Re: <nettime> More Crisis in the Information Society

["d.garcia" <d.garcia@new-tactical-research.co.uk>]

Florian wrote,

Aside from anecdotal evidence, my colleague Paul Rutten
has compiled hard figures and statistics for the creative
industries in the Netherlands that clearly show shrinkage
[https://hro.app.box.com/s/gz6vf5hkn99ndsta2psz] along with the
rest of the economy since 2008. (For the U.S., the Salon.com
article "The Creative Class is a Lie" drew similar conclusions
in 2011: "The dream of a laptop-powered 'knowledge class' is
dead. The media is melting. Blame the economy - and the Web",
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/01/creative_class_is_a_lie/.)
Intuitively, this makes sense, but it sharply contradicts the
run-of-the-mill rhetoric that the creative industries are the area of
biggest growth within the overall economy.

What seems to have changed is the fully commercial sector of the arts.
Large parts of it have economically collapsed and therefore no longer
provide alternative income opportunities. In other words, wedding
photography no longer pays the bills for experimental photographers,
copywriting no longer the bills of starving writers, etc.etc.


---------------------------------

Hi Florian,

My argument is not that most of those working within the "creative    
economy" has not suffered (along with all other casualised labor)     
from a radical shrinkage of income and agency due to all the factors  
that you allude to, but rather that the comparative data refers back  
to an unusual high point of the 80s and 90s when the combination of   
digital skills with creative talent took earnings and expectations    
for this sector way beyond the historical norm.                       

So although I recognise that every era has its distinctive conditions
I would argue that rather than being the exception we have actually
been returned to (low earnings high risk) business as usual for those
working in this sector if we take a longer historical view. Thats why
I sought to lengthen the historical perspective to comparisons with
the Victorian Creative industries (which was fully commercial) and
equally vulnerable. I am suggesting we are witnessing a familiar cycle
of technological change combined with ruthless application of the
markets destroying well established forms of practice whilst creating
new ones.

What has changed is that the conditions long endured in the arts      
have now been extended to the economy as a whole where employees of   
an increasingly freelance, largely non-unionised economy are all      
required to be entrepreneurs in the creative economy of organised     
optimism.                                                             

Best

David 

------------------------

d a v i d  g a r c i a
new-tactical-research.co.uk






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