The Industrialization of Creativity and Its Limits

Creativity loosely refers to activities in the visual arts, music, design, film and performance that are primarily intended to produce forms of affect and social meaning. Yet, over the last few decades, creativity has also been explicitly mobilized by governments around the world as a 'resource' for achieving economic growth. The creative economy discourse emphasizes individuality, innovation, self-fulfillment, career advancement and the idea of leading exciting lives as remedies to social alienation. This book critically assesses that discourse, and explores how political shifts and new theoretical frameworks are affecting the creative economy in various parts of the world at a time when creative industries are becoming increasingly 'industrialized.' Further, it highlights how work inequalities, oligopolistic strategies, competitive logics and unsustainable models are inherent weaknesses of the industrial model of creativity. The interdisciplinary contributions presented here address the operationalization of creative practices in a variety of geographical contexts, ranging from the UK, France and Russia, to Greece, Argentina and Italy, and examine issues concerning art biennials, museums, DIY cultures, technologies, creative writing, copyright laws, ideological formations, craft production and creative co-ops.

Auteur
Ilya Kiriya is Professor and Chair of the School of Media, Faculty of Communication, Media and Design at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). He holds a PhD in information and communication science from Grenoble Stendhal University (France) and second PhD in journalism from the Moscow State University. His research interests are in the political economy of media and communication, concentration, capital and industrial strategies of big media companies and conglomerates in field of media and public sphere structures in post-soviet countries.
Panos Kompatsiaris is Assistant Professor of Art and Media at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). He holds a PhD in art theory from the University of Edinburgh, and has published on art and cultural politics in various journals and edited volumes, including a monograph titled 'The Politics of Contemporary Art Biennials' (Routledge, 2017). He is a co-editor of a special journal issue on art and value with the Journal of Cultural Economy.

Yiannis Mylonas is Assistant Professor at the Media Department of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). He holds a PhD in Media and Communications from the University of Copenhagen. He has previously published on the political economy of copyrights, digital file-sharing and civic cultures, among other topics. He is the author of the monograph 'The Greek Crisis in Europe: Race, Class and Politics' (Brill, 2019).

Contenu

The Industrialization of Creativity and its Limits: Introducing Concepts, Theories and Themes.- Towards Post-Growth Creative Economies?: Building Sustainable Cultural Production in Argentina.- Creative Workers in Permanent Crisis: Labor in the Croatia's Contemporary Arts and Culture.- The Only Place Where One Can Feel Connected to an International Context and Still Speak Russian: Hybrid Creative Work in Post-Soviet Contemporary Art Institutions.- Creative writing courses are useless: Creative writing programs and the Italian literary system.- The Art Biennial's Dillema: Political Activism and Spectacle in Aesthetic Capitalism.- Creativity in the Service of Economic Recovery and National Salvation: Dispatches from the Greek Crisis Social Factory.- Production of Cultural Policy in Russia: Authority and Intellectual Leadership.- Manifestos of Rupture and Reconciliation: Do-it-Yourself (DiY) music practices, ethics and the quest for authenticity in the cultural industries.- Creative Industries, a Large Ongoing Project, Still Inaccurate and Always Uncertain.- From Craft to Industry: Industrializing the Marginal Domains of Cultural Industries.- Intellectual Property Rights and the Production of Value in a 'Creative Economy'.- Innovation and Media: Googlization and Limited Creativity.