| Over the last thirty-five years the use of information by visual artists has been studied primarily in terms of their library use. Yet information can be transmitted and communicated from many sources other than formal repositories, and from many objects other than textual ones. Given the nature of their activities, artists are likely to be attuned to receiving information from a range of possible sources, and it is this hypothesis that is being tested in this research. The following questions guide this study: (1) What information sources do artists use to create/produce art? (2) How is information used by the visual artists? Fifteen professional visual artists were interviewed using a series of semi-structured interview questions that examined the role of information from conception to final production, following a phenomenological approach to the research design. Results indicate that artists use information that was communicated by people, and emanated from objects and their environment. Notably from conception to production, some information is actively received and some passively. Prior to the conception of an idea, artists absorb information that influences the direction in which the art product takes. It is only during the creation of an object that artists actively seek information.;This research extends our understanding of the use of information by artists, and has implications for how the information field services the art community. |
