Well, discounting those that use the generic term to describe their stuff, musicians, writers, actors, and focussing on those in the 'fine' arts, I think I came up with a pretty good definition in the 'second studio' (i.e. The Anchor public house)last night. Here goes - 'an artist is someone who makes cultural projects with no measurable value'. Not bad, eh? I think what inspired me to think about it this way is the fact that, more and more, we are required to define our work by the 'benefits' it brings which are measured through what are referred to as 'outputs' - a frankly insulting term which serves to dehumanise the audience into some kind of number-crunching exercise. What happened to 'art for arts sake'? What happened to the value of art being it's cultural value alone? My theory is that 'unmeasurable' part. Arts administrators and funders have to justify their work through these number crunching exercises, especially if they are using public money, which is absolutely as it should be (it's the public's money after all). However, the responsibility is then passed on to artists to collect the evidence they need, this also means that artists are forced to make their work with these 'outputs' (I so hate that word) in mind, which affects the way the have to work and inteferes with the spirit of the artwork they are creating. One of the most brilliant aspects of 'Test Bed' is that we have been able to make the project without these outputs in mind as the site (Curio City Shop), and the setting (the Five Ways 'border zone' allows us to work with the kinds of people that everyone wants to access, as well as the fact that the artists involved are gaining significant professional development through working on the project as a whole. A big shout out goes to ACE for allowing us to get on with what we do best - making stuff happen that has no measurable value...