MyCreativity

http://www.networkcultures.org/mycreativity/

I Network description
A network of researchers, artists, activists and policy-makers that critically engage with the creative industries field.
On November 16-18, 2006 the Institute of Network Cultures and the Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster organized MyCreativity, a Convention on International Creative Industries research. MyCreativity was a two-day conference that brought the trends and tendencies around the Creative Industries into critical question. It sought to address the local, intra-regional and trans-national variations that constitute international creative industries as an uneven field of actors, interests and conditions. The conference explored a range of key topics that, in the majority of cases, remain invisible to both academic research and policy-making in the creative industries.
The international conference was seen as preliminary to the network and mainly offered a space in which those critical of the creative industries rhetoric could come together and discuss, as well as a platform through which they could be heard.
Following this conference, actors involved in the MyCreativity network have started and/or collaborated in a number of projects worldwide that continue this critical engagement with the creative industries. Present and future attention should focus on the development of organized networks able to intervene in ongoing debates and shape the creative industries in more sustainable ways.

II Main goal for this event in relation to the MyCreativity network

Critical engagement with the creative industries takes place in a wide variety of settings and it would be absurd to assume that the MyCreativity network is some overarching meta-network capable of representing all these activities. Nevertheless, Winter Camp 09 offers a perfect opportunity for network members to come together and to address basic issues concerning the sustainable organization of the creative industries that are also of relevance to those outside of the network.

The following issues are central in this respect:

POLICY REGULATION
How can we develop more sustainable policy mechanisms beyond creativity as capital accumulation? What are possible strategies for shaping policy from below? How might transversality be pushed in concrete ways?

MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION OF FUTURES
Current debates on the creative industries highlight the role of creativity in ushering in a new economy, but what would happen if this one-dimensional future is rejected and we start imagining futures that are multiple? In what ways can we link the spatial and temporal specificity of futures with more radical politics of creatives?

BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND REAL-ESTATE SPECULATION
There is a pressing need to move beyond the urban tactics currently prevalent within many cultural scenes and to start thinking strategically about the role of the built environment in contributing to the sustainability of creative networks. How can we develop a decentralized architecture that better matches the interests and passions of creative networks than the overhyped and overfunded creative clusters and cultural districts?

PRECARITY AND COLLABORATION
Both collaboration and precarity are key terms in the description and analysis of creative networks, but how are they linked? What are the translations taking place between different kinds of precarious actors, both within and without the creative industries? What are the conditions of possibility for the various collaborative networks and how can we make visible this constitutive outside? How does the reflexive engagement with the heterogeneity of precarious subject positions enable mutual learning?

TRANSNATIONAL RESEARCH
Although many projects and everyday resistances question the economic logic of the creative industries, it seems that much can be learned in developing transnational collaborations that comparatively highlight the similarities and variations between critical creative practices in different settings. What are the topics discussed or the formats adopted in these settings? Who are the main actors to involve, resist and recognize? What kinds of translational problems emerge in transnational collaborations?

III Participants

01. Bas van Heur (b.vanheur@vks.unimaas.nl) (coordinator) (Maastricht, NL)
02. Ned Rossiter (ned@nedrossiter.org) (Shanghai, China)
03. Martijn Arnoldus (ma@kl.nl) (Amsterdam, NL)
04. Adam Arvidsson (adam.arvidsson@unimi.it) (Milan, Italy)
05. Manuela Zechner (manuelaz@kein.org) (London, UK)
06. Michael Lafond (institute@id22.net) (Berlin, Germany)
07. Alexandra Manske (alexandra.manske@tu-berlin.de) (Berlin, Germany)
08. Branka Ćurčić (branka@kuda.org) (Novi Sad, Serbia)
09. Maria Perez aka Ptqk (mariaptqk@gmail.com) (Barcelona/Bilbao/Berlin)
10. Birgit Bertram (birgitbertram@undgretel.org) (Bonn, Germany)
11. Merijn Oudenampsen (mo@flexmens.org) (Amsterdam, NL)
12. Daniela Swarowsky (daswa@xs4all.nl) (Rotterdam, NL)
13. Sebastian Olma (sebolma@xs4all.nl) (Amsterdam, NL)
14. Renee Ridgway (rr@reneeridgway.net) (Amsterdam, NL)
15. Prayas Abhinav (me@prayas.in) (Bangalore, India)


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