Culture changes people. Now we can prove it.
For twenty-five years, I watched institutions defend culture with the wrong numbers. Attendance figures. Satisfaction scores. Surveys nobody finished. So I built the instrument I wished had existed, one that measures what actually happens inside a person when art does its work.
Get Started“Twenty-five years ago, I started asking what art actually does to people. Not what they thought of it. What it did to them, in their body, in the moment. Sentiko is the answer I built.”
Cultural institutions spend billions. They count heads. They sell tickets, which only proves the marketing worked, not that the experience mattered. Nobody measures the one thing that counts.
You defend your budget with attendance numbers. But ticket sales only prove people showed up, not that anything happened to them.
You fund culture because the evidence says it works. But your own evaluation toolkit admits you cannot even measure what shifted, without a pre-event baseline.
Choosing between a sports event and a film festival? One has ROI dashboards. The other has hope.
The WHO and The Lancet have launched their multiyear Global Series documenting how the arts contribute to health, prevent illness, and support recovery. But no scalable tool exists to capture this at the audience level, in that moment.
Existing tools measure satisfaction, demographics, or spending. None capture the in-the-moment emotional shift that fades within minutes of a film ending or an exhibition closing. Sentiko adds that missing layer, alongside the longitudinal studies, ethnographies, and post-event surveys that already exist. Complementary, not competing.
| Traditional Surveys | Emotion AI (Cameras) | Emotional Barometer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to complete | 15-30 min | Passive (always-on) | 15 seconds |
| Privacy | Named respondents | Biometric capture | Fully anonymous |
| Before/after shift | Rarely | No | Yes |
| Cross-format benchmarking | No | No | Yes |
| GDPR / EU AI Act | Varies | Problematic | Compliant by design |
"Due to the nature of post-event surveys without a pre-event baseline measure, causality cannot be assumed."
The Barometer's before/after methodology gives you the baseline that post-only surveys lack.
The Framework for Cultural Statistics recognizes wellbeing impacts but provides no measurement tool.
The Barometer operationalizes it at the audience level.
The 2023 WHO-Lancet Global Series, run through the Jameel Arts & Health Lab, documents the role of the arts in promoting health, preventing illness, and supporting recovery across the lifespan.
The Barometer captures these effects in real time, fifteen seconds at a time.
Your Brain on Art, by Susan Magsamen (Director, International Arts + Minds Lab, Johns Hopkins) and Ivy Ross, maps how arts engagement measurably shifts attention, emotion, and physiology, drawing on the emerging field of neuroaesthetics.
The Barometer captures these shifts at the audience level, in the fifteen seconds that matter most.
Sentiko measures micro-resonance as a leading indicator of cultural impact, grounded in a formal Theory of Change. It complements longitudinal research. It does not replace it.
After a screening, concert, or exhibition, audiences scan a QR code and answer five yes/no questions. No app download. Any phone.
After the experience ends, a QR code appears on screen. Audiences scan with their phone camera.
15 seconds totalDo I feel calmer? More present? Did my perspective shift? Do I feel more connected? Do I want more?
15 seconds totalResponses bloom into a unique flower, a visual record of what shifted inside. Shareable, personal, unforgettable.
15 seconds totalFive questions. Fifteen seconds. Each one deceptively simple.
Nervous system regulation.
Attentional shift.
Cognitive reframing.
Social cohesion.
Engagement intent.
These are not satisfaction metrics. They map the same dimensions cited in WHO-Lancet arts-and-health research, designed to be answered honestly, in the moment, by anyone, in any language.
Each response becomes a flower, a visual record of how the program moved that person. Together they form the institution's garden, an aggregate picture of emotional impact, shareable with funders, aligned with WHO-Lancet and UNESCO frameworks.
Your flower blooms instantly. Save it, share it, post it. Over time, your garden becomes a visual record of every cultural experience that moved you.
Individual flowers compose a collective garden, a living, shareable proof of impact. Show sponsors a garden, not a bar chart.
Every event earns a flower. Audiences return to grow their garden. "I have 47 flowers this year" becomes a badge of cultural participation.
Automated reports showing which events created the biggest shifts, across which dimensions. Sponsor-ready within 48 hours of your festival.
Two features institutions request most, available on demand.
The QR code doesn't have to live only on screen. Print it on the event poster, the programme, or the lobby wall. Visitors scan at their own pace. Their flower is saved to their personal garden, a permanent record of what they felt at this exact event.
Some institutions need to know where in the world their audiences respond from. A ministry tracking citywide cultural engagement, a museum wanting to understand where international visitors come from. Geolocation is off by default and enabled on request, fully GDPR-compliant.
The same 5 core metrics adapt to any context. Questions dynamically adjust to the art form, keeping data comparable across categories.
Whether you run a single venue or shape national cultural policy, one conversation shows you how this works.
markevitch@ikonotv.art
Before you bring Sentiko to your institution, try it as a visitor. After your last book, film, concert, or stream, visit about.sentiko.app and feel what your audience feels, from the inside.