MyCreativity

Convention of International Creative Industries Researchers
First Announcement

Date: 17-18 November, 2006

Venue: Club 11, Post CS Building, Amsterdam

Organisation: Institute of Network Cultures, HvA and Centre for
MediaResearch, University of Ulster

Concept: Geert Lovink & Ned Rossiter

More information: info@networkcultures.org, Sabine Niederer.
www.networkcultures.org/mycreativity

Introduction

Emerging out of Blair's Britain in the late 90s as an antidote to
post-industrial unemployment, early creative industries discourse was
not able for a promotional hype characteristic of the dot.com era in
the US. Over the past 3-5 years creative industries has undergone a
process of internationalisation and become a permanent fixture in the
short-term interests that define government policy packages across
the world. At the policy level, creative industries have managed to
transcend the North-South divide that preoccupied research on
the information economies and communication technologies for two
decades.

Today, one finds countries as diverse as Austria, Brazil, Singapore
and New Zealand eagerly promoting the promise of exceptional economic
growth rates of "culture" in its "immaterial" form. Governments in
Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands have initiated
creativeindustries policy platforms with remarkably similar
assumptions andexpectations given their very different cultural and
politicalenvironments.

Despite the proliferation of the creative industries model, it
remainshard to point to stories of actual "creative innovation", or
to be evensure what this might mean. What is clear -if largely
unacknowledged - is that investment in "creative clusters"
effectively functions to encourage a corresponding boom in adjacent
real estate markets. Here lies perhaps the core truth of the creative
industries: the creative industries are a service industry, one in
which state investment in "high culture" shifts to a form of
welfarism for property
developers.This smoke and mirrors trick is cleverly performed through
a language of populist democracy that appeals to a range of political
and businessagents. What is more surprising is the extent to which
this hype isseemingly embraced by those most vulnerable: namely, the
contentproducers (designers, software inventors, artists, filmmakers,
etc.) of creative information (brands, patents, copyrights).Much research in the creative industries is highly
speculative,interpretive and economistic, concerned with large-scale
industry data rather than the network of formal and informal relations
that makepossible creative production. It is also usually produced
quickly, withlittle detailed qualitative analysis of the structure of
economic relationships creative industries firms operate in. In many
cases, the policy discourses travel and are taken up without critical
appraisal ofdistinctly local conditions.

In contrast to the homogeneity of creative industries at the policy
level, there is much localised variation to be found in terms of
thematerial factors that shape the development of creative
industriesprojects. For example, a recent UNCTAD (2004) policy report
on creative industries and development makes note of the "precarious"
nature ofemployment for many within the creative industries. Such
attention tothe uneven and variable empirics of creative industries
marks adeparture from much of the hype that characterised earlier
creativeindustries discourse, and also reflects the spread of this
discourseout of highly developed market economies to ones where the
privatesector has a very different role.

This conference wishes to bring these trends and tendencies
intocritical question. It seeks to address the local, intra-regional
andtrans-national variations that constitute international creative
industries as an uneven field of actors, interests and conditions.

Themes and Sessions

=Critique of Creative Industries=

There is little empirical correspondence between the topography of
"mapping documents" and "value-chains" and the actual social networks
and cultural flows that comprise the business activities and movement
of finance capital, information and labour-power within creative
economies. Such attempts to register the mutual production of
economic and creative value are inherently reductive systems. Much
creative industries discourse in recent years places an emphasis on
the potential for creative clusters, hubs and precincts to develop
cultural economies. The limits and political problematic of existing
methodologies such as these are considerable.

Complexity is not something that is easily accommodated in the genre
of policy and the activities of what remain vertically integrated
institutional settings. In undertaking a critique of the simplicity
characteristic of much creative industries policy, this session
explores the ways in which the experiences of workers, businesses and
government and the structural formations of the creative industries
can be better understood in terms of the complexity of information
economies and network societies.

=Creative Labour and Precarity=

Since the initial policy reports by the Blair government’s Department
of Communications, Media, and Sport (1998/2001), governments around
the world have reproduced the key definition of creative industries
as consisting of ‘the generation and exploitation of intellectual
property’ (DCMS, 1998/2001). Key to this definition is the invisible
subject of exploitation: namely, those engaged in the production of
creative commodities and services. Such work is largely undertaken by
young people, who have no experience or identification with
traditional labour organisations, such as the trade union. The
reasons for this are historical, generational and structural: young
people do not have formal or cultural associations with vertically
organised institutional settings in the way that workers did during
the modern era of industrial capitalism. This session investigates
the precarious conditions of labour and life within the creative
industries.

=Creative Industries--Made in Europe=

Europe has long prided itself as the origin of (state funded and
guided) creativity, but the romanticism that underpins this arrogance
and institutional power is no longer viable in the context of
economic globalisation. With its system of protectionist policies and
welfare states still relatively intact, albeit considerably battered,
countries across Europe have been comparatively slow to incorporate
the UK-model of creative industries in their policy agendas. This is
gradually changing and will no doubt continue to do so as the EU
forces resistant states to conform to international policy trends and
trade agreements. On the one hand, this session is interested in the
distinctive cultural variations that define creative work across
European countries. And then, on the other hand, the session is
interested in the kinds of connections being made at social and
economic levels between European countries. Is it still possible,
beyond tourism, to speak of "Europe" in a global economy of trade and
services?

=Creative Industries and the Arts=

It is not difficult to understand why the hype around creative
industries has been perceived as a threat in traditional visual arts
circles. Are “contemporary arts” and “creative industries” ordinary
competitors that compete over scarce resources, or is there more to
this tension? The creative industries discourse can easily be read as
a declaration of war against closed and elitist art systems, and much
of that critique might be justified. But there are also millions of
good reasons to defend the “senseless acts of beauty” against cold
and instrumentalised market thinking. The autonomy of the arts may as
well be read as a right, built up through struggles against the grip
of the church and the aristocratic class on the arts. But what
remains in the ruins of the Arts as a source of renewal and
mobilisation within a paradigm of info-economies?

=Creative Industries in China and the Asia-Pacific=

One is hard pressed to find comparative research that examines the
inter-relations between geo-politics (regional trade agreements,
national and multi-lateral policies on labour mobility, security and
migration, etc.) and the peculiarities of intra-regional, trans-local
and global cultural flows. For many, the creative industries are an
exclusively Anglo-American and now European phenomenon. This session
is interested in the Asia-Pacific experiences of creative industries.

Of particular interest is the case of China, which is rapidly
emerging as the dominant player in the global economy. How is
“culture” being understood as an economic resource in China? Who are
the key players and what sort of cross-sectoral relations are
emerging? How are artists positioning themselves in political and
economic senses? To what extent are external influences and
architectures (e.g. WTO and IPRs) shaping the creative industries
formation in China and the Asia-Pacific region?

=Complementary and Alternative Business Models=

For all the talk about culture as a generator of economic capital,
the relation between the two continues to be neglected in much
research and is difficult for many to understand. The economic models
applied to cultural production in an era of broadcast media have
proven to be inadequate to this period of networked media. And the
follies of the dot.com boom were all too clear – though this is still
ignored by many creative industries policy-makers and advocates. The
search for alternative business models for the creative industries is
currently at a fairly experimental stage, and there’s little scope
for transferability due to national and cultural contingencies
(though this too is often ignored). How can creative work become
sustainable, beyond state subsidies and hyped markets? Do we
necessarily have to buy into intellectual property regimes? What is
the economic reality of Creative Commons?

=Conclusion: Subterranean Creativity=

There is without doubt a discord between the “mapping documents”
produced by government departments and academics across the world and
the on-the-ground experiences of creative workers. These empirical
exercises function as an abstract expression to be circulated amongst
like-minded institutions seeking self-produced validation. But how
are young creative producers making sense – if at all – of the policy
directives being set out for them by government departments? What
sort of languages, expressions, connections are made and circulated
here? And what, if any, mobilising capacity do such relations enable
with regard to a different form of organisational power?

Format/Logistics

This event will be run in collaboration with All Media Foundation and
The Sandberg Institute, who will present the latest installment that
engages the topic of "organised creativity". The opening evening will
present a show in Paradiso (16 November, 2006), titled Paradise by
the Laptop Light, a concept of Mieke Gerritzen and Koert van
Mensvoort. Leading up this event, post-graduate design students from
the Sandberg Institute will be undertaking a study of creative
industries topographies and typologies in the Netherlands. These
activities include a free newspaper and will feature in the
conference session on Subterrainean Creativity.

This international conference will be used as a preliminary meeting
of an emerging network of researchers that critically engage with the
creative industries field. If you are interested to join the network
mailing list, please register at http://idash.org/mailman/listinfo/ci-
l. The event also introduces the novel format of the conference
"package tour", with a follow-up conference – A Network of Networks –
held in Belfast, 19-21 November. This event will be also be organised
by the Institute of Network Cultures and the Centre for Media
Research, along with other partners.