[ecrea] CALL FOR PAPERS: The Industrialization of Creativity and its Limits: Value, Self-expression and the Economy of Culture in Times of Crisis

CALL FOR PAPERS


International conference, Saint Petersburg, 23-24 June 2017


The Industrialization of Creativity and its Limits: Value,
Self-expression and the Economy of Culture in Times of Crisis



National Research University Higher School of Economics
(St. Petersburg Branch and Faculty of Communication, Media and Design, 
Moscow)



If the 2000s could be called a creative decade in terms of policy
directives, urban development, educative reforms and the hopes placed
on culture to transform both the economy and our daily lives, then in
the 2010s this enthusiasm seems to be largely stagnating as a result
of the global economic crisis and its social and political
consequences. In policy-orientated engagements, creativity is usually
connected with broader aspirations of economic growth in societies
engaging with a turn towards the so called post-industrial paradigm.
In turn, the feverous engagements of the 2000s with term creativity
and its offshoots, such as ‘creative class’ and ‘creative labour’, in
critical academic discourse brought to the fore the ideological
substratum of calls to industrialize creativity as well as
possibilities to perceive it outside of an explicitly market-oriented
framework. Here, the term creativity loosely refers to those
activities taking place under the label of visual arts, music, design,
film and performance, and which primarily aim and are evaluated in
their capacity to produce forms of affect and social meaning.

In this context, we observed the huge transformation of the media
market and the economy of cultural and communication industries. The
rise of social media, search and aggregators markets, omnipresence of
mobile devices and active prosumerism are considerably changing the
business models of media companies and cultural industries, creating
new industrial chains. Such changes are considered either as
empowering to consumers (obtaining more power than in the classic
model of vertical mass communication) or as new forms of capitalist
exploitation.

This conference seeks to turn light to the current condition in which
the dreams that creative economy bolstered are largely questioned
(even by policy makers) while the modes of subjectivation and
lifestyles that it activated remain still. This is the conflict of a
larger (geo) political disturbance versus the emergence of a creative
lifestyle of fashion, selfie-culture, DIY experimentation, slow and
organic food movements and digital intimacies. This contrast predicts
a creative lifestyle in limbo, where the promise of self-expression is
put at stake by the expectation of precarious futures. Furthermore,
while particular forms of self-expression (digital publishing, health,
gastronomy and tourism mediatisation etc.) give birth to new
technologies, devices and forms of content production, the media and
communication industries seem less sufficient to find mature business
models for them. To gauge the political economy of creativity in
relation to the current situation we propose to explore the shifts and
transformations of the creative imaginary, practices and business
models taking shape as a result of the crisis.

We seek contributions addressing issues related to the economic,
political and socio-cultural dimensions of creativity and encourage a
variety of approaches on the matter.



Proposed topics include the following:



·         Creativity and class

·         Peer production, cinema and music

·         Media piracy

·         Self-media production and social media practices

·         Creativity and grassroots activism

·         Fashion and lifestyle cultures

·         DIY cultures and self-fashioning

·         Gender and ethnicity in the creative industries

·         Crisis, austerity and creativity

·         Big data, reflexive branding, marketing

·         Governmentality of creativity

·         Slow food cultures

·         Urban regeneration


Expected keynote speakers of the conference:

·         David Hesmondhalgh, Professor of University of Leeds, UK

·         Bernard Miege, Professor Emeritus University Grenoble Alpes, 
France

·         Angela McRobbie, Professor of Goldsmiths, University of London, UK



The conference is organized within the framework of the four-day
festival ‘Creativity, Innovation and the City’ in which producers from
the local creative industries will present projects ranging from
creative spaces to gastronomy. During the festival students from HSE
will exhibit creative works in the fields of media, design and
fashion. We invite all participants of the conference to take part in
these festival events that would include on-site visits to creative
spaces and assessment of projects and students’ works.



Paper Submission:

Submissions should include the name (s) and institutional affiliations
of the applicant (s), email address and abstracts no longer than 500
words (including references) in English or in Russian.

Abstracts must be submitted before January 15, 2017 at:
(creativityanditslimits /at/ gmail.com)

Participants will be notified about acceptance by February 28, 2017.

Full papers must be in English and submitted before June 1, 2017.



For any further information, please contact us at:
(creativityanditslimits /at/ gmail.com)

Key Dates:

Deadline for abstract submission: January 15, 2017

Notification of abstract acceptance: February 28, 2017

Deadline for full papers submission: June 1, 2017

Start of registration: May 15, 2017

Conference: June 23-24, 2017





Organizing committee:

Ilya Kiriya, Professor of Media Department, Chair of Media Department
at National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)
(chair)

Valery Gordin, Professor National Research University Higher School of
Economics and Head of the Laboratory of Economy of Culture (Saint
Petersburg)

Yiannis Mylonas, Ass. Professor of Media, National Research University
Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

Panos Kompatsiaris, Ass. Professor of Art and Media, National Research
University Higher School of Economics (Moscow)

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