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The Foundation
"ArtPragmatica" Research Foundation is a private non-for-profit organization. Our main goal is to develop and introduce a set of new economic rules for consumption of cultural goods. To achieve this we not only conduct an in-depth theoretical research but also stage large-scale social experiments.

The area of our interest covers the most pressing topics of our days:

•  The uncertainty of consumer choices
•  The digitalization of cultural markets
•  Navigation in cultural goods
•  The role of money in creative industries
•  Economics of personal time
•  Copyright and intellectual property and etc.

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14.07.2006 From July 6 to July 9, 2006 our president, Alexander Dolgin and director Elena Lvova took part an internetional conference in Vienna, organized by Accosiation of Cultural Economics International (ACEI). Some of the foundation research was presented and the work was very well received by the organized as well as fellow cultural economics. We will publish the paper and the presentations on our website soon. 10.07.2006 In May 2006 the Foundation started a new project researching collaborative filtering technology. The application of it will be tested in an on-line recommendation system, that will allow people to find their "taste patners" and get personalized cultural goods recommendations.

Time market

Works of art are valuable because they open for an individual ways to manage the quality of personal time. If the play lasted 3 hours, it does not mean that all that time was of high quality, meaning it was interesting to you. But if the art is “genuine” — it “forces” the spectator into its inner circle, into its story. By living “someone else’s” story we extend our own life, not the outer (astronomic), but its inner plain. Therefor, art is a tool for managing the quality of time, which means that it should be measured according to the way it affects the time. Art markets should be understood as time markets.

But it what form should the experience be expressed that it would make it possible to decode and would make sense to adopt? For the purpose of exchange, the experience of artistic interaction can and should be summarized in a number – most condense, but informative system. Importantly, what should be summarized is exactly the quality of time.

The task of collective grading of the time quality does not differ from the task of ranking any other goods. The later is most often is solved by money and price – which is nothing but the will of a number of subjects as an equivalent to the number of goods and energy spent. Nobody ever knows exactly how the other perceives quality; nevertheless in a course of many transactions goods acquire a steady rating which normalizes it according to its value. Like with the artistic sphere this does not mean that everyone is guaranteed to “extract” the value in the same quantity. The price just expresses the potential value, but realization of it is in the hands of the individual.

Dolgin A.

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