”Doing to Tell About It: An artistic research project to shape participatory, audio-based, documentary podcasting processes” (working title) by Brett Ascarelli

By last count, more than 178 million episodes worldwide had been published [1], and more than 460 million people had listened to podcasts [2]. While there have certainly been creative contributions to podcasting, it is under-researched from an artistic standpoint. This doctoral research project attempts to propose podcasting as an artistic field, bringing the activity into the fold of artistic research. How can podcasting be developed aesthetically, ethically, and in relation to everyday life?

Situated within the field of performative and media-based practices, this research explores the transformative potential of participatory, documentary podcasting processes that may make space for people to face shared challenges through creative actions. The research engages with the tradition of instruction art and considers the interplay between aesthetics and ethics in the process of making and telling stories.

The research is informed by theories and methodologies to do with co-creation/ participation, interactive documentary, performance, and conceptual/participatory art.

1 Statista Research Department. (2024 May 29). Statista. Number of podcasts and podcast episodes worldwide in 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1418185/podcasts-and-podcasts-episode-worldwide/ 

2 Backlinko. (last updated 2024 Jan 29). 13 Podcast Statistics You Need to Know. https://backlinko.com/podcast-stats#podcast-stats-at-glance

The project aims to develop a new approach to documentary-based podcasting as a performative tool. The project seeks to shed light on what conditions can lead everyday life and creative podcasting to enrich each other, leading to an expansion of artistic possibilities for podcasting as a playful method for taking constructive action to face shared challenges, for example, those detailed in the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

Research questions include the following: Can participatory or co-creative podcasting move beyond its current role as entertainment / information to become a form of lived aesthetic (one in which ethics are considered crucial [3])? How can media producers design the process of making an engaging documentary or reality show podcast so that it doesn’t exploit the subjects who are at the center of the story, but rather gives them room to address a community-wide or society-wide challenge in a playful, humble and creative way?

How can producers re-imagine and tweak the individual steps of the podcasting process to enable this to happen, what will the results sound like, and how will participants, producers and audiences experience the process?

[3] see Saito, Y. (2017). Aesthetics of the familiar: everyday life and world-making. (First edition.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The practical component of the research, thus far, is being carried out through creative workshops, recording and broadcasting sessions that invite a degree of improvisation and play. This more empirical research is accompanied by reflection and creative writing, both non-fiction and speculative fiction. Research outputs may take the form of audio documentation, text and a prototype for a platform.

Tinna Joné, Head of subject area Film and Media, Assistant Professor of Documentary Storytelling, Stockholm University of the Arts

Sheryl Doruff, Professor of Film and Media

2023-2028