The recent conference at the Open University, The Future of Cultural Work inspired much debate and discussion amongst delegates and touched on many pertinent issues for my PhD research into cultural entrepreneurship and education policy. With many strands including capitalism and work, precarious labour, working in television and inclusion & exclusion, it offered a variety of perspectives and provocations in relation to cultural work and cultural labour. Not only were the themes appropriate to my research, but many key academics on the subject presented and attended the conference – I must admit to being a little start-struck! McGuigan talked of the relationship between capitalism and cultural work, the subject of a forthcoming paper in the International Journal for Cultural Policy and of his book Cool Capitalism discussed in previous blog posts. Hesmondhalgh and Gregg kicked us off with two provocations on the future(s) of cultural work highlighting the pitfalls and issues associated with working in the cultural, media and creative industries. Hesmondhalgh presented the idea that on the one hand cultural studies has been very critical of recent cultural policy and of the implications for culture and those working in the sector, while on the other hand there is an over optimistic (near evangelical) promotion of creativity and the benefits of working in the sector. He suggested that instead of treating cultural workers as a ‘special’  case, that they in fact have more in common with all workers in terms of needing to explore their rights and conditions of work. He talked of  unions as a potential solution, recognising the problems with unionising freelancers and the current strength of personal networks which in many ways act as a support system but without the official power of an organised group such as a formal union.

In her provocation, Gregg highlighted the relationship between love and work, in terms of the language used to describe the ideal job and a very middle class aspiration and aestheticization of the experience of work. A simple  Blackberry advert demonstrated this perfectly; All you need is love. To further illustrate her point, Gregg referred to Steve Jobs and the language of love he expresses. This, along with our own implicit contribution to competitivess at work, and to the use of tools to make our own work and life balance increasingly blurred was contrasted with the recent suicides at the chinese factory, Foxconn which manufactures iPhones.

Of the many other interesting papers, I would like to highlight an ongoing research project by Daniel Ashton at Bath University, with media students who are making use of an incubation space rather than an ordinary class room. Ashton discussed how students described the space as more professional and how they were engaged in ‘performing’ the process of becoming a cultural worker. This process is aimed at getting students ‘industry ready’, clearly a concept which caused much concern amongst the delegates, but which for me, working within a vocational university, is a key objective whether I like it or not. The question for me is not to be critical of students, parents and others who want students to be better prepared for work (self employment or as an employee), but how to balance that while still encouraging students to be critical and independent thinkers. Despite the entrepreneurial nature of the students he researched, Ashton suggested that they demonstrated ethical concerns in wanting to set up social enterprises relating to their cultural work. A common aspiration for my students and something which did not seem to be a contradiction in my experience.

Finally, some of the other points raised:

• Do we need to rethink the notion of self-exploitation in cultural workers?
• How does networking actually work in all the different contexts & subsectors?
• What are the implications for education?
• Should we be more explicit about the idea of failure (which might not be failures) in the cultural industries as opposed to encouraging the celebrity status of a few workers?
• Do we ignore class and the importance of social capital?
• Is the celebration of autonomy and independence associated with cultural workers a paradox?
• Would it be helpful in research to take a sociological and more general view of cultural work?
• Is there a lack of interest and awareness of issues of diversity in research of the cultural sector and workforce?
• Rather than ‘Living on Thin Air’ are we Living on a Contradiction?

During my recent trip to Oslo I kept bumping into Paal Shervan, formerly of Norway’s By:Larm Festival and now working on the Schous Cultural Brewery project. A Cultural Brewery sounds slightly odd, but really it’s no stranger than our creative industries living in a Custard Factory. The Cultural Brewery is a redevelopment project that is turning a disused brewery into a world class centre for popular music education and culture. I was quite taken with this parallel between our two cities, but I had something much more important to talk to Paal about: that was our mutual interest in developing popular music archives.

The Cultural Brewery has at its centre a popular music heritage centre, and this has a spin off presence online. Paal’s take on the project is slightly different to that taken by the teams at the Birmingham Popular Music Archive and the Home of Metal, and this led us to discuss how technology fits into this picture, and how he has been successful in securing funding and support from the “suits’ that run Oslo. I recorded our discussion which is to be published as our next podcast episodes. The DogA (pictured) where we recorded it was a very busy that day, so the recording quality is a little raw, but the discussion should still be useful to those with an interest in social media, popular music, and archiving projects as well as those with an interest in urban regeneration projects.

You can read more about the Cultural Brewery, By:Larm and Oslo’s cultural scene at the Oslo Technipol website.

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One of yesterday’s speakers at the kick off event for Creative Metropoles was the Chief Town Planner for Oslo, Ellen S. de Vibe. In her presentation she had a lot to say about how town planning can create an environment to encourage creative industries, and help the city to learn value its creative industries. I was fortunate enough to be sat next to her at the dinner in the evening, and she explained a little more to me about here idea that cities needs to surprise their citizens and visitors, to ecnourage exploration of the space.

What is interesting about this is if we relate to some of the current thinking about Birmingham and how it should organise itself and its creative industries. For example Stef Lewandowski‘s ambient creativity audit suggested that we need to sign post where creativity happens in the city, so that people can find it. There’s criticism here not of the annexation of creativity to East Side but of the fact that it doesn’t link invitingly to the main districts of the city. This chain of thought might lead us to think in terms of regenerating and re-landscaping the city end of Digbeth so that city visitors are drawn towards the creative hub.

Looking at this from Ellen’s perspective, maybe what we have already is correct? Maybe it should be a “surprise” to find the Custard Factory, The Bond, and Fazeley Studios? Because afterall, as Stef points out:

(it seems) Digbeth must only be for the locals, so I turned back. I mean – I should have taken the hint what with all the stop signs, and even sets of signposts that just point back into the city centre. This isn’t a place you’re supposed to go, right?

Perhaps then the Custard Factory should be the reward, the surprise, for venturing beyond the Bull Ring?

Another way of looking at this was suggested today at Kreative Oslo during a panel discussion on “Creative City Districts”. Here the delegate from Berlin suggested that their success in creating creative districts has come from “unplanned planning”: essentially giving some space for creativity, and letting the creatives organise themselves in a way that suits them.

A final point here, and coming back to the presentation by Ellen S. de Vibe is that if creative districts want the rest of the city to join them in their spaces, then it’s not enough to just be there: you need to give them something so they will find you. Events such as Supersonic seem to lead the way here in bringing attention to creativity in Birmingham, by bringing not just the normal Custard Factory crowd but local, national and international tourism to Digbeth.

As a group we struggled for a definition. The closest thing to an agreement that we came to looked very much like the DCMS definition of the industry but this was for from a complete picture. In some partner states “creative” industry is described as “experience” industry. In some partner states, the definition includes the sub-sector “meals”. As the meeting developed, the word “cultural” even became ejected from our definition of the Creative and Cultural Industries as it will pertain to this project. I did find all this rather odd. Reassuringly, as a group we hope that the process of this research (which will take place over the next three years) might lead to more consensus on the terms, and perhaps even an EU definition of “creative industry”.

With the definition up for grabs, I asked my Twitter network what they thought was meant by “creative industries”. Their answers didn’t surprise me, but do provide useful starting points for the discussion:

podnosh@jonhickman I’m think that if you can’t create something then you don’t have an industry. So all viable industry is creative.

bounder@jonhickman um “people who work at making stuff the value of which is subjectively judged”

MichelleBrogan@jonhickman an industry which uses art (in all its forms) to communicate with society

BhamRecycled@jonhickman You made me dig out my notes. One of them say: ‘Intellectual property to commodity’ which I guess is quite broad…

bounder@jonhickman i bet someone’s tried it from the other way? define what isn’t and work inwards? eg printing isn’t, print design is…?

A further side conversation developed, regarding whether or not practitioners in Social Media see themselves as part of a “creative industry” sector:

podnosh@jonhickman I don’t especially. Sectors exist so the government can organise taxing and spending, not so we can have somewhere to be.

bounder@jonhickman no, nor IT, nor industries in general – soc med is quite naturally opposed to “industries”, it’s ‘people’ where-ever they may be

peteashton@jonhickman re creative industries. I feel part of them but only when I work with people in that area. CiB, Metapod, Custard Fact, etc.

What do you think? What’s your definition of creative (and cultural) industries? How important is the word “cultural” to this understanding? How can we seperate cultural from creative industry? Should we? Are you a member of the creative industry: and if so, how do you know that you are?