There is both a steady increase in the production of art in society and in research on art and culture within the social sciences. Therefore it seems appropriate to propose artification as a new field for the sociology of art and social and cultural change. Artification is the transformation of non-art into art. This consists of a complex social process of transfiguration of people, things and practices. Artification not only has to do with symbolic change, shifting hierarchies and legitimacy. It also implies very concrete modifications in people's physical traits and manners, in ways of cooperating and organizing, in the goods and artifacts that are used, etc. These processes redefine borders between art and non-art, and reconstruct new social worlds. In this article, we refer to examplesof artification in the realms of hip-hop, phonography, etching, industrial labor, and primitive art.
art; artification; cultural change; culture; social change art; artification; cultural change; culture; social change