dira le profit que nous en aurons tiré, mais l'influence
est désormais impérieuse, une obsession. Ce n'est pas à nous, les
premiers inoculés, de dire si ce vaccin aura été salutaire, ou non.
Ceux qui souhaitent le retour à un art plus simple, plus naïf, plus
général et moins provisoire,—ce à quoi enfin visent les meilleurs
d'entre nous—, les Russes leur ont proposé des formes qu'il ne
faudrait pas calquer, mais à côté desquelles il y a un vaste territoire
pour notre expansion. Cependant, à l'heure où, par le costume de
nos femmes et de nos enfants, par l'ameublement, les magasins de
nouveautés eux-mêmes ont répandu le genre russe dans les classes
les plus modestes, une lassitude, un agacement chez les premiers
adeptes commence à se déceler: c'est l'agacement des admirations
intempestives, qui amène de brusques et de nerveuses réactions. Un
tel a défendu telle chose: je ne puis donc l'aimer. Tel est le mot
d'ordre.
Le théâtre des Champs-Élysées ouvrait ses feuilles de location
pour son premier trimestre, à un public blasé, enclin à l'ironie,
démuni de patience et qui se plaignait déjà, car il est versatile. Les
programmes affichés n'annonçaient guère que trois ou quatre
ouvrages inédits, dont plusieurs franco-russes ou russes francisés.
Encore des ballets! Sans les étoiles de naguère, sans le maître
chorégraphe Michel Fokine; et cet infatigable Nijinski allait encore
une fois personnifier le Spectre de la Rose et le nègre gris de
Shéhérazade! La patience du public était à bout! On avait espéré
enfin connaître à Paris les opéras de Richard Strauss. Les gens se
groupaient d'avance pour ou contre ce trop heureux compositeur, le
plus en vue des maîtres modernes, et, déjà, lui aussi, suspect aux
«délicats» par l'excès même de sa gloire et la facilité si abondante
de sa muse viennoise. Le théâtre des Champs-Élysées, très pressé
de raffermir ses assises et, à une heure éminemment française, de
prévenir le reproche d'être cosmopolite, remit à plus tard la
production du Rosenkavalier et d'Elektra. En effet, c'est toujours à
ces vagues de l'opinion (ceci n'a, en général, rien de commun avec
l'art) que sont dues les lenteurs, les hésitations à monter un
ouvrage, depuis des années déjà, connu à Bruxelles ou en province,
et souvent son abandon complet. Un directeur parisien,
courageusement, établit dans son cabinet un programme inédit,
croyant pouvoir compter sur la sympathie des connaisseurs et sur
l'argent des snobs: à la dernière heure, tout s'écroule, car la
mystérieuse «opinion publique» a fait son œuvre. Comme l'art de
Strauss était suspect aux fidèles de la Schola, il fallut compter sur
l'aide de nos amis les Russes, pour faire accourir le public
cosmopolite.
Des musiciens scrupuleux ont critiqué l'adaptation
chorégraphique de musiques telles que le Carnaval de Schumann,
l'Invitation à la Valse de Weber, Thamar, Shéhérazade. La réussite de
ces audacieuses transcriptions ne calma pas la susceptibilité des
puristes. M. de Diaghilew s'ingénia à commander des partitions
originales à MM. Debussy, Florent Schmitt et Ravel. Nous eûmes le
charmant Daphnis et Chloé et la Tragédie de Salomé. Autant aux
Nocturnes de Debussy (danse de mademoiselle Loïe Fuller,
l'implacable doyenne), qu'à la Péri de P. Dukas (danse de
mademoiselle Trouhanowa, décors de M. Piot), les «avant-gardes»
grognèrent. L'ancien ballet à «ensembles» les laissait indifférents.
Enfin furent annoncés Jeux, première collaboration de MM. Debussy
et Nijinski. Les poitrines haletèrent, les grandes batailles allaient être
livrées. Jeux et le Sacre du Printemps furent les morceaux de
résistance de la saison 1913.
*
* *

Nous ne croyons pas superflu de parler longuement de l'étrange

et complexe petit groupe d'artistes, appelé chez nous «les Russes»,
qui, sous l'inspiration et la conduite de Serge de Diaghilew, se sont
imposés peu à peu, à Paris d'abord, puis au monde entier. Les
personnes qui vécurent à Saint-Pétersbourg, les mondains, les
diplomates, ont pitié de notre admiration pour cette poignée de
créateurs et d'interprètes: «Si vous saviez ce qu'on fait là-bas, si
vous étiez allés à l'Opéra, si vous connaissiez les théâtres impériaux
et leurs troupes, vous comprendriez qu'on vous trompe; on vous
donne, chez vous, ce dont la Russie ne voudrait pas.» De même
ignorent-ils que nos expositions françaises, organisées par de vrais
connaisseurs et pleines de Degas, de Manet, de Renoir et de
Cézanne, représentent, plus que les Salons officiels, la force
créatrice des Français.
La nouveauté et la force de «nos Russes» viennent d'une
collaboration à peu près égale et sans précédent, de toutes les
branches de l'art; c'est une fusion presque paradoxale d'énergies
associées, d'hommes qui s'effacent l'un derrière l'autre, nul ne
passant jamais devant son voisin pour parader. M. Serge de
Diaghilew pousse à un tel point sa méfiance pour l'étoile et l'artiste
vedette, que nous le vîmes successivement renoncer à Pavlova, à
Fokine, aujourd'hui même, à Nijinski. Ces artistes, aussi
désintéressés qu'enthousiastes, amoureux de la beauté, jusqu'à hier
vivaient comme une confrérie, un peu à la manière du Preraphaelite
Brotherhood de Millais et de D. G. Rossetti; ce furent des musiciens,
des littérateurs, des peintres, des poètes, des historiens
archéologues ou des esthéticiens même, comme monsieur Rœrich,
ou l'inventif et trop modeste Alexandre Benois, à qui nous devons
cette merveille, Petrouchka: Alexandre Benois est un historien d'art
et un critique de grande réputation. Il publia des albums d'estampes
en couleurs, aussi piquantes que l'histoire de Frédéric le Grand par
Adolf von Menzel. Je ne puis citer tous les noms de ces Russes,
passionnés pour le génie de leur race, fervents des coutumes
anciennes de leur nation. Ils rencontrèrent, pour les réunir en
faisceau, un Mécène, alors adolescent plein d'exubérance; M. Serge
de Diaghilew, grâce à sa position en vue dans la société
pétersbourgeoise, mit en relation les plus extrêmes du groupe avec
des personnages de la Cour; mais cette confrérie qui, depuis dix ans,
s'est tant mêlée à nous (certains même se mirent à voyager plus
qu'ils ne l'auraient souhaité et se retirèrent), cette confrérie est
demeurée essentiellement russe, fidèle à son cher vieux
Pétersbourg; l'hiver, elle se retrouve aux ateliers d'où elle est partie
pour la diffusion de ses idées.
J'ai fait la connaissance, il y a tantôt vingt ans, de M. Serge de
Diaghilew. Je devais très souvent le rencontrer par la suite, et n'ai
jamais cessé de suivre le développement de sa vive intelligence, si
sûre, et à l'abri des fautes de goût. S'il n'a signé aucun ouvrage,
c'est lui, le deus ex machina, le «professeur d'énergie», la volonté,
qui donne corps aux conceptions des autres. Il tire le meilleur de
chacun. Impresario fortuit et étonné, cet être féroce et redoutable
diffère d'un entrepreneur de tournées, comme Vaslaw Nijinski est
autre qu'un maître de ballet ou qu'un danseur ordinaire.
Je viens d'écrire le nom du principal interprète; vous êtes-vous
demandé pourquoi ce petit Slave, ancien élève de l'École Impériale,
simple danseur, célèbre sans doute comme Vestris ne le fut pas,
vous le sentez, même si vous ne l'avez vu que bondissant sur des
tréteaux, porter en lui, avec l'élasticité et la grâce, l'Art souverain?…
Cela intrigue, cela irrite presque, on ne sait comment le qualifier.
Nijinski se promène dans les Musées, est cultivé d'une façon
singulière, car il fut, dès son adolescence, découvert par des
hommes-devins. Des paroles de lui, telles qu'elles nous sont
traduites, révèlent un sens de la beauté, une grande fraîcheur
enfantine de sensations, la disposition aux longues rêveries des
paysans de chez lui. Issu d'une ancienne famille de chorégraphes
polonais, dont il reçut son impeccable technique, il grappilla des
connaissances peut-être mal coordonnées, mais excitantes, qui se
greffèrent sur un tempérament renfermé, inquiet.
L'an dernier, j'étais encore dans ma chambre d'hôtel, un matin de
juin à Londres, quand on m'appela au téléphone. Diaghilew me priait
de venir immédiatement et de lui consacrer ce jour. Debussy
attendait, impatient, pour en écrire la partition, qu'on lui envoyât par
la poste du soir, un libretto; ce divertissement moderne, Jeux, avait
déjà beaucoup préoccupé le compositeur et le danseur. Je me rendis
au restaurant où nous devions travailler avec Diaghilew, Nijinski et
Léon Bakst. Pénible et lourde séance à laquelle j'assistai comme
scribe, tâchant de mettre sur le papier les quelques lignes
indicatrices de l'action. Après avoir gémi, m'être défendu contre une
besogne dont le sens m'échappait, dont les détails, le vague, les
lenteurs de la dictée m'effrayaient aussi, je sortis de cette séance
rempli d'admiration pour la foi religieuse de mes bizarres
collaborateurs. Le travail faisait de ces diables-là des enfants
studieux et graves. Qu'allait tirer de ce canevas si primitif, si pauvre
et si ambitieux à la fois, ce Debussy qui toujours fut exigeant pour
ses poèmes? Nijinski, autour de notre table de déjeuner, avait
esquissé des gestes anguleux. Il semblait faire des propositions bien
vite mises de côté par ses camarades, comme irréalisables, imaginait
des choses un peu puériles, des «anticipations» à la Wells, le
passage d'un aéroplane sur la scène, des costumes de tennis pour
1920. Je crus, ce jour-là, que Nijinski était fou. Ils m'effrayaient, ces
maniaques, si remplis, cependant, de conviction. On rédigea; le
manuscrit fut expédié dès le soir et je n'entendis plus parler de Jeux
avant l'hiver. Toutefois, j'appris qu'en automne, à Venise, ce frêle
libretto, approuvé du musicien, déjà mis en musique, n'avait cessé
d'être discuté, remanié, allongé, puis raccourci, dans d'autres
interminables conversations. Nijinski, je le craignais, trop
enthousiaste des peintures de nos cubistes, confondues dans sa tête
avec l'art des vases grecs et des Primitifs, ne rêvait à rien moins que
la suppression du ballet. Il dédaignait ce que nous appelons ballet,
les étoiles, les nombreux coryphées, les ensembles. «Il faut arrêter
court ce qui a trop duré; la vie, aujourd'hui, est plus hâtive qu'elle ne
le fut jamais. Il ne s'agit pas d'être d'aujourd'hui, il faut être de
demain, et devancer l'avenir…» Ces lambeaux de phrases me
revinrent ensuite à la mémoire. A Londres, elles m'avaient paru
trahir une inquiétude d'autant moins légitime, que j'avais laissé
Nijinski fier encore, et, je le croyais, satisfait de son bas-relief
antique, l'Après-midi d'un Faune, un chef-d'œuvre d'invention.
Le tumulte, les méandres chorégraphiques, l'endiablé
mouvement, les rythmes orientaux auxquels Michel Fokine nous
habitua, et qui sont pour nous le «ballet russe», il devenait trop
certain que Diaghilew, Bakst et leurs adeptes, en étaient las, avant
nous-mêmes. Fokine, d'ici rejeté, appelé par l'Amérique, c'était le
jeune fou qui allait se substituer à son maître. Quel «futurisme»
russe allait donc, en 1913, sévir dans la nouvelle salle des Champs-
Élysées?
Nous le savons maintenant.
 Notre déception de la première heure fut cruelle, mais la
désillusion et la peine ressenties à la répétition générale de Jeux,
nous allions bientôt nous les expliquer et nous regrettâmes, après le
Sacre du Printemps, de n'avoir, en Jeux, prévu l'une de ces ébauches
ratées, où les créateurs de demain se cherchent, s'entraînent. A la
répétition générale, l'effet fut nul. La scène parut vide; le fameux
danseur semblait s'oublier lui-même, et Nijinski paraissait dans
l'action comme un sculpteur contemplant des figures qu'il tâcherait
en vain d'animer. La charmante Karsavina n'avait aucune occasion
d'arrondir ses grâces; sa belle partenaire, mademoiselle Schollar,
s'était enlaidie, et trois grêles acolytes, assez falots, manquaient à
remplir le vaste cadre, un paysage cru, d'un vert pénible, la dernière
venue des maquettes de M. Bakst.—Stupeur des amis! On faillit ne
point donner la représentation. Le musicien, le directeur étaient
atterrés. Mais M. Serge de Diaghilew se lève et déclare que «la
fontaine» (sans doute une des dispositions linéaires des trois
danseurs?) est «un chef-d'œuvre de la plastique» et que nous n'y
avons rien compris. Devant pareille assurance, on est ébranlé.
Nous pensons, comme M. Henri Ghéon, qu'aujourd'hui l'erreur de
Jeux ne tient pas tant au style volontaire des attitudes et des bonds,
qu'à leur inadaptation au modernisme, non seulement de la
musique, mais du cadre aussi et du sujet; les «Jeux» semblent être
tracés sur une épure; ils se coupent à angles vifs; l'abstraction, plus
que le sentiment, les mène; Nijinski les applique encore à une
matière neutre; ici le chorégraphe nous donne, avant son art, les
«préconceptions» de son art; ce qui l'intéresse le moins, c'est le
sujet, là justement où résidait la force poétique de l'art de Michel
Fokine. Mais qu'il rencontre un thème dont il puisse épouser la
grandeur et qui s'accorde à ses recherches, et il conçoit le Sacre du
Printemps. Considérons Jeux comme des exercices et montrons-leur
quelque indulgence en songeant à ce qu'ils nous ont préparé.
Les musiciens ne comprirent pas que Claude Debussy eût toléré
cette interprétation de sa musique. Les gens du monde, les abonnés,
trouvèrent cela «assez joli» ou même «frais», selon leur entourage,
ou «hideux» et «impertinent». Le fameux «tolle» de la prude presse
parisienne, à propos de l'Après-midi d'un Faune, les prétendues
indécences que des coureurs de music-halls et de revues de fin
d'année découvrirent et signalèrent dans cette admirable scène
antique, on en voulait, à tout prix, l'équivalent, sinon l'aggravation,
dans Jeux.
*
* *

Il faut se placer d'une façon nouvelle en face d'un art neuf, qui
veut s'élever, se purifier, peut-être aller trop loin dans le symbole. Je
ne sais encore si l'on n'abuse pas de la «stylisation», si l'on peut
schématiser chorégraphiquement la Jeunesse, l'Effervescence, l'Émoi
du Plaisir juvénile, la Terreur panique causée par les forces de la
nature. Si Diaghilew était le prophète de l'avant-garde, nous
comptions sur lui pour nous découvrir le bel Avenir. Or, tout à coup,
nous nous sommes mis à douter de lui et avons ri de sa foi en
Nijinski, auteur; cependant l'on pourrait établir des rapprochements
entre l'esthétique de cet auteur et les danses habituelles de
l'Opéra…
Chacune de celles-ci était un signe convenu, un symbole où
Stéphane Mallarmé se plaisait. Pour Nijinski, «l'expression
schématique de l'état d'âme» se substitue aux turbulences
académiques et conventionnelles; de même, pour le néo-
impressionniste Henri Matisse, une géométrie des taches tient lieu
de l'équilibre secret des «valeurs» et des rapports de tons.
Encore une fois, dans l'art moderne, il y a un désir presque
universel de retour aux formes simplifiées des primitifs, même des
Barbares.—Si je voulais décrire Jeux ou le Sacre du Printemps, ce
serait comme de la statuaire.
Ce qu'un sculpteur comme Maillol réalise avec l'argile, Nijinski l'a
peut-être entrevu, peut-être accompli dans le vif.
Selon M. Henri Bergson, l'une des plus fréquentes causes du rire,
c'est le cas où un de nos semblables, devant nous, rompant
l'harmonie du corps, par accident, par infirmité, prend l'aspect d'un
automate, semble perdre contrôle sur lui-même. Jeux et encore
davantage le Sacre, déclenchèrent un rire irrépressible chez les
spectateurs, ou les blessèrent comme une offense, comme la
peinture des cubistes…
Sur l'affiche, il nous est donné trois noms d'auteurs pour le Sacre
du Printemps: Rœrich, Nijinski et le génial musicien, Igor Stravinsky.
M. Henri Ghéon se demande: «Qui a fait cela?»
«Cette question préliminaire, que nous ne pouvons pas éluder,
pourtant n'a de sens que pour les Occidentaux que nous sommes.
Chez nous tout est individuel… Il n'en est pas de même chez les
Russes. S'il leur est impossible de communiquer avec nous, lorsqu'ils
sont entre eux, ils ont une extraordinaire faculté de mêler leurs
âmes, de sentir, de penser la même chose à plusieurs (cette fusion
des âmes n'est-elle pas en partie le sujet des romans de
Dostoïevsky?). Leur race est trop jeune encore pour que se soient
construites en chaque être ces mille petites différences, ces légères
mais infranchissables défenses, qui abritent le seuil d'un esprit
cultivé. L'originalité n'est pas, en eux, cette balance fragile de
sentiments hétérogènes qu'elle est en nous… C'est pourquoi elle
peut s'engager et se perdre un instant dans les autres.»
La source même de nos opinions, notre conception esthétique
sont modifiées par le Sacre du Printemps, ouvrage le plus réussi,
invention la plus «menée au but» que nous ayons eu à applaudir,
depuis… Wagner?…
Igor Stravinsky avait déjà écrit l'Oiseau de Feu, bijou oriental, et
Petrouchka, drame de baraque, parade de pantins, qui, après nous
avoir divertis, nous a touchés par son pathétique. Petrouchka était,
néanmoins, encore un tableau de la Russie et d'une époque très
définie; Alexandre Benois avait peint, en illustrateur, les toiles de
fond, et dessiné, en caricaturiste, une foule populaire du
Pétersbourg de 1830. La symphonie savante, transcription musicale
des bruits forains, atmosphérique, légère, polyphone, discordante
jusqu'à nous faire tressauter, demeurait néanmoins amusante et
familière, avec ses valses d'orgue de barbarie et ses cornets à
piston.
 Mais Igor Stravinsky, nous le savions depuis quelque temps,
subissait une crise; son esprit enclin au mysticisme était attiré vers
des régions plus hautes.
L'écueil, pour un compositeur, est toujours dans le choix d'un
poème; si le musicien souhaite s'écarter des voies frayées et s'il n'est
lui-même poète autant que musicien, il cherchera en vain le
collaborateur de ses rêves. Je me souviens des descriptions que me
donna jadis, de sa conception dramatique, mon cher Claude
Debussy: pas d'individus; des nuages sur la mer, des foules dans la
nuit, des phénomènes météorologiques! Peut-être ces visions qu'il
dépeignit, par de si beaux sons, dans sa série de Nocturnes?
J'imagine que Stravinsky se posa les mêmes problèmes et que ses
objections furent identiques; tout libretto mettant aux prises des
caractères humains, des individus, est antimusical et restreint le
compositeur.
Dans des causeries avec Nijinski, les deux artistes en vinrent à se
prononcer pour une sorte de fresque animée des âges mythiques de
la Russie. Rœrich, érudit archéologue et peintre, proposa différentes
légendes russes primitives, païennes, entourant le culte originel du
Soleil et de la Terre. Stravinsky travailla sur ce libretto, puis, de
même que Nijinski pour la danse, le trouva trop précis encore pour
sa musique. Ces idées à la russe, d'esprits capables de nourrir en
eux de longs desseins, revêtirent tour à tour des formes dont aucun
des trois collaborateurs ne songeait même à délimiter sa
contribution personnelle. Le Sacre est une œuvre de foi commune,
profonde et ingénue, d'un art hiératique et «primitivement» humain,
dans un vague panthéisme, spécial à ces rêveurs émotifs, qui n'ont
en somme avec nous que des rapports très superficiels, et ne nous
rejoignent presque jamais par le fond de leur pensée; effrayant
peuple dont on peut tout attendre.
Le symbole a, pour ces hommes qui nous étonnent et nous
inquiètent, la force de la réalité. S'ils réalisent leurs concepts, d'une
telle maîtrise—et d'une technique sûre, ainsi qu'ils viennent de le
faire,—faudrait-il dire qu'ils donnent une forme, proposent un
exemple (peut-être inutile, mais l'avenir nous le dira) aux artistes de
notre vieille Europe, troublés de venir, si tard, faire entendre une
voix d'avant la mue? Rien, chez un Russe, n'est impossible; rien n'est
paradoxal, ni choquant pour sa raison, s'il croit voir de la Beauté
dans quelque chose. Il rêve, il s'exalte, il possède une patience,
presque infinie, d'Oriental.
Nijinski s'était mépris comme collaborateur de Claude Debussy;
nous fûmes sévères, péremptoires, et le voici qui retrouve sa vérité,
en compagnie de ses compatriotes, ces Slaves que sépare de nous
une cloison étanche. La France n'a pas failli pourtant à influer, au
moins, sur la partie plastique de l'ouvrage dont nous nous occupons,
car la France fascine par le prestige de ses peintres le monde entier.
Sans Gauguin et l'École de Pont-Aven, le Sacre eût été autre, quant
à la plastique.
Dès le lever du rideau, le décor, peint par Rœrich, nous a situés
dans une atmosphère cézannesque. Des verts tendres, mais crus, de
lourdes taches roses, une simplification austère des lignes et des
tons. Des jeunes filles parurent, le masque barbouillé de rouge,
comme des «sidonies» de village; ce n'étaient pas des danseuses,
mais bien des figures, telles que Gauguin les schématisait, en ses
toiles bretonnes.—Bretagne? Tahiti? Où étions-nous? Mais quelle
qualité de coloris, quelle joie pour nos yeux, ou quelle douleur, selon
nos habitudes et nos goûts!
Ces exercices gymnastiques plutôt que chorégraphiques, ne font
qu'un avec la symphonie, il faudrait dire, plutôt, avec les rythmes de
l'orchestre. Sont-ce les eaux qui montent, le Déluge, l'arche de Noé,
gens et animaux enfermés dedans? Ce que nous entendions, nous
ne l'avions jamais ouï auparavant; ou bien peut-être dans la forêt
pendant une tempête, ou sur mer à bord d'un navire luttant contre
l'orage; et parfois aussi, nous nous croirions dans une cour de
ferme, quand, par une matinée chaude de juin, les coqs, les
canards, les vaches, les oiseaux dans les arbres, tous réjouis du
soleil, confondent leurs voix avec le bruit métallique des seaux
d'eau, le tam-tam régulier de la batteuse, les meubles remués dans
la cuisine, les appels des garçons d'étable, et le hennissement des
chevaux de labour. Persiennes closes contre l'ardeur du jour, j'ai
souvent tâché d'analyser, au réveil d'une sieste, cet indescriptible
frémissement animal et mécanique. C'est cela, dont Igor Stravinski
parfois nous donna la sensation, mais musicale et mélodique, ultra-
polyphonique, et si claire, si ordonnée, que le premier acte du Sacre
est une sorte d'ensemble qui se tient, comme une fugue de Bach, et
qui serait faite des plus improbables dissonances. Le crescendo, vers
la fin, dans un halètement de bûcherons qui s'acharnent après un
hêtre; ce rythme, comme d'une drague dont la chaîne serait prise
dans le fond de la mer, pourrait se prolonger indéfiniment; les
premières notes, ce sont celles que nous avons entendues en nous
réveillant; les dernières se perdent, lorsque nous nous rendormons;
ce bruit est celui du vent ou de l'océan, il s'assoupit, mais ne cesse
pas.
Que dire de l'entrée des vieillards-ours, puis de la danse sacrale
de l'Élue? Après un prélude qui nous ramène encore en pleine
campagne crépitante d'insectes, le second acte, beaucoup plus
déconcertant pour l'oreille que n'était le premier, me parut
simplement terrifiant. Que des spectateurs, même non prévenus,
aient ri, au lieu d'être saisis d'une sorte d'angoisse, demeure
inexplicable. L'on pouvait, à la fin, être furieux; on pouvait se colleter
de loge à loge et s'insulter comme on le fit, mais ces plaisanteries,
ces mots de collégiens, pendant que se célébraient sur la scène les
rites funèbres de la Demoiselle Élue? M. Henri Bergson dirait: que
nous rions, en face d'un automate passant du repos à une sorte de
délire réglé et mécanique.
Ne croyez pas que derrière le rideau, les auteurs, anxieux de
recueillir des applaudissements, se soient sentis pris de faiblesse. Au
contraire. Cette œuvre grave, mûrie, surgie d'une association
fraternelle, il semble que les librettistes, le musicien et le
chorégraphe, le peintre aussi (mais, se demandait-on, qui avait
brossé les décors?), que tous ces membres d'une étroite confrérie,
aient obéi au génie de leur race, s'oubliant eux-mêmes, ainsi que
leurs futurs publics. Le Sacre du Printemps reste anonyme comme
une église gothique; la signature des auteurs veut s'effacer. Cet
ouvrage si original et plein de révolte est une inconsciente
protestation contre le particularisme dont nous sommes desséchés.
L'orgueil d'Igor Stravinsky est bien connu; il déborde sa
conversation. De tous les musiciens, il est le plus imité, si original, si
nouveau, que Debussy lui-même semble hanté de ses harmonies.
Les succès de Nijinski, comme danseur, l'ont pu rendre vain aussi.
Mais ces deux artistes eurent, pendant le cours des représentations
orageuses du Sacre, une tenue trop rare chez les auteurs sifflés. Le
présent n'existait plus pour eux, si ce n'est qu'ils se rendirent à
l'évidence: ils n'étaient pas compris. Mais ils pouvaient attendre!
Je me repentis presque de leur avoir dit mon enthousiasme, sans
qu'ils m'aient accordé le loisir de leur en donner les raisons. Le
premier soir, après un souper offert aux protagonistes de l'ouvrage,
quelqu'un qui les accompagna jusqu'au matin m'a raconté la
poétique et silencieuse promenade que firent ces artistes au Bois de
Boulogne. Ils voulaient attendre l'aurore, ainsi qu'ils ont coutume de
le faire «aux Iles» à Saint-Pétersbourg, suprême délice de ces
rêveurs éveillés, pour qui la lumière d'une aube printanière prend
une éloquence mystique.
Ils auraient été reconnaissants à qui eût interdit la seconde
représentation du Sacre. Paris avait été choisi comme la capitale de
l'intelligence et le nouveau théâtre des Champs-Élysées comme le
lieu entre tous où ils rencontreraient le moins de parti pris, de
mauvaise volonté, à recevoir un message dont ils garantissaient, au
moins, la candide sincérité; mais Paris-Babel, en cette occasion,
n'eut pas d'oreilles pour la langue russe.
J'achevais d'écrire ces lignes, au fond de la campagne, quand,
avec beaucoup de mélancolie, je dus suivre les dernières phases, les
sursauts suprêmes de la direction du nouveau théâtre. L'effort
passionnant qui, depuis dix ans, grâce à son directeur, rénova la
mise en scène, je pourrais dire, l'art à la scène, le voilà anéanti,
comme si le martèlement des pieds lourds, les trépidations des
danses réglées par Vaslav Nijinski avaient fait crouler les tréteaux. Le
théâtre de l'avenue Montaigne est réduit à fermer ses portes, après
avoir présenté un chef-d'œuvre conçu pour son cadre, et qui
demeurera le principal honneur de sa courte existence. Le public fit
comprendre que de si hautes ambitions n'étaient point nécessaires
pour le conquérir, car il était incapable de patience et de cette petite
dose de respectueuse sympathie pour de nobles artistes, quand il ne
le comprenait pas tout de suite.
Au même instant, M. Jacques Rivière consacrait, dans la Nouvelle
Revue française, un article merveilleux d'intelligence à l'étude du
Sacre. M. Pierre Lalo, lui-même, n'avait-il pas tenu à écrire,
longtemps après son premier feuilleton du Temps, une seconde
critique dans laquelle il reconnaissait l'exagération de sa sévérité,
motivée de prime abord par l'hyperbole des louanges agressives?
L'été et l'automne nous séparent de la dernière saison du théâtre
nouveau. Le Sacre s'est tranquillement installé à côté des quelques
œuvres modernes dont les musiciens s'alimentent. Si cet art est
devenu une de nos plus chères convictions, il n'a pas encore conquis
le public; attendons! Quelqu'un bientôt lancera des trapézistes dans
le plafond de Maurice Denis… Mais quoi! le Music-Hall, c'est l'avenir!
 LA MUSIQUE

(Paru dans «L'Ermitage».)

Si quelques-uns se plaignent qu'en peinture les modes changent

trop souvent, depuis le milieu du siècle dernier, que dira-t-on de la
musique? Cet art est, pour nous, relativement jeune; nous n'avons
accordé notre attention qu'à ses formules modernes et c'est à peine
si, avant de récents essais, dont la Schola Cantorum peut être fière,
nous connaissions les ouvrages antérieurs à ceux de Bach. Nous
vivons, en France, dans la musique moderne et même la plus
limitée, confessons-le, une bonne fois, et sans honte. Les maîtres
classiques, nous les vénérons, oui, si, le soir, las des plus récentes
publications amassées sur le piano, nous sommes décidés à agiter
nos doigts; c'est à Beethoven ou à Mozart que nous demanderons
un instant de distraction; mais c'est une pure gymnastique, un
travail hygiénique auquel certain esprit se plaît par discipline. Il y
aura toujours de braves gens, officiers d'artillerie ou ingénieurs, qui,
imperturbables, joueront sans agacement et sans répit, les chefs-
d'œuvre classiques. Certaines dames croiront qu'elles ont gardé,
jusqu'à la fin de leur vie, la même fraîcheur d'impressions, qu'on
surprend chaque dimanche s'exalter à tel adagio d'une symphonie, à
tel air favori; et les abonnés du Conservatoire, dont je suivis, de huit
à trente ans passés, les concerts avares de surprises, continuent
peut-être, eux ou leurs enfants, de se pâmer discrètement aux
mêmes rentrées de flûte, attendues et accueillies d'enthousiasme;
chacun n'a pas cette persistance. Et nous voyons des musiciens
honnir la musique, avouer même une indifférence absolue pour ce
qui n'est pas leur ouvrage.
On peut détourner les yeux d'un tableau, mais la musique vous
poursuit; on se prend à la fuir, tout en l'aimant au fond de soi; elle a
ses réactions sur les nerveux et les sensibles, comme l'état de
l'atmosphère. C'est ainsi, du moins, que je la sens; il me reste bien,
en tout cas, l'inépuisable et divin Bach, à qui Gide a pu me reprocher
de consacrer plus d'heures que je n'en emploie à cultiver un Mozart
intégral, que je garde pour la cinquantaine. Dieu soit loué, puisque
j'ai encore quelques années de répit!
Pourtant, je sens que c'est Mozart qu'il faudrait aimer davantage.
Debussy et Ravel, «bien revenus du pachyderme Beethoven»,
gardent ce qu'il leur reste de dévotion, ces négateurs, pour le maître
de Salzbourg. Mais cela ne fait pas qu'il ne nous faille, sans cesse,
de la chair fraîche; nous sommes des ogres affamés de nourritures
musicales. Que nous prépare-t-on?
Debussy est déjà trop connu! Et si l'on parle de ses deux
dernières pièces pour le piano, toutes nouvelles encore: L'Isle
Joyeuse et Masques, c'est pour en regretter les redites ou l'arome un
peu éventé. Ces deux petites merveilles de rythme et d'harmonies
précieuses nous avaient conquis, alors que Ricardo Vinès, correct et
scrupuleux, de ses fortes mains d'accoucheur, en précisait la lumière
et les ombres. Son intelligence et sa culture le servent pour
l'interprétation de ces quelques pages, si riches ou si dénuées, selon
celui qui les dissèque. Je sais bien qu'il y a deux motifs—dans l'Isle
Joyeuse—auxquels on reproche comme de garder un arrière-goût de
Godard; les délicats s'offusquent de ce qu'elles n'ont pas la belle
assise un peu classique, de Prélude, Sarabande et Toccata, ni les
parfums d'Orient, ni l'occidentale fraîcheur printanière
d'«Estampes»: Pagodes, Grenade et Jardins sous la pluie—mais leur
disposition, classique, quoique très voilée, et le développement
romantique de la péroraison, dans l'une,—du milieu, dans l'autre,—
font du piano, tantôt un orchestre militaire éclatant de cuivres,
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