MyCreativity: Made in Europe Part II: Dispatches from the City

The closing session of MyCreativity continued the previous session on dispatches from the city: Examples of the Creative Industry -or insert preffered term here- from around Europe. The first session covered Vienna, Dublin, Barcelona and Basel.

In this second session we’re venturing into London, Helsinki, Berlin and with Rotterdam we’re bringing MyCreativity back home to the Netherlands. What follows are my observations, thoughts and questions on the presentations.

London by Anthony Davies
“The Evil Empire” of the Creative Industries as Davies introduced his country and city to the audience. He describes the process as being curiosity driven, or “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.” In his quite theoretical presentation Davies highlighted two examples from London; firstly the cooperation of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and Cap Gemini, secondly an example from the University of Arts London (UAL). The first is illustrative for the second, so I will explain the first a bit more detailed below.

The ICA is a publicly funded instution and has since the late 90s been looking into cooperations with companies and a new way of financing culture. If we take a look at what both institutions are about, we can see where the two can meet, the ICA is an arts institute and the Cap Gemini the world’s leading management consulting and computer services firm. Business seemed to need creativity at the end of the twentieth century.

This also resulted in certain ‘Clubs’ or networks, including for example Channel 4, Cap Gemini and the ICA. Network culture seems to have quite a lot of ties with the Creative Industries. Networking and cooperating seems to be on of the essences of the new industry, creating cultural entrepeneurs scouting the markets. And through these networks companies can also scout the best of breed and the ICA -for example- becomes a best of breed provider.

This way there is a massive boost in educational funds and literally billions of euros are spent on these contracts. And in the end Cap Gemini of course also gets rewarded for their investment, by being leader of the creative pack in their field. In this light Davies mentioned the adaptibility of the discourse around the Creative Industry.

One thing that I got out of these two examples personally, is the fact that for example medical studies are heavily subsided by companies but that art and creative studies still mostly have to be untied and publicly funded only. Remains of a 70s hippie culture, or an essence of art?

Reading
Davies, Anthony. ‘The Surge to Merge Culture with the Economy.’ Presentation from Copenhagen Free University. 2001.
Davies, Anthony. ‘Basic Instinct: trauma and retrenchment 2000-4.‘
Davies, Anthony and Ford, Simon. ‘Culture Clubs.’
Davies, Anthony and Ford, Simon. ‘Art Capital.’

Helsinki by Minna Tarkka
Tarkka takes us on a “walk through Helsinki”, showing us mostly images of what changed the creativity of Helsinki in the recent history. Such as the impressive fire which destroyed the Makasiinit -or the VR Warehouses in English according to the Wikipedia entry– the center of Helsinki that marked the end of an era. To get an account of the event, follow this google search link: makasiinit fire.

This end of an era created the openess for new visions for the future of creativity in Helsinki. An interesting project Tarkka mentioned was Helsinki 2015. Tarkka questioned if in 2015 there would even be bigger enterprises? And she is anxious to see what will happen in the media landscape in the future of Finland, since it was very regulated and now there is new space opening up. An account of Finland looking to the future can be found at this short explanation of Finnsight 2015.

More and more Finland is looking for opportunities to brand itself on the international market. The Eurovision songfestival is seen as a great opportunity to present the new creative possibilities of Finland to Europe, although it is debatable if the previous Finnish winner Lordi is a good example for trustworthy business, but it sure was a creative act.

Reading
Tarkka, Minna. ‘Labours of location. Acting in the pervasive media space.’, Species of Spaces, ed. Giles Lane. Diffusion eBook Series. London: Proboscis. 2005.
Sivonen, Henri. ‘Makasiinit fire coverage‘

Berlin by Sebastian Luetgert
The critical theory comes back in the presentation from Luetgert called ‘Capital of Failures’; he wants to explain how creative initiatives did NOT work in Berlin. Armed with a whole range of great terms and thoughts he gives a very interesting presentation. What to think of ‘Easy-jettification’ for example, a term he used for the increasing cheap flights in Germany. But also an official slogan of the city of Berlin ‘Poor, but sexy.’ And what to think of ‘Islands of Excellence, Oceans of Dementia’ which refers to the deserting of the countryside in Germany.

Lets take a look at the negative examples he gives of the city of Berlin. To begin with, the city of Berlin has an estimate debt of 60.000.000 euro’s, that is 20.000 per inhabitant. Luetgert compared this with playing Sim City with a constant debet (without the ability to cheat, I’d add). The destruction in the 1950s of the hardly damaged buildings from WWII is another negative, this was part of a plan to actually limit the amount of houses in Berlin to set up a better real estate market. Also the dot.com boom in Berlin started when it was already over in the world, so Berlin only experienced the downfall of it.
What is interesting is that Luetgert gives us a lot of things to think about, but not very concrete answers.

We have to fill in the dots ourselves on the question if being positively f*cked makes us creative. And if there is the capital of failures that actually helps us. Luetgert himself mentioned that the situation will be financially grimm for the next 20/30 years, but personally I really like Berlin for its broken, melancholic feel (amazingly portrayed in the film ‘Der Himmel Uber Berlin’). And the might just be the contradiction in ourselves Luetgert is talking about.

Reading
Luetgert, Sebastian. ‘An Introduction to a True History of the Internet.’
Luetgert, Sebastian. ‘Roaming Producers.’

Rotterdam by BAVO
This presentation started with its conclusion involving a Medea allegory; kill creativity to protect it (like Medea killed her children to protect them).

One example from Rotterdam I’d like to highlight here a bit is called the ‘Poetic Freedom Project’, more information in Dutch is available from SEV.nl: De Dichterlijke Vrijheid. In this project the buyers of the houses renovate the whole block themselves together with an architect subsidised by Rotterdam itself. What is interesting about this, is the flow of money around the various networks (buyers, Rotterdam, architects) to create a new creative enviroment to work in.

More information about the work of BAVO architect-philosophers Gideon Boie and Matthias Pauwels can be found at www.bavo.biz. A site that is definitely worth checking out for its content.

Reading
BAVO. ‘Plea for an uncreative city (First draft of a yet to be finalized manuscript)‘. August 2006.
BAVO. ‘Enjoy the Right not to Enjoy!‘
Boie, Gideon. ‘Design Intelligence.’

The End
So it’s time to turn off the lights for our MyCreativity Masters of Media coverage with this last session. This is the end of my creativity, and if we have to believe Luetgert it is the beginning of a lot more.