[-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology

[Simon Biggs]

Hi Johannes

I think there was an "English" blueprint launched for the creative
industries. I have several concerns with this, which I would guess you
share. Firstly, the concept of the creative industries is a clear means for
government and industry to appropriate and secure creativity as an
industrial trope. As many have argued, probably most famously Adorno, this
sort of appropriation seeks not only to secure value from creative practice
for other activities but also to industrialise creativity and thus normalise
it. That is to say, this is a way to ensure that anything dangerous,
alternative or generally threatening to the status quo (as perceived by the
government) is rendered harmless. The instrument for doing this is, more
often than not, is money. In this context the temporary and motile character
of the sort of thing that Magnus was describing could be a necessary tactic
if creative people are to work without being consumed by the "system". This
relates to Hakim Bey's idea of the Temporary Autonomous Zone, which was a
popular trope at about the time that The Chateau was operating. Similarly,
the fact that Furtherfield has been able to function for so long as a
thriving community and centre without being appropriated is a testament not
only to their capability and tenacity but also their ethical clarity.

So, I think what is of potential interest here is not the similarities
between CHiT and Furtherfield but their differences.

Best

Simon


Simon Biggs
s.biggs at eca.ac.uk  simon at littlepig.org.uk
Skype: simonbiggsuk
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/

Research Professor  edinburgh college of art
http://www.eca.ac.uk/
Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice
http://www.elmcip.net/
Centre for Film, Performance and Media Arts
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/film-performance-media-arts


> From: Johannes Birringer <Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk>
> Reply-To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:09:24 +0100
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: RE: [-empyre-] Creativity as a social ontology
> 
> yes, and wasn't there a "blueprint" launched  for the UK's creative industries
> this week?  
> 
> what i am trying to get at are the terms and underlying hopes that were
> articulated 
> last week about activism, grass roots,  or this exceedingly generative
> creativity mentioned above, the
> shared passions, the "community," the collaborations. and so on.  but we can't
> say for sure what impact
> social networks have. can we?  and what kind of  impact?   impact now is also
> a government 
> assessment term, and rings hollow as it will be used ideologically and with
> economic repercussions.
> 
> what i gathered from the posts was a generally shared claim that people
> involved, intermittently,
> with these spaces you described explored and "learnt a lot about different
> ways of organizing."



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