[syndicate] From Soros Realism to Creative Class by Horrorkatze

[horrorkatze]

http://www.modukit.com/horrorkatze/tekstovi/sorosrealism_creativeclass.pdf



>From Soros Realism(1) to Creative Class

by horrorkatze



Cultural foundations have a strong impact on cultural production in

the region of the Balkans during the last decade. Analyzing their

particular missions and international agendas for cultural policies,

it turns out that their vocabulary reminds on critical political

practices and discourses of the 1960s and 70s in "western" societies.

In this essay I will trace back the history of identity politics and

participation and critically comment, why and how these ideas are

implemented in the recent conceptions for global and/or European

cultural policies. I will present concrete examples of cultural

production from Belgrade and Hamburg and describe how cultural

identity and participation are interpreted and put into practice in

different local contexts. Why culture and creativity play such an

essential role in today's economy will be explained through the

example of Richard Florida's model of a "creative class". I will show

that the culturalization of politics is not solving the problems of

inequality in neoliberal capitalism and that the postmodern discourse

about the ambiguity of cultural identity in practice supports the

continuation of chauvinistic identity politics.



Cultural Foundations and their Missions in the Balkans



During the Nineties "Soros Centers for Contemporary Art" (SCCA)

dominated the cultural scene in whole Eastern Europe. Nowadays the

Open Society Institute in Eastern Europe concentrates mainly on

programs concerning education, youth and children, minorities and

human rights. Since around 2002 foreign funding of culture and arts in

Serbia decreased significantly and is coordinated now by the European

Cultural Foundation (in cooperation with Open Society Institute and

Hivos), national foundations as Kulturstiftung des Bundes (mainly in

Kosovo), Pro Helvetia, Kulturkontakt and alike. There emerged even an

important corporate foundation, the Erste Bank Group with its program

called "Kontakt".



What are the goals and visions of the programs offered by these

European foundations? For the Swiss Pro Helvetia "cultural identity

and cultural self-consciousness" have become crucial in the age of

globalization as it is stated in the vision of the "Swiss Cultural

Programme South East Europe and Ukraine". Culture, and thus its

producer, is "contributing to the social and economic transition

process" and is characterized with terms like "change", "openness",

"innovative", "active", "engaged", "strengthening of civil society",

"social challenges", "partnership", "shared experiences", "debate"

etc. The producer – subject focused on is according to this

description young, culturally self-conscious, innovative, creative,

open-minded, socially engaged, willing to participate, collaborate, to

acquire and to share new knowledge. Two ideas are stressed: cultural

identity and participation.



The "Kontakt" program of the Erste Bank Group serves, as it reads on

their webpage, "as a platform for the social and cultural commitment

of Erste Bank Group in the Central and Eastern European region." Erste

Bank sees itself as an actor, who is looking for partners to "work on

proposals for solutions" and "to develop strategies on how to tackle

the economic, cultural and socio-political issues in Central and

Eastern Europe in the near future". Erste Bank describes itself as

"open, eager to learn and ready to try new approaches". This is what

is expected to be the partner, too, of course. Keywords used

characterizing possible partners are more or less the same as the ones

that uses Pro Helvetia, but there are some new elements coming in:

Erste Bank stresses aspects as cooperation, networking,

self-organization, the aim "to work independently in the production of

art" and to "enable independent creative strategies".

In the following I concentrate on three characteristics of the subject

(the cultural producer or potential partner) described in the given

examples: Cultural identity, participation and selforganization (other

expressions might be autonomy, independence, self-determination). I

will shortly outline the development of the discourses and practices

connected to these ideas from the new social movements of the 20th

century until to the cultural turn in the 1990s, which is accompanied

by the emergence of the creative industries, the promotion of

multiculturalism and cultural difference and the discussions about

precarious working conditions of the so-called creative class.



Fight for Cultural Identity



The statement that identity is not determined biologically was very

important for the feminist critique starting in the 70s in Europe and

USA. Feminist theory points at the difference between "sex", a

biological category, and "gender", a social and cultural role or

identity formed in a historical process. With this assumption it

became possible to criticize the cultural and social conditions that

led and lead to the social inequality between women and men. For some

feminist theoreticians the most important question is the question of

agency, the capacity to act. For them the power of women and the

women's movement lies inside of strengthening of the female

subjectivity(2).



Another example for the emancipative potential of cultural identity

are the national liberation movements. Writing about the Black Power

movement in USA, Africa and Europe, the postcolonial theoretician

Stuart Hall states the necessity of the concept of identity as a

political strategy within the struggle against colonial suppression.

According to him, the term "Black" in the slogan "Black Power" is "a

historical, a political, a cultural category", not a biological

fact(3). In this respect I want to mention the "international

solidarity" between the armed anti-imperialist movements in Germany,

Italy and France and the national liberation movements in Europe,

Africa and America during the 70s and 80s. This (imagined) common

fight of the fighters in the centres of imperialism and the ones on

the periphery was more a cultural construction than a consequence of a

common experience of suppression. This might be one of the (many)

reasons why it failed.



Both examples have in common that they revive the modern idea about an

autonomous subject with the aim to give hold to the positioning of the

individual in an active role and thus to be able to overthrow the

ruling system and the discourses of the powerful. Cultural identity

serves as a common unifier of a group of individuals to empower them

to go against its suppressor.



In the last 25 years, in "western" societies the concept of cultural

identity shifted from a political mobilizer to an anti-political

tranquilizer. Promoted along the keywords of cultural difference and

multiculturalism, it is now the theoretical basis for cultural

policies in Europe and USA. Referring to the representation of black

culture in contemporary arts and the media, Kobena Mercer notes that

"cultural difference appears more visibly integrated into mainstream

markets than ever before, but it is accompanied by a privatised ethos

in which it is no longer an 'issue' for public debate. "[...] "

'Hyperblackness' in the media and entertainment industries serves no

longer to critique social injustice, but to cover over and conceal

increasingly sharp inequalities that are most polarised within black

society itself, namely between a so-called urban underclass and an

expanded middle class that benefited from affirmative action."(4).

However, in other places of the world, for example in Kosovo and

Serbia, national or religious identity are a highly political issue.



The Alternative Society: Collective Self-determination



Let us have a closer look at the other two qualities, potential

donation-receivers should have:

participation and self-organization/self-government. Participation and

self-government have been central claims of many social movements of

the 20th century. Especially the youth and students' movements in the

Western metropolises in the end of the 1960s expressed the desire for

an alternative way of life and developed dissident practices based on

self-organization and grassroots democracy. In the beginning of the

70s young people squatted houses and lived together in communities.

Decisions were taken at the plenum according to the principle of

consensus. Kindergartens, printing-shops, bars were organized as

collectives. The idea of an alternative living comprised the

abandoning of regular work in the sense of permanent employment. Work

and life fell into one: the fight for personal freedom, for a self

determined life, for the revolution, against the establishment,

against imperialism.



What happened during the last 30 years is a normalization of these

formerly dissident practices. Today's working conditions demand a

maximum of flexibility and self organization. Guaranteed employment

many people can only dream of, especially in the so called countries

in transition. The rule is unsure, not guaranteed, flexible

exploitation: illegal, seasonal, temporary employment, homework,

freelancing or self employment.(5)



Squatted houses in Berlin or Amsterdam are a good example to see how

the scene looks like 25 years later. Over the time, self-organized

spaces transformed themselves into professional culture producers like

artist-run galleries, cultural centers, tourist attractions, media

labs, design studios, pseudo-critical debate clubs etc. while leftover

groups of political activists are driven out of the gentrificated

areas and exposed to state repression.



Culture – The Fourth Pillar of Development



Recent international papers and documents as "Agenda 21 for

culture"(6) claim that culture becomes the "fourth pillar of

development" together with economy, social inclusion and environment,

as stated in the "Guide to Citizen Participation in Local Cultural

Policy Development for European Cities" (7) issued by the European

Cultural Foundation. In many strategic papers (for example the

Schroeder/Blair paper from 98) artists' working conditions and methods

are quoted as a role model of an entrepreneurial self.(8). There are

two aspects, why culture is such an interesting field in terms of

global politics: its economic potential and its participative

character.



According to UNESCO, "Cultural industries [..] are knowledge and

labour-intensive, create employment and wealth, nurture creativity

[..] and foster innovation in production and commercialisation

processes. At the same time, cultural industries are central in

promoting and maintaining cultural diversity and in ensuring

democratic access to culture" and "Their international dimension gives

them a determining role for the future in terms of freedom of

expression, cultural diversity and economic development"(9). Because

of the inequality of representation of the world's cultures within

cultural industries UNESCO advocates for counteracting "by

strengthening local capacities and facilitating access to global

markets at national level."

The problem of inequality is here translated into a lack of

representation within the market, which leads us to the question, if

the market is the only stage, where cultural expression and visibility

can be performed. In any case, in times of visual hyperproduction and

unlimited digital circulation, the image and representation as such

have lost its power. This is why political issues in the field of

representation (the media) can only reach its public if backed up by a

successful marketing strategy. Politics "is ceasing to be about

conflict over dominant ideas and much more becomes the 'opportunity to

participate in cultural production and conflicts and tensions over

identity', as Martin Albrow puts it"(10) and transforms into

something, which is described by Paul Piccone as "postmodern

populism"(11).



Here we come to the other aspect of culture stressed in various policy

papers: its participative character. In the introduction to the

abovementioned guide it reads: "What makes an individual a citizen (or

not) of a particular town or place is largely determined by cultural

aspects." It is amazing to see the notion of being a citizen being

reduced to his/her access to cultural participation. But it becomes

understandable if we recall the concepts of "cultural identity" and

"cultural diversity" that stand behind this idea. In this conception

of participation the state has the responsibility to enable every

individual to choose her/his specific cultural identity and to offer a

frame where this identity can be expressed. The question is by which

forces this frame is really shaped in the end. Not only in science and

education, but also in culture economical profit and corporate

interests are gaining influence in the shape and content of projects

and programs. For sure it is a nice idea to include citizens in the

development of cultural programs of their city, but the question comes

up, about what kind of culture we are talking. Isn't every day life,

school, working conditions, what kind of products we have in our

stores and for which price, etc. as well part of our culture? What, if

a "cultural identity" doesn't want or is not able to participate? Can

every conflict be translated into a cultural dissent? The advocates of

the politics of identity understand culture and belonging to a culture

as something negotiable, as a process. This is true, but it should not

be forgotten that there exist nonnegotiable social inequalities and

that we are living in a world of national and private immovable

territories. What about the ones that can not take part in a special

kind of culture because they just cannot afford to buy the ticket, the

book, the right style of dressing, internet, ... If we talk about

"cultural policies based on human rights and cultural diversity"(12),

then "cultural rights" can not have a price!

This would mean a true revolution of the cultural sector!

Unfortunately the "advocating for culture" doesn't go that far but

matches just too well with the need to mobilize all creative resources

with the aim to create a "vibrant cultural life" in cities that want

to attract investors, young people, tourists etc.



National identity and contemporary art, Beograd-Prishtina



The exhibition about contemporary art from Prishtina "Exception",

which took place in January 2008 in Novi Sad and should continue in

February in Belgrade, focused in one part on artistic works dealing

with national identities(13). It was funded by the European Cultural

Foundation and Pro Helvetia. Realized in the very moment when Kosovo's

declaration of Independency was expected every day, it was foreseeable

that the exhibition would cause heavy controversy. In Belgrade, one

art work was destroyed by militant nationalists who entered the

gallery, while several hundred of them were demonstrating against the

exhibition outside. It was closed during the opening by police,

attacks on the building followed during the night. Due to the lack of

state support the exhibition had to be cancelled completely. The

depiction of an Albanian national hero from Kosovo had provoked

Serbian nationalists, no matter that it was used in the general

context of pop iconography. It is not the first time, that a work

dealing with national identity causes this kind of "scandal" that

covers over all other presented works and makes room rather for

nationalist propaganda and political manipulation than for the much

quoted intercultural dialogue. The question is, in how far the vision

of a participative and negotiable cultural identity is performable in

a context, where cultural identity has the notion of national,

religious or ethnic identity and might be linked to traumatic

experiences. These are less negotiable categories, as it is not so

easy to change one's history, passport, name or colour of skin. In

fact, the preoccupation with national identity avoids the solution of

immense social-economic problems within the societies of Serbia and

Kosovo, which are neglected by politicians and public authorities to

an inexcusable extend. The true victims of the fight between "national

identities" are the ones "without defined identity", refugees without

papers or without the right kind of papers, living in barracks, camps,

favellas or in the woods, displaced from their homes, expelled from

the European Union, deprived of their right to exist.



Local cultural development and participation in Belgrade and Hamburg



In September 2006, the issue of self-organization was discussed on an

international conference within the 40th BITEF theatre festival in

Belgrade. Although initialized in a highly institutional framework and

backed up by a row of local academics(14), the idea of

self-organization spread in Belgrade's non institutional cultural

scene and two months later the "flexible platform of the Belgrade

independent scene", "The Other Scene" was founded by a large number of

local initiatives, more and less established ones(15). When the city

council of culture issued an open call for a new cultural venue to be

founded, all members of  "The Other Scene" applied under the condition

that every member of the network should have access to the venue and

be able to contribute their program. Only a very few initiatives from

the network were selected. After the opening, the space turned out to

be under the administration of the Belgrade Cultural Center of the

City Council, which is now presenting the production of the groups. In

business terminology this kind of strategy would be described as

outsourcing. Neither the administration of the projects, nor the wages

of the producers nor the production itself are on the budget of the

institution, in return it gets a "vivid and contemporary" program,

which is financed, if at all, by diverse cultural foundations.



In 2007 some cultural producers from Belgrade's "Other Scene" took

part in the European Art Festival "Wir sind woanders – we are

somewhere else" in Hamburg. In the introduction to the festival guide,

the Senator for culture resumes that "in the meantime everybody has

learned that it is the positions beyond mainstream out from where

surprising visions of the future can be developed"(16). The event was

sponsored by a private donator from Hamburg, who prefers to stay

anonymous. For the cultural producers themselves, the shift from the

margin towards the center seems to be irritating. The discussions held

on a parallel theoretical platform underline a critical reflection of

the development. There are around three fractions one could figure out

in Hamburg's "independent art and cultural scene". One claims the

responsibility of the state to fund them at a larger scale, arguing

with the new importance of their productivity. Others see a great

chance to jump into the emerging economic field of urban marketing and

cultural tourism. A third group hints at the precarious working

conditions of culture producers and there is a few people that insist

explicitly in the critical and political position of their work.



The Potential of the Creative Subject



After all, the key issues of the social emancipative movements,

self-determination and participation, have entered institutional

politics. Obviously it is not their critical power but their

economical potential that makes them attractive today.

Self-responsibility, flexibility, creativity, high motivation, these

are the qualities the creative subject must be equipped with to fulfil

the requirements of a society regulated by the norms of neoliberal

capitalism. Bestseller author Richard Florida(17) believes in a rising

"creative class" consisting of scientists, tech people, artists,

managers, lawyers, financial people,.. that is the driving force for

economical growth. According to his empirical studies in the US, the

"young creatives" are attracted by cities offering the right kind of

"active, participatory recreation facilities": "They prefer indigenous

street-level culture---a teeming blend of cafes, sidewalk musicians,

and small galleries and bistros, where it is hard to draw the line

between performers and spectators. They crave stimulation, not escape.

They want to pack their time full of dense, high-quality,

multidimensional experiences. Seldom has one of my subjects expressed

a desire to get away from it all. They want to get into it all, and do

it with eyes wide open. [...] Creative class people value active

outdoor recreation very highly and are into a variety of active

sports, from traditional ones like bicycling, jogging, and kayaking to

newer, more extreme ones, like trail running and snowboarding." To

measure the capabilities a city or area has for a synergy of different

kinds of creativity Florida gives three indexes: The Creativity Index

(how many people work in the creative field), the High-Tec Index (how

many patents are issued per capita) and the Gay Index (which shows how

open an area is to different kinds of people and ideas."(18) Because

of his very simple and affirmative approach many politicians, city

developers and cultural producers took over his argumentation to claim

the importance of investing into culture. One can guess, what kind of

culture we are talking about, if its main aim is to stir economic

growth: fast consumable, target group oriented, expensive, suitable

for urban marketing.



Conclusion



The cultural self-exploitation of the creative subject on the one side

and the creation of cultural identities that consume cultural products

on the other side seem like two entities of a perpetuum mobile of

economic profit. This is an illusion raised up in a blinded world of

participative consumer happiness that ignores the fact that its wealth

is produced by disenfranchised workers in other parts of the world, of

the country or even of the city. In that other world, cultural

diversity might mean something else than the freedom to choose between

a Vietnamese, Turkish or Chinese restaurant. In that other world

enjoyment in a floating cultural identity doesn't exist, but there

exist nonambiguous identities confined by their social status. The

concept of participation and cultural identity diffuses a potential

critical mass into billions of egos fitted with the right to express

themselves. It conceals the increasing social inequalities in our

societies hit by neoliberal politics and globalized markets downsizing

them to cultural or ethno phenomena that could even pay out if only

promoted on the market in the right way. The discourse about cultural

identity supports the continuation of chauvinist identity politics

that push people into irrational conflicts and hinders a constructive

dialog between all people about how to secure a normal life for

everybody.



(1) Term used by Miško Šuvaković,

http://www.ljudmila.org/scca/platforma2/suvakovicang.htm

(2) Peter V. Zima, 2000, "Theorie des Subjekts", p. 281, referring to

Francoise Gaspard, Sabina Lovibond and Honi Fern Haber.

(3) Hall, 1994, "Alte und neue Identitäten, alte und neue

Ethnizitäten", p. 66-88, nach Linda Supik, 2005, "Dezentrierte

Positionierung, Stuart Halls Konzept der Identitätspolitiken", p.76

(4) Kobena Mercer, 1999, Third Text issue 49, "Ethnicity and

Internationality, New British Art and Diaspora-based Blackness",

published again in "Contemporary Art and Nationalism", Prishtina 2007,

publishers: Minna Henriksson and Sezgin Boynik, pp. 117-118

(5) "However, it is precisely these alternative living and working

conditions that have become increasingly more economically utilizable

in recent years because they favor the flexibility that the labor

market demands. Thus, practices and discourses of social movements in

the past thirty, forty years were not only dissident and directed

against normalization, but also at the same time, a part of the

transformation toward a neoliberal form of governmentality." Isabell

Lorey in "Governmentality and Self-Precarization, On the normalization

of cultural producers", published in: Simon Sheikh (Ed.). CAPITAL (It

Fails Us Now). Berlin: b_books 2006, pp. 117-139

(6) www.agenda21culture.net

(7) European Cultural Foundation, 2007, "Guide to Citizen

Participation in Local Cultural Policy Development for European

Cities", by Jordi Pascula i Ruiz and Sanjin Dragojevic, published by

Interarts Foundation (Barcelona), ECUMEST Association (Bucharest) and

the European Cultural Foundation,

http://www.eurocult.org/uploads/docs/577.pdf

(8) Isabell Lorey in "Governmentality and Self-Precarization"

(9) UNESCO Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at

http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=35024&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

(10) Barrie Axford, Richard Huggins, 1997, "Anti-politics or the

Triumph of Postmodern Populism in Promotional Cultures?", The public,

Vol.4 , 3 5, http://www.javnost-thepublic.org/article/1997/3/1/

"postmodern populism"11.

(11) Piccone, Paul. 1995. Postmodern Populism. Telos 2, 45-87.

(12) European Cultural Foundation, 2007

(13) http://www.kontekstgalerija.org/pdf_08/odstupanje.pdf

(14) TKH, 2006, TKH 11, Self-organisation Issue,

http://www.tkh-generator.net/IMG/pdf/TkH_11.pdf

(15) Re-Reader, 2007, Biro za kulturu i komunikacije Beograd, pp.

66/67, http://birobeograd.info/re-reader.pdf

(16) http://www.wirsindwoanders.de/files_2007/uploads/WSW2_programmheft.pdf

(17) Richard Florida, 2002: "The Rise of the Creative Class. And How

It's Transforming Work, Leisure and Everyday Life"

(18) Richard Florida, 2002, "The Rise of the Creative Class. Why

cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development

race" article published in

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.florida.html.