The financial crisis and the complicity of the creative economy

The future of the creative economy, argues Alf Rehn, lies in a radical departure from conspicuous consumption and the excesses of old to rediscover a world of simpler things and truly sustainable business.

As much as we’d like to ignore it, the fact is that the creative economy has been complicit in the financial crisis. Not so that the creative economy can be blamed for causing it – even though we should ask ourselves whether the ideology of creativity played its part in the development of increasingly fanciful financial instruments – but definitively insofar as that the financial boom did contribute to the development of the field, and very few critical voices were heard when this was occurring. Let’s not kid ourselves, the creative economy loved the investment bankers, the hedge-fund managers, the private equity mavens. They showered the field with cash, and contributed to an unprecedented boom in consumption, one that greatly benefited this field we now see as an alternative to the failures of unsustainable finance.

Consider the art economy. When financial tycoons amassed vast collections, financed art museums and drove up the prices of contemporary art, did artists protest? Did the pundits of the cultural economy? Rarely. We were thrilled, and saw in this credit-funded boom proof positive that there was real value in art, and that this was finally realized even by the bean-counters and bankers. The financial boom made possible Damien Hirst, the rise of Chinese modern art, the flagship art museum. It gave the art economy a huge boost, and the art community lapped it up. Yes, there were some concerned voices, but these were swiftly drowned out by sung praises for fine art hedge funds and never-before-possible shows.

Or consider the rise of the superstar architect. While there has always been stars of architecture, it was a booming market in real estate that made some of the more spectacular works of Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid possible. The enormous possibilities that were generated by now discredited financial wizardry was utilized to the fullest by architects and their friends in the creative economy, and the field cheered as increasingly ostentatious building rose. Here, a concert hall of record-breaking size, there, a cultural center of dazzling splendor. And all was good with the world.

“The boutique-ing of everything ensured that there was a design hotel in every city, chic cafés at which to be seen, and trendy shops to while away the time in. Clearly, this showed the power of the creative economy, the necessity of it? That it was made possible by unsustainably lax credit bothered… no-one.”

And then design… Aah, design. The star performer in the creative economy band. When never-ending lines of credit could be tapped for conspicuous consumption, design was doing grrrrrreat. This was seen as a good thing, a natural thing. Companies the world over saw in design the next big thing, the only true thing. And consumers, wallowing in easy credit, made them proud by splashing out on decor, fancy kitchen equipment and piles of designer jeans. Truly, this was a party that would never stop. The boutique-ing of everything ensured that there was a design hotel in every city, chic cafés at which to be seen, and trendy shops to while away the time in. Clearly, this showed the power of the creative economy, the necessity of it? That it was made possible by unsustainably lax credit bothered… no-one.

“How can design and architecture, which for years have developed in a culture or more-more-more, be rethought for an age of less, even no consumption? Is the art economy able to rethink itself outside of the age of the hedge fund patrons?”

Today, when the creative economy is busy trying to paint itself as an alternative, when the aesthetics of leadership is portrayed as an alternative that might even have saved us from the crash, few comment on the fact that the field was in fact deeply entangled in the financial economy, and that if it is to be an alternative it needs to reconsider its very nature. How can design and architecture, which for years have developed in a culture or more-more-more, be rethought for an age of less, even no consumption? Is the art economy able to rethink itself outside of the age of the hedge fund patrons? If it is to grow up, the creative economy needs to acknowledge the historical fact that much of its development was funded by cheap credit, and consider the moral implications of this. In other words, we desperately need to re-evaluate the moral economy of creativity in order to move on, in order to move beyond.

Re-Evaluating the Big C

What’s creativity really about? For many, creativity seems to be about generating feel-good sentiments, or then creativity simply stands as an icon of what one wants from the world, a power symbol of improvement and progress. In many ways, creativity is tied to our values and what we value. But this is profoundly problematic, as values are always historic, and represent the ways in which we structure and thereby limit our world. Understanding creativity through values thus always shows us only parts of what it can be, and any creative engagement must at least be open to breaking with such a paradigm.

Right now, creativity is tied to notions of a new, morally upstanding economic thinking, one that represents a break with “old economy”. This position has enabled great things, and made it an easy concept to rally around, one that has imbued the field with a lot of energy and a sense of possibility. Unfortunately this has also seen to it that several potential aspects of creativity, such that do not fit into this sanitized paradigm, are excluded. The easy thing to point to here is adult entertainment. As it represents a morally dubious business, it’s quite habitually excluded from all conversations regarding creative business. Still, it doesn’t take too much thought to realize that if we look objectively at it, pornography fulfills all of the criteria we could have on a creative business. The exclusion of it thus represents a critical issue in how we’re to understand the field of creative economy, as it states that there are things we’d rather not consider as proper parts thereof.

But creativity, if it means anything, is a process of breaking with how we look at things, questioning frameworks, extending the way in which we’ve looked at a phenomena. Any notion that implicitly or explicitly would limit this, which would have legitimacy or institutional fit to define creativity, is doomed to fail. Even though we may not be particularly happy about including areas that currently seem unsuitable or illegitimate in our thinking about the creative economy, we must remain aware of what we’re doing when we enact limitations upon it – i.e. that we’re denying the potential of creativity in order to stay true to the efficiency notions of economy. However, this does not necessarily mean that we need to include everything just in order to be on the proverbial safe side. Rather, any serious engagement with the creative economy needs to realize that rather than a specified thing, we’re talking about a process where issues of ethics, values and valorization need to be constantly present, so as not to blind us to the potential of the concept. Thus, not simply offering a new evaluation, but constantly re-evaluating, utilizing forms that do not fit in and which challenge our understandings in order to keep the field alive rather than sterile, dynamic rather than domesticated.

Beyond the Creative Economy

Going beyond the current state of affairs in the creative economy will by necessity involve a very peculiar conundrum, something I’ve called the paradox of creativity. On one level, it is exceptionally important to realize that our notions of the creative economy need to be inclusive, so as not to allow for us to delimit the field according to our aesthetic or valorizing whims, as the field needs to be able to take new things into consideration if it is to be taken seriously. On another level, it is important for the field to fight back totalizing notions, i.e. enact a kind of exclusivity, so as not to fall for the temptation of “everything is creativity, really”. This dual problem, establishing the field as intellectually honest while at the same time seeing to that it remains imbued with meaning, is not a simple one – but critical if we do not want to see the field become hollowed out, made pointless and weak.

“The creative economy can be a shining beacon, but it can only be so if it faces up to its history, and if it starts taking itself seriously rather than just trying to legitimate itself.”

Going beyond the creative economy will be a central issue in the development of novel forms of economic thinking, after the crisis. It will involve developing a way of thinking about the creative economy that does not build on the excesses of old, a creative economy that does not build on conspicuous consumption but rethinking for a world of simpler things, sustainable business, a global economy of less. The creative economy can be a shining beacon, but it can only be so if it faces up to its history, and if it starts taking itself seriously rather than just trying to legitimate itself. If it can do this, if it truly can be creative even about its own assumptions, the field can achieve wondrous things. This may require turning away from the pretty things, the easy arguments, the tried-and-true ways of building legitimacy. But at the same time, this has always been what creativity has been good at – creating friction, raising uncomfortable questions, raising a little hell. The question is: Does the community now forming around the notion of a “creative economy” dare to actually be creative about it all?

This article is based on a keynote lecture delivered at the first Creative Economy and Beyond-conference in Helsinki, Finland on September 12^th 2009.

Professor Alf Rehn has a chair of management and organization, an opinionated mind, and a tendency to develop an interest in odd things. As an expert in creativity, innovation and strategy, he works as both an academic and as a frequent speaker at corporate events, and is known for his unorthodox approaches. He is also a devoted fan of coffee, Ethel Merman and the divine Patsy Cline. For more information please see:

http://www.alfrehn.com and/or http://www.twitter.com/alfrehn

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