The first issue of Critical Contemporary Culture asks a number of questions focused around the concept ‘novelty ‘: Are we obsessed by novelty? Is newness at the heart of today’s over consumption and hyper-individualisation? Is novelty creative and resistant? Is novelty a means of movement beyond ontological, disciplinary and institutional boundaries, towards more radical forms of thinking and being? The contributors to this edition respond to these provocations in different ways.

Michael Hardman’s paper looks at synthetic grass. It introduces us to the marketised production of novelty as falsity in the urban environment. He is concerned with how synthetics replace, and literally suppress, nature through the demand for short-term durability, year-round use, the fallacy of low-maintenance, the perfect-cut, and cleanliness in school environments. He highlights how these are at odds with a need to engage with nature and with the environmental realities of global living. As he states: “1861 trees [would be] needed to achieve a 10-year carbon-neutral synthetic turf installation on a 9,000m² surface”. Hardman asks whether synthetic grass is a fleeting fancy, an unsustainable novelty, or whether it is part of a longer trend to syntheticise the urban environment in the name of convenience.

Panos Kompatsiaris’s paper on ‘Novelty and the politicization of the creative field’ shifts the focus from the rationale for fake nature to an exploration of the creative economy’s reliance on novelty as originality and newness – qualities that provide advantage in the marketplace. Kompatsiaris explores how creative economy rhetoric, evident in the marketing for Windows 7 ‘I’m a PC’ series, exploits the creative and innovative capacity of audiences for competitive ends. As Kompatsiaris points out, tricked into feeling creative by these marketing tools, our critical creativity and therefore our emancipatory potential dwindles. The second part of the paper explores how novelty and creativity can be emancipatory.

Running through the edition are a series of satirical adverts on the pharmaceutical industry that communicate similar themes. In these adverts, Lisa Erdman draws attention to the compatibility of aspirational and market-driven living with conservative social thought. She explores how novel futures are medicalised through cures for premarital sex, shopping deficiencies, ethnic confusion, homosexuality, a lack of faith, and an absence of patriotism. Interspersed through the edition, these adverts also draw attention to CCC’s discomfort with its own role in the marketing of creativity.

Kenzie Burchell’s short video, ‘My Words’ responds to Kompatsiaris and Erdman’s work by showing how people’s use of technology, in this case the personalised dictionary of a mobile phone, moves beyond pre-programmed language constraints. Burchell is also concerned with how this form of novelty is an engagement with social memory. As mobile phone users read their personalised dictionary aloud for the first time, they engage with the past moments in which this creativity occurred, at the same time as they see their works together for the first time.

The final two pieces in this edition offer different ways to think of novelty as freedom. Gry Worre Hallberg and Anna Lawaetz create the Sisters Hope, a fictional pedagogical world that invites participants to activate and understand their liberated poetic selves. However, they also invite caution: who are the guides to this freedom and under what conditions does the poetical self, as a fictional world, mirror the everyday life it seeks liberation from?

Julia Edthofer’s emancipatory terrain is concrete not fictional taking the fantasy of the Sisters to ground. Edthofer engages with the novelty of radical democracy. She places the contemporary Vienna protest movements in their historical contexts. Using specific cases, Edthofer explores the movements’ changing internal politics and their local-transnational character. She argues that while urban protest is taking on novel forms, the right to protest is still racially coded. In contemporary Vienna some have more Right to the City of protest than others.

Together these works explore syntheticisation and falsity in contemporary urban living, emancipation, freedom and the selling of creativity. If the contemporary moment is characterised by the marketisation and restriction of freedom for some more than others, what novelty is and how it is used politically and analytically is of continued importance.

Brief Summary

This paper focuses on the larger transformation of green space, in particular the use of artificial grass in Birmingham’s inner-city primary schools. The paper uses a combination of observation and informal interviews to explore the artificial grasses’ impact along with its novelty value in a school setting. The article draws on literature relating to novelty in order to investigate whether this product could potentially be used in other schools and thus have an impact on more environments. The paper concludes by looking at the future and what needs researching in relation to artificial grass use in a school environment.

Artificial Nature

Artificial grass has been around for many years and has come a long way since the early ‘all-weather’ Astroturf pitches found at the local council-owned leisure centre (Permagrass, 2010). Artificial grass is now easily available, even large hardware stores now supply the carpet-like material. Synthetic grass companies make clear that households, offices and even schools are increasingly transforming their landscapes into synthetic carpets (Lazy Lawn, 2007). One may wonder why a person would want to get rid of their lawn; why they would want to lose that fresh grass smell in the summer or erase that feeling of accomplishment you receive when eventually getting the grass lines straight. According to the companies that supply artificial grass, the answer is apparently simple, ‘100 % Lawn, 0% Hassle’ (Lazy Lawn, 2007).
Maintaining a natural lawn takes much time and effort. Cross (1997) explains that in the mid 1990s, suburban dwellers would spend whole weekends cultivating their gardens, attempting to beat their neighbours. The lawn often formed the centrepiece of this competition, straight lines were vital, and the colour had to be right along with the length of the grass blades. Imagine if these suburban dwellers were suddenly told that all of this could be possible with no effort whatsoever. Artificial grass is self maintaining; it requires no cutting, the colour remains vibrant and the grass blades are the perfect length.

Figure 1: Artificial Grass samples acquired by the researcher.

The varieties of artificial grass available to consumers’ now seems almost endless, there is a choice of almost any colour, shade and texture. For example, ‘Lazy Lawn’ suppliers of the products pictured in figure one, have numerous ranges themselves. These include several sent to the researcher: the ‘Lazy Supreme Range’, ‘Lazy Summer Range’, ‘Lazy Grass Emerald’, ‘Lazy Spring’, ‘Grass Park’, ‘Nylon Pro’ and many more are offered on their website (Lazy Lawn, 2007).
Synthetic grass sounds too good to be true, and to an extent it is. Its grass types vary but tend to be constructed from a mixture of polyethylene and other materials, such as rubber (Synthetic Grasses, 2009). Companies avoid the ‘environmentally friendly’ issue altogether, with few explaining exactly what goes into their product and the nature and extent of its impact on the environment. Thus far there has been no comprehensive study on the sustainability of artificial grass, little is known about its carbon footprint and general impact on local habitat, nor on the scale of use of this product.
Meil and Bushi (2006) studied a North American school which had replaced its natural grass playing field with an artificial sports pitch. The school wanted to offset the greenhouse emissions related to the life cycle [10 years] of the synthetic grass (raw material, transport, use and maintenance and disposal) by planting trees, and commissioned the study to see how many trees would need to be planted. Employing a quantitative approach, the authors decided that 1861 trees were needed to achieve a 10-year carbon-neutral synthetic turf installation on a 9,000m² surface (Meil and Bushi, 2006). In essence the authors declared that a small forest was needed to offset the synthetic turf’s life cycle.
Synthetic grass producers tend to promote the positives, and there is little to no mention of sustainability in relation to their product. The companies emphasise the lack-of-maintenance benefits that come with the product; promoting the idea that lawn mowers will become obsolete if their synthetic grass is purchased. A rather extreme example is that of As Good As Grass (2007), which encourages potential customers to burn their lawn mowers and send in pictures to their online blog, in return for a crisp £20 note. These radical promotion offers show how artificial grass companies are seeking to expand and persuade people to use their product. Profit appears to be the driving factor, with many companies franchising out their material in order to receive more orders (EverGreens UK, 2011).
The synthetic turf organisations are using other novel means of advertising their product. Some franchises use smart cars converted into a moving synthetic lawn to raise awareness of their brand (As Good As Grass, 2008). ‘As Good As Grass’ linked up with Great North-Western Railway and coated Newcastle Central Station with the artificial material, in an attempt to promote environmental awareness (BBC News, 2007). Companies are increasingly targeting small DIY stores, businesses (bars, sports venues etc.), large conferences and even public schools with their synthetic grass products (EverGreens UK, 2010).

Schools, Artificial Turf and Novelty

This paper explores a particular school’s experience with the turf. In particular the paper investigates whether the product has been successful and if this school would see other educational establishments purchasing synthetic grass. The paper therefore had two explicit aims:
• to investigate the school’s experience with the artificial grass; and,
• to explore the future of artificial grass use in a school environment.
Primarily, two lenses are used in an attempt to fulfil these aims: the artificial grasses impact on a specific school’s environment and the notion of novelty. The two are inexplicitly linked since one could argue that any greater use of the material would have impacts on the already ‘green-deprived’ Birmingham inner-city environment (Sixty Nine Degrees, 2010). If, for example, this study shows that artificial grass has had a damaging effect on the school’s environment, any wider adoption of this innovation would be problematic.
This section begins by exploring the impact artificial grass is already having on an environment, specifically an environment that plays an important role in our early childhood development. Primary school grounds are one of the first places that introduce people to the natural world; they are often the first place where we engage with nature (Wild Islington, 2009). Schools also help to maintain and develop spaces of biodiversity in areas that are perhaps lacking in these qualities (Wild about Manchester, 2005). Unfortunately ‘natural nature’ has its drawbacks; at the mercy of the elements a particularly boggy day could result in children having to stay indoors. Contemporary concerns over children’s safety require play areas that are accessible, safer and have lower maintenance costs.
Artificial grass would have the added value of all-year-round use even after heavy downpours. This would meet not just the needs of the children but government targets of outdoor and physical education in schools. Although the initial investment may be high, schools could be saving money in the long term. Low maintenance means that employees who usually take care of the grass can be diverted to more pressing jobs, whilst the artificial grass practically takes care of itself. It appears that artificial grass does everything that ‘natural’ grass cannot; it ensures that children are safe while playing, the grass is always accessible and maintenance costs are cut.
“Artificial grass is being used by an increasing number of schools and for a range of uses: outdoor general play areas, sports fields, pitches and some indoor facilities. Many schools have installed a multi use games area with an artificial grass surface.”
(Artificial Grass Ltd, undated)
In contrast to this statement, of the 298 primary schools in the Birmingham area (Birmingham Grid for Learning, 2010) only four establishments have artificial grass within their grounds . The researcher relied on testimonies held on synthetic grass company websites, school websites and the Local Education Authority’s (LEA) knowledge to determine which educational establishments had the material.
In particular it explores whether this is the way forward for the modern educational establishment and if more schools might install the product or whether the synthetic material is merely a novel idea that will soon become outdated. Novelty is often something that is viewed as an exception and a little out of the ordinary (Crosby, 2005). Taking into account Crosby’s definition of novelty, and since roughly only 1% of the city’s junior schools currently use the synthetic surface, one may argue that this use of artificial grass in Birmingham’s primary schools is thus far novel.
What is not known is whether this material will be used in such a small scale in the future. Synthetic grass companies realise that profits cannot be made from novelty alone. A creative product needs to combine novelty and usefulness (Paletz and Peng, 2008) to have any chance of being successful. One may wonder, if evidence shows artificial grass is having a negative impact on a school environment, would any push by artificial grass companies to mainstream their material pose a risk to Birmingham’s inner-city environment.
In order to understand whether artificial grass had a future in school grounds, it was necessary to liaise with the schools in the Birmingham area who currently have the material within their grounds. One school was approached and agreed to allow the researcher to explore their use of the artificial grass. Following a short explanation of the research, the school’s head requested that information provided (including the school’s name and location) would be kept confidential. In order to comply with the school’s requests, for the remainder of this article the head teacher will be referred to as ‘Brenda’.

The Inner City Primary School

The school is located in central Birmingham and has approximately 210 children split between seven classes. The school site covers approximately half an acre and in its original format included a tarmac play area along with a few trees. The artificial turf was installed three years ago by a local company that specialises in providing synthetic grass adapted for use in schools. Adaptations included extra safety features (cushioning) and play areas.
The synthetic grass mainly covers the area where the previous tarmac play area was laid and thus did not replace too much ‘natural nature’. This original play surface suffered from cracks and other safety problems thus the head teacher took action to rectify this (Brenda, 2010a). During an initial visit to the site, the head teacher explained that the artificial grass allowed the children to play outside in conditions that the tarmac would not permit. The tarmac would often crack in extreme weather conditions, creating trip hazards and other dangerous obstacles for children. If a child falls on the synthetic surface, he/she is a lot less likely to end up with an injury, whereas with the tarmac children were often hurt (Brenda, 2010a).

Figure .2                                                          Figure. 3

Figure two shows how synthetic turf varies in colour, vivid orange, blue and yellow making up the main playground whilst figure three illustrates a green grass shade used in other areas. During the informal discussion, Brenda explains that the colour combinations were decided prior to the surface being installed, through consultation with the company managing the project. With embedded chess boards and other printed play features, the consultation process has made the grass design truly unique to the school.

During the school visit, the head teacher explained that the artificial grass is used for a variety of functions, from sports events to team building games; the area is always in use. The head teacher continued by describing the ’10 year guarantee’ which ensures the synthetic grass colour will be maintained for that duration along with the embedded play features. During the informal discussion, the head teacher attempts to convey the idea that the artificial grass is there for the long term as opposed to just few years.

Figure 4: A detail of the synthetic surface.

Figure four shows the length of the artificial grass. In this case the school has opted for a padded astro turf look, presumably because this would also allow sports to take place on the surface. The head teacher also explained that this surface was easy to maintain, a simple brush could complete the job. The only drawback appeared to be the constant sand that rose to the surface. The sand acted as a subsurface for the artificial grass. Much of the maintenance included cleaning the sand from the top of the synthetic material. Nevertheless, the head teacher explained that the caretaker’s responsibilities for the school grounds had dramatically dropped since the installation of the synthetic surface.

Figure 5: The wooded area towards the end of the main synthetic turf area.

Not all of the school’s grounds are covered with the synthetic material. The school has actively tried to maintain some sort of ‘natural nature’ in its ground. Figure five shows how towards the end of the main area of artificial grass a wooded area has been preserved for the children. This wooded area is used for bug catches, picnics and to generally educate the children more about wildlife. Complementing the wooded area is a set of raised grow beds located nearby. These are used for after school clubs and teaching children more about where their food comes from.
After walking around the school’s grounds, it becomes apparent that ‘natural nature’ only exists in designated areas. Weeds cannot penetrate the several layers that make up the synthetic surface (figure two and four); the wooded and raised bed areas are set aside from the playground (figure five) whilst even the randomly sprouting trees are kept in neat tidy boxes (figure three).
Following the observation, Brenda admits that it has not been all ‘plain sailing’ with the product. Brenda explains that usually after large downpours, the artificial grass slumps with some maintenance implications. This slumping occurs in the centre circle of the blue surface (visible on figure two). Occasionally this area has to be cornered off, but it never interrupts a child’s play time.

The observation and informal discussion with the head teacher showed that the project team has managed to successfully combine originality with functionality. The artificial grass company has tailored the product to suit the customer. The synthetic surface company has realised that, as Paletz and Peng (2008) suggested, usefulness needs to be combined with uniqueness for a creative product to work. In this case the synthetic grass providers have used a consultation process to make the synthetic surface exclusive to the customer, whilst simultaneously ensuring that it meets the rigorous needs of the school in terms of safety, accessibility and durability.
There are several other design features of the artificial turf that are unique to the school. The school identified the need to retain the trees in the play areas (Brenda, 2010b). Figure three shows how the synthetic grass company has incorporated the trees into the landscape. The result is a strange juxtaposition between natural and unnatural, with tree roots surfacing then disappearing underneath the man-made synthetic surface. Careful evaluation of figure three reveals how the artificial grass company boxed in the trees and, in essence, controlled their development.
The control of nature is evident across the school ground. As discussed earlier, figure five shows only one of two areas where ‘natural nature’ is still preserved. One could argue that preserving nature on the periphery of the artificial grass typifies the much commented on urban human-nature relationship. This relationship usually involves humans transforming nature (Pepper, 1993); refashioning, regulating and denaturalising nature to suit human needs. In this case the need is to conserve wild spaces in order to educate inner city children about the natural environment.
It is evident that Brenda loathes the original tarmac surface. This could be due to nature being difficult to control. Tarmac, unlike the synthetic surface, is renowned for letting the occasional tree root or weed sprout out of its cracks. Edensor (2005) describes how some urban dwellers fear losing control of nature and with this in mind it almost seems as if the school’ extreme level of control is intended to keep the children safe from the threats of nature. One could argue that the school fears nature and feral nature’s ability to potentially injure their pupils. The artificial grass allows the school to control this fear and quell any worries the school may have.
The findings section provides clear evidence that the artificial grass is the centre piece of the school grounds. ‘Natural nature’ has to settle for second best, fitting in between and around the edges of the synthetic surface. The artificial grass is vital to the everyday running of the school as sports, play time and the occasional special event (e.g. sports day) take place on the synthetic material. The company that installed the synthetic surface clearly understood that children would interact with it on a daily basis and thus engineered the product around them. Changes included making sure the artificial blades were short, so that children cannot eat them, and adding extra padding for when pupils fell.
Nature is woven into the fabric of everyday life; inert yet simultaneously necessary to our continual existence (Soper, 1995). The school realises this and understands that regardless of the benefits that come with artificial grass, there is a great need to conserve spaces of ‘natural nature’, after all the head teacher explains that ‘it’s an important process in our earlier development’. As Meil and Bushi (2006) tried to offset the carbon footprint of an artificial turf pitch, the school has attempted to make up for the decision to install a synthetic surface by securing these spaces of relatively untamed nature.
Thus far the impact on the school’s environment appears quite positive. The artificial turf has mainly covered an area that has not harboured natural life for numerous years. The supplier and school appear to have simultaneously ensured that the children do not lose their connection with the natural environment by maintaining spots of ‘wild nature’. In this school the artificial grass has acted as a control mechanism, keeping untamed nature at bay and allowing the school to manage the natural environment further.
What is also evident is the uniqueness of this particular surface. Although the artificial grass could be laid in other schools, this observation suggests that companies would need to tailor the product to suit the client (length of grass, colour, membrane used etc). The design of the grass would therefore remain novel and it would be impossible to duplicate this specific aspect in another school. However, what is not impossible would be for this company to create another ‘unique’ fake surface with the same material at a different school. Whilst the design and implementation remains creative, there is nothing stopping the product itself being reproduced in other schools in Birmingham’s inner-city.
Novelty, is and therefore will forever, be embedded in the design as opposed to the components being used. There is still the reality that artificial grass could be used more extensively in Birmingham’s primary schools. Since this particular school has had a pleasant experience with the material, others may follow suit; attempting to keep pace with government targets and keeping children safe.
“I think most schools use artificial turf to change their playing surface which is almost always tarmac or concrete. Schools would not get the permission to cover their grass areas with artificial grass as we are bound by such organisations as Sport England etc.”

(Brenda, 2010a)
Brenda initially attempts to play down the idea that schools may one day change their natural grass areas for this artificial alternative. She uses the example of ‘Sport England’ – who has a ‘statutory role in protecting playing fields’ (Sport England, undated), presumably meaning that physical education funding would be withdrawn if a natural grass area did not exist. Ironically Brenda’s school now has no grass area where the children can play sports; any physical activity takes place on the synthetic surface. Through informal discussion during the site visit Brenda makes it clear that the surface should only be considered to replace old play areas that no longer meet the requirements of modern schooling. Brenda is adamant that schools will not be able to transform all of their natural landscape in favour of the synthetic product, although she admits that schools may increasingly turn to the surface to replace their tarmac play grounds.
Not all of the discussion with Brenda is positive. The artificial grass has had problems following a heavy downpour. Brenda described how water holds in the centre of the synthetic surface; she feels that the membrane has shifted slightly. There is a danger here that the artificial grass product is not living up to expectations, which could potentially prove fatal to the company providing the material.
There are other disadvantages that are not completely visible during this case study. Caves (2000) for example, explains that the main driving factor behind artificial grass use in schools – novelty – is often exhausted. Even if the synthetic surface is successful, there is a danger that like all novelty products it could lose its originality. In this instance the sheer number of companies offering the artificial turf could result in the market becoming saturated. There are many other risks; one that could damage the product, for example, may be a smaller DIY store installing the grass incorrectly. If an installation was flawed and not completed to the correct standards, this might have a detrimental effect on the product as a whole.
In this case study it appears the novelty value of synthetic grass has far outweighed the benefits of installing a natural grass play area or another tarmac surface. Taura and Nagai (2010) explain that novelty is an essential part of creativity, along with value, quality and surprise. Based on this definition of creativity, one could argue that the use of artificial grass in schools is creative; the synthetic surface solves most of the school’s problems in an innovative way.
This school evidently had problems with its original tarmac surface but, unlike the artificial surface, none of these was unique. The majority of the problems, such as pupils being injured on the surface or the inability to play sports in bad weather, can be found at almost all primary schools with a tarmac surface (Tiger Turf, 2010). Brenda eventually suggested that she expects other schools to follow suit and change their hard tarmac surface for this artificial alternative. If Brenda’s views are correct and synthetic grass companies target more schools, we could increasingly see tarmac or even natural grass play grounds being transformed into synthetic carpets.

Conclusion

This paper merely brushes the surface of artificial grass use within inner-city schools. The case study used in this paper brings to light the success of artificial grass in a school environment. The product’s usefulness, quality and novel value prove that thus far the synthetic surface has the making of ‘creative design that is creative’ (Taura and Nagai, 2010: 43). On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that if the product is more widely distributed and installed incorrectly, artificial grass may be ignored and refused by the schooling system.
It is evident from the background research and discussion with Brenda that, thus far, there are a small number of schools in Birmingham who have adopted the material. This study therefore shows that the use of artificial grass in Birmingham’s inner-city schools is, up to now, novel. However, this paper also reveals that the benefits of having artificial turf installed could appeal to other schools in the area. The potential exists for artificial grass to move from being a novel item to that of a mainstream product.
This case study highlights the worry that schools may favour safety over the natural environment. As with Brenda’s school, although the majority of the surface they replaced was tarmac, nature clearly came second in the ‘pecking order’. If artificial grass was to be used more in Birmingham’s inner-city schools, one may wonder if this would be repeated; wild nature pushed to the periphery whilst the plastic material forms the centrepiece of the playground.
Extensive research is needed to evaluate the impact an artificial landscape could have on early childhood development. In particular there is a need for a study that focuses on city dwelling children who are already starved of ‘natural nature’. In the modern society we live in, artificial grass would clearly be favoured by parents who want to know that their children are completely safe whilst at school. The big question is whether other synthetic surfaces will eventually become part of the everyday in our schools, or will the man-made material continue to be a novel item?

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Panos Kompatsiaris, Ph.D. candidate in Visual Culture

University of Edinburgh

Abstract

This article examines the ways that novelty can operate as an emancipatory thrust within the creative field today. ­­­­For this purpose, it first discusses how novelty is understood by creative economy rhetoric and demonstrates the ways that this understanding is incorporated in the actual production of works associated with the field. Whereas creative economy increasingly embraces the ‘poetics of the open work’ and recognizes the creative capacities of the audiences, it regards innovation as a quality that principally advances forms of competitive advantage. This emphasis on ‘openness’ often comes to mask the twofold exploitation of the audience- based labour and the (self-) exploitation of the creative worker. It will be argued that within the creative field today, novelty can operate as a force of emancipation only when it is articulated within emancipatory frameworks of respective value systems.

Keywords: creativity, creative industries, creative economy, novelty, exploitation, neo-liberalism, open work, emancipation

Introduction

Novelty, the quality of being new and original in respect to the past, is perhaps one of the most crucial aspects of today’s cultural and economic life. New models of economic development, such as that of creative economy, hold agendas awash with exalting remarks on the transformative capacities of novelty. No mode of ‘creative development’ can take place without the prime power of innovation, which tends to replace the obsolete and superannuated with the fresh and new (UN, 2008; 2010; Landry, 2000).

Novelty though, is not a neutral, self-validating concept. Something is called ‘novel’ only in reference to the value systems that are able to legitimize it as such. In the case of creative economy, novelty tends to be generally understood as a practice that has the capacity to generate forms of competitive advantage for products, cities or organizations (Florida, 2004; Hartley, 2006). At odds with earlier forms of cultural economies that had little trust in receiver’s participation though, creative economy – in a postmodern twist- tends to legitimize novelty by taking into consideration the transformative skills of the audiences. While novelty and creativity are still conceived as unique acts of gifted individuals, they also come to be regarded as social processes, amenable to the respective audiences, communities, consumers and so on (Harney, 2010; Flew, 2006).

This epistemological appropriation of ‘creativity’ and ‘novelty’ as ‘social processes’ brings about a considerable degree of ‘openness’ in the actual production of  creative works (Hatley, 2006). The work has necessarily to stay ‘open’ in its reception, so as to be left to be ‘completed’ by the receiver in “other circuits…beyond the workplace” (Harney, 2010: 439). However, as it will be argued the poetics of the ‘open work’ in creative economy rhetoric, tend to oversee questions relating to the political economy of creative production and often function as a masking of exploitation that involves the (self-) exploitation of the creative worker, as well as the exploitation of audience-based labour. The aim of this article is to highlight these issues, as well as to examine the ways that novelty can be critically reassessed as a force of emancipation within the current cultural and economic context.

For the purpose of this paper, an analytical distinction should be made between the cultural field, which usually refers to higher forms of art, and today’s creative field, which appears much closer to a postmodern-neoliberal conception of culture[i].  The field of creative production can be defined –at odds with the field of cultural production, which according to Bourdieu (1993) in its fully autonomous form was the economic world reversed- as a reconciliatory synthesis of the economic and the cultural field, where economic profit does not exclude the generation of symbolic capital for the producers (sometimes it is even taken as a measure for its reinforcement, e.g. in the case of Young British Artists). Despite the obvious risk of missing the critical impetus that the term ‘cultural’ implies, the term ‘creative’ is only preferred here so as to engage more explicitly with the current use of the term ‘creativity’ and attempt to reassert its possible critical nature.

Novelty and creative economy

Novelty refers to the quality of being new and original, and is often used to denote authentic and unusual qualities of certain cultural or scientific creations that come to replace or complement the already existing ones. The advancement of bourgeois society in particular, always relied upon a certain ‘creative destruction’, to use Schumpeter’s famous term, that is to say on the power of novelty to replace old hierarchies, institutions and structures with new and more effective ones. Yet, novelty cannot be objectively articulated; its attribution always depends upon the framing of the term and is confined by different, and in many cases, conflicting value systems. Almost any practice in any context can be attributed as a novel and creative one, depending on how these concepts are theoretically framed and by whom.

Within the creative economy rhetoric, the idea of novelty assumes a very prominent role. This model of development that is emerging since the late 1990’s, links in many respects economy and culture, embracing a wide degree of economic, cultural, technological and social aspects of development. Central to the understanding of this new paradigm is the fact that immaterial assets like knowledge, creativity and access to information are increasingly recognized by world economic institutions as potent engines driving economic growth and promoting development in a globalizing world (UNCTD, 2008). These immaterial assets, made widely available by new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and by the ongoing processes of economic and cultural globalization, supposedly replace the traditional hierarchical “top-down” architectures with horizontal ones that involve participation, peer recognition, self-management and empowerment of the marginalized (Hatley, 2006).

The main objective of creative economy is to “raise the question of the precise relationship between human expression and social and economic instrumentalism” (UNCTD, 2008:6). The ‘human expression’ here is applied not only in the arts but in a wider area of disciplines like software development, design, fashion and advertising, which together form the so called ‘creative industries’. According to European Commission:

“…at European level, the framework for cultural statistics set up in 2000 identified eight domains (artistic and monumental heritage, archives, libraries, books and press, visual arts, architecture, performing arts, audio and audiovisual media/multimedia) and six functions (preservation, creation, production, dissemination, trade/sales and education) that constitute the “cultural sector” from a statistical point of view” (2010:6).

According to data provided by European official sources, the creative sector represents one of the fastest growing sectors in Europe today, contributing around 2.6 % to the EU GDP, even more than the food industry (1.9%) and the chemical industry (2.3%). The European Commission asserts that creative economy provides quality jobs to around 5 million people across EU-27 and has a future potential for high amounts of growth (European commission, 2010; Office for Cultural Policy and Economy, 2010)[ii]. For countries that seek for a plethora of reasons to deindustrialize their economies, the creative economy represents not only an opportunity for job creation and new market formation, but also a way to regenerate, add value, and even gentrify previously industrialized metropolitan areas.

‘Creativity’ within this model, refers to “the formulation of new ideas and to the application of these ideas to produce original works of art and cultural products, functional creations, scientific inventions and technological innovations” (UNCTD, 2008:3). For Charles Laundry, author of the influential “The Creative City: Toolkit for Urban innovators” (2000) ‘genuine’ creativity in the context of creative economy involves among others, “the capacity to think problems afresh or from fresh principles; to experiment; to dare to be original; the capacity to rewrite rules” (2006: 233). The idea of being new and original, the idea of perpetually revolting against previous establishments, is perhaps one of the most fundamental aspects on the very core of creative economy.

Creativity as a social process

In contrast to earlier forms of cultural economies that had little trust in receiver’s participation, ‘creative economy’ tends to legitimize novelty as such through a feedback loop that connects the original creator to the ‘empowered’ receiver; that is to say, the original work becomes amenable to receiver’s ‘participation’ so as to obtain its economic or symbolic valorisation. In this sense, creative economy recognizes that creativity and innovation are not monopolies of individual creators, but are rather faculties that all human beings posses, as it is an “inner characteristic of individuals to be imaginative and express ideas” (UNCTD, 2008:3). As everyone is creative by nature then as the UN Creative Economy Report asserts, everyone can participate in one way or another in the creative economy. The audiences are no longer seen as passive dupes, as they were in the 1940’s when Adorno and Horkheimer were launching their overwhelming critique on the cultural industry in their “Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception“(1997); they have the inner capacity to communicate the work in their own innovative ways or, even better, to ‘complete the artwork’, to use Duchamp’s well known formula, and thus to participate in the general formulation of cultural and other landscapes. As Terry Flew remarks in his article “Creative Economy” (2006):

“The attribution of creativity to unique individual personalities loses sight of the extend to which creativity is best understood as being the outcome of a process rather than a persona, and how moments of creative discovery are characteristically the outcome of incremental processes undertaken as part of a team of people that posses diverse skills (2006: 349)”.

While this reliance on audiences’ creative capacities was mostly thought in art discourse as a means of empowering the receiver in respect to the artwork (Eco, 2006), in creative economy policy often means empowering marginalized communities in respect to the mainstream social order or empowering the consumer in respect to the product, depending on the purpose of the project. In this sense the notion of ‘empowerment’ mostly comes to mean participation and integration in given economic, political and social orders, agendas and ideologies, which in turn get even more ‘empowered’.

These conceptions of ‘empowerment’ share a similar ground-but different ends- with epistemologies that conceive creativity as a socially conditioned faculty of human beings, instead of the work of a single individual genius (Weisberg, 1993; Bourdieu, 1993; 2002; Hallam & Ingold, 2007; Biggs & Leach, 2004). Social anthropologists and sociologists have argued that creativity is a social process (Bourdieu, 1993; 2002; Harstup, 2007) and that the creative producers can never completely transgress the “iron cage” of social constraint (Friedman, 2001), as in the opposite case their creative act would be deemed incomprehensible or even insane.   The creative producer has necessarily to draw from “the total matrix of relations in which it is embedded and into which it extends” (Hallam & Ingold, 2007:9). Within specific fields in particular, as the cultural field for instance, each producer is amenable not only to the history, but also to what Bourdieu calls the space of possibles that a field offers for recognizing various creations as ‘creative’  (1993: 176). This has been very neatly demonstrated, as Bourdieu puts it, by the art objects of Duchamp, who showed that “the production of the producer as artist is the precondition for the production of these objects as works of art” (1993: 61). Along this line of thought then, creativity, and therefore novelty, can not be seen as the work of a single individual genius, but rather as the work of a collective, social and cooperative process.

The epistemological backdrop of these observations was never captured by and appeared rather marginal to mainstream economics and the cultural industries. Over the last two decades or so however, there has been as part of the ‘cultural turn’ in social sciences, a fresh and more general understanding and treatment of economic processes as “cultural phenomena”(du Gay,1997 :287) that meant to be analyzed with a particular emphasis on cultural standards like values, beliefs, ethical considerations and so on.  The idea of value as a collective process[iii] has entered the official lexicon of creative economy e.g. through knowledge management (Harney, 2010). Knowledge management is concerned more with the intangible flows that the product generates and is entangled in than with the product itself. That means that it seriously takes into account the creative capacities of the audiences, that is to say the ways that the audiences communicate the product and the ways they are able to redefine its qualities.

In similar lines, Terry Flew asserts that in the context of creative economy, “innovation should not be seen as a ‘manna from heaven’, but rather as arising from a cultural and institutional milieu that promotes innovation and experimentation” (2006: 348)[iv]. However, while creativity and innovation within the creative economy agenda seem to be recognized as social processes, they have in turn to be linked with economic rationales e.g. management, calculability, accountancy in order to produce some sort of wealth creation.  These economic imperatives seek to rationalize creative inputs and ultimately discover “the economic aspect” that resides within creativity (UNCTD, 2008:3). They seek, in Arvidsson’s words, “to appropriate and mobilize ‘meaningful new forms’ that are produced elsewhere” (2007:22).

The ‘open work’

Umberto Eco in 1967 called the creative producer, to consider ‘openness’ as a “positive aspect of his production, recasting the work so as to expose the maximum possible opening” (2006: 178). According to Eco, the creator should positively articulate the ontological condition of openness that resides anyway in any cultural artefact instead of trying to suppress it. This openness refers to the multiplicity of interpretations that arise out of the differentiated meaning-making capacities of the audiences, as “every reception of a work of art is both an interpretation and performance of it, because in every reception the work takes on a fresh perspective for itself” (Eco, 2006 :180). In Eco’s terms, a creator should positively incorporate these differentiated meaning-making capacities in the work itself, so as to be able to articulate the ambiguity and indeterminacy of the modern world in effective ways.

Currently, creative works increasingly tend to incorporate similar ideas about ‘openness’, and accordingly they have been called dynamic, de-industrialized, unhomogenized, in short ‘unfinished’ projects (Haseman, 2006; Harney, 2010). As Haseman (2006) argues, Eco’s poetics of openness are ubiquitous in creativity discourse and have already become an “important aspect of creative industries practice” (:164). As ‘open works’ they incorporate novelties both from the creative producers, who have to be engaging in respect to their audiences, and the audiences which in turn are invited to communicate and enhance the value of the product in the extended market.

The main difference with Eco’s ‘poetics of the open work’, is that ‘openness’ here is employed, not in order to examine questions on the nature of artistic production, but mostly as a means to enhance the symbolic value of the creative outputs in a globally competitive environment. This happens, as Lazzarato (1996) suggests, precisely because the value of the creative outputs or creative ‘things’ is not exhausted in the act of consumption, but continues to be enhancing the informational and cultural environment of the consumer. The product is not anymore a closed entity sealed in the cycle of production, but is essentially conceived as a product “open to interpretation and aesthetic judgement, a product in dialogue with other products, a product that is not used up in use but instead produces new versions of itself, a product that will be coded differently by different users, a product that will in a sense have both audiences and critics” (Harney, 2010: 436).[v]

In this sense, creative works such as a dance performance, a cyberdrama or a video game need to be ‘unfinished’ projects (Harney, 2010), if they are to survive and adapt into the new situation of informational capitalism (Haseman, 2006).  Despite their diverse nature, they share – in various extends- a common dependence on forms of social collaboration and innovation for acquiring some sort of symbolic, economic or other valorisation, as “any creative idea that is not imitated is not socially existent and has no value” (Pasquinelli, 2007:74)[vi]. For the creative economy discourse, it is a matter of mobilizing the creative play that exists in society at large, in a manner that will enhance the potential symbolic value of the creative work.  In this sense, as Sarah Brouillette notes, “capital is busily orchestrating the incorporation of creativity into itself”…. by “treating all social experience as a factory, in which the universal inclination toward creative play becomes the laboratory from which new products emerge” (2009: 143).

Therefore the nature of the various creative works that are supported and produced by creative economy, might then well be seen as less industrialized and predictable than the more standardized cultural commodities of Adorno’s cultural industry.  They appear, in line with all the ‘flexible’ post-Fordist production, reflexive, participatory and relatively open to modification. Novelty within the creative field might be separated into two distinct forms that in turn tend to become interwoven during the ‘life-process’ of the creative thing:

i) the novelty of the producer who has to creatively grasp the attention of their audiences, and

ii) the novelty of the audience, which in turn has to produce meaningful ways to communicate the product, enhancing its informational and symbolic capital in the extended market.

The ‘open work’ as masking of exploitation

Despite this ostensible rhetoric of openness, novelty within the creative economy rhetoric and practice is legitimized as such only when it succeeds in being communicative within the parameters set by the logic of cultural policy makers, usually aligned with the rhetoric of the market. Novel ideas, have to be able to produce useful social outcomes i.e. bring back financial gains, promote social inclusion, contribute to regeneration projects, produce competitive advantages and so on. As John Hartley mentions, “the consumer is “sovereign” to the extend that the value of creativity can’t be gauged until it is used” (2006: 29). Thus, whereas the “iron cage” of the creative industries appears to be looser in relation to the monolithic cultural industry, in reality it still preserves the  bars/boundaries (?)  which rather roughly delimit what is allowed to be deemed creative and novel and what is not.  In the context of creative economy, as Ned Rossiter points out “‘quality” culture is defined…as that which has the capacity to generate and exploit intellectual property” (2006: 108).

According to the classic neoliberal creed, proper justification can only derive from the ‘democratic’ institution of the market, which supposedly chooses in a natural way what is socially necessary and what is not. According to this line of thinking, cultural activity has to discipline its production with the forces of supply and demand in order to justify its raison d’être. The all-encompassing approach of creative economy puts under the same umbrella qualitatively different sectors, like video games and fine art, making them subjects to the same type of deregulation policy. In this sense, the complicity of creative industries with a neoliberal rhetoric which tends to regard “all areas of public policy including culture and media, in terms of a return on public investment” (Hesmondhalgh, 2007:556) has been repeatedly noted (Garnham, 2005; McGuigan, 2009; McChesney 2008; Hesmodlagh, 2007). Novel creations produced within the field are framed by the neoliberal conceptual apparatus that tends to reduce culture in its exchange value. As McGuigan eloquently puts it, within the field of cultural policy today “the emphasis is not longer on cultural experience but rather on ‘wealth creation”, and therefore “a discourse once recognizable about culture is now about economics” (2009: 156).

The working conditions of creative producers, in line with post-Fordist labour conditions, involve less unionized, outsourced, seasonal, temporary and self-employed labour, as well as a mass of disposable cultural workers often willing to work under conditions of self-exploitation (Hesmondhalgh & Sarah, 2010; McRobbie, 2002). The exploitation of the creative worker does not simply refer to the classic Marxian notion of exploitation that derives from the wage relation, since the value extraction for the capitalist becomes a much more complicated process than the one prevailed in industrial capitalism. For Nicholas Garnham:

“….. the cultural industries are seen as complex value chains where profit is extracted at key nodes in the chain through control of production investment and distribution and the key “creative” labour is exploited not, as in the classic Marxist analysis of surplus value, through the wage bargain, but through contracts determining the distribution of profits to various rights holders negotiated between parties with highly unequal power (2005: 20).”

These key nodes, as it has been argued by Variant Magazine (2008), might also include apart from the frantic obsession with intellectual property rights protection, the increase of the burden of debt for cultural institutions and cultural workers by replacing grants with a “system of credit or loans” (Variant, 2008). In such a way, the cultural practitioners “will be treated as the consumer base for a new financialised system of commercial ‘creative’ exploitation” (Variant, 2008). The stress on the ‘openness’ of the creative things discussed above, is also justifiably regarded as suspicious of masking the real conditions of exploitation, that involve the (self-) exploitation of the creative worker, as well as the exploitation of the audience based labour, which by supplying its creativity contributes not only to the much celebrated ‘completion of the work’ but also to the generation of economic or symbolic profit for capitalist minded enterprises (this disposition to ‘empower’ the audience is exemplified in internet marketing categories like ‘viral marketing’ and ‘crowdsourcing’ which quite literally abstract audience’s labour). In other words, while everyone is creative and thus everyone can potentially contribute to the creative economy, not everyone should expect to get remunerated for their contribution. The stress on the political economy aspect of creative economy can neatly demonstrate how the creative field through these various ‘outsourcing’ techniques appears very close to a neo-liberal cultural policy agenda, although it appears to be ‘participatory’ and ‘democratic’.

Img.1 “Windows 7 UK ads” (2009)

The empowerment of the audience as it appears in postmodern commercial discourse

Source : http://www.codenamewindows.com/?p=895 [visited 04/07/11]

Novelty beyond capital

The crucial point to ask therefore is: how the concept of novelty can be re-articulated as a force of emancipation against the instrumentality of the creative economy and the market, especially now that the notion of the underground seems to have become so problematic anyway? [vii] Put differently, are there any spaces within the creative field to articulate the novel in relation to other values, not economically instrumental, and if yes what are the qualities of these spaces? What kinds of autonomy do the poetics of openness grant to the creative producers?

Any satisfactory attempt for answering these questions needs to be contextually and empirically based. What follows here, after the brief bibliographical discussion, will necessarily be a schematic and somewhat speculative account for the questions posed above[viii].

First, given the contingency, diversity and heterogeneity of the cultural and economic fields, it is very possible to trace and advance within them counter-representations and roots of resistance. These fields are not fixed ideological patterns with unsurpassed ideological barriers, but emerge and re-emerge by feeding off each other during the development process of societies. Particularly within today’s ‘culture-friendly’ capitalism, many aspects of the ‘economic’ depend vitally on the qualities of the ‘cultural’ in order to generate surplus value or come up with forms of moral justifications[ix] (Harvey, 2001; Virno, 2009; Pasquinelli, 2010; McGuigan, 2009).

Speaking of the latter, Boltanski and Chiapello essentially argue in their New Spirit of Capitalism (2005) that capitalism cannot rely on the economic values that it advances for its moral justification, as it is a deeply unjust system. It is necessary that it draws its justificatory apparatus from elsewhere. According to them, capitalism, time and again, does so by appropriating “resources external to it” that come to embody cultural values and beliefs that are “inscribed in the cultural context that it is developing” (Boltanski & Chiapello; 2005: 20). In the New Spirit of Capitalism (2005) they advance this thesis by claiming that:

…justification of capitalism thus assumes reference to constructions of a different order, whence derive requirements that are quite distinct from those imposed by the pursuit of profit. (Boltanski; Chiapello 2005: 20)

While in post war Europe this ethic was to be found in the discourse of ‘social welfare’, in the last thirty years the ‘economic’, in order to adapt and survive, has incorporated the language of the social movements of the 1960’s, which is related to individual liberation, nomadic existences, anti-bureaucracy, etc. (Bohm, 2009). In this sense, the ‘economic’ today depends on inventions of ethical norms based on constructions different from and sometimes radically opposed to its economo-centric nature.

Similarly, much of the ‘Autonomist’[x] thought (Lazzarato, 1996; Hardt & Negri, 2004; Virno, 2004; 2009) poses questions on the productivity of capitalism today, albeit with a particular emphasis on the role of the linguistic relation as emblematic of the new era of relations of production. According to them, value for capitalism is increasingly produced today inside society- the so called ‘social production of value’- and not merely within the industrial units where principally the wage relation was exploitative. As technology automates much of the production process, value becomes more and more the result of societal relations and it is thus subjective and cultural, instead of objective and measurable e.g. in units of labour time. As the objective standards through which value is measured and produced in today’s capitalism are undermined, value becomes highly intersected with the communicative capacities of cultural and creative producers. As Paulo Virno puts it, the capitalist “wants to seize autonomously and freely produced intelligence and forms in order to realize a surplus value” (2009:30). The dependence on these ‘freely produced intelligence and forms’ make the creative field in its wider conception, a field where sorts of struggles can be advanced.  As these forms are principally conditioned by the very element of human intersubjectivity, they nurture ambivalence and thus posses an inherent possibility for resistance. As it would be argued below, the qualities of this ‘resistance’ and their effectivities need be contextually examined so as to be assessed.

In terms of actual creative and cultural production, David Harvey demonstrates in Art for Rent (2001) how urban developers and planners appropriate the cultural meanings produced by city dwellers or cultural producers, so as to establish ‘marks of distinction’ that will position cities within the map of cultural tourism. These ‘marks of distinction’ that make claims to uniqueness and authenticity, have the capacity to generate monopoly rents that enhance the land value and make cities more attractive to future investors. Capital is weak in establishing such authenticities by itself, as the extensive commercialization tends usually to destruct the social fabric with its homogenizing and superficial qualities. Capitalism requires these special artistic qualities in order become more competitive and keep on reproducing itself.  The ‘economic’ therefore within the current mode of production fundamentally depends on with the ‘cultural’ for its valorization, whether the cultural is translated as artistic production, as everyday culture or as simple linguistic communication.

If then, creative producers potentially possess a relative degree of autonomy, and if the respective fields in which they operate can potentially advance roots of resistance, the question that arises is what kinds of novelties can be emancipatory and what their respective qualities in this case are. More importantly, questions should be posed regarding the qualities of the institutional and non-institutional spaces within which these novelties can potentially operate, as well as about the degrees in which these contexts determine the qualities of innovation.

As noted above, novelty is threatened to become another buzzword if detached from particular value systems that also advance normative assumptions. What then should be reinvented on behalf of the creative producers is not the novel as an end in itself, but the value systems upon which respective novelties can operate. In other words, the novel should be articulated in relation to ethical and normative assumptions based on counter-hegemonic discourses that interrogate creative production in its entirety, progressing values related to social equality and justice. Upon these discourses, kinds of formal experimentation and innovation can be advanced at the level of the work, project or organizational platform.

Back in time, practices that advanced elements of formal experimentation and innovation within counter-hegemonic theoretically informed value systems, might well include groups like the Russian OBERIU[xi] and the Situationist International[xii], the work of filmmakers like Jean Luc Godard, Chris Marker and Harun Farocki, and instances of the ‘institutional critique’[xiii] of the 60’s and 70’s. At present, given the importance of creative production in the current economic system together with the all embracing neoliberal cataclysm that sweeps Europe and the world, the reinvention of value systems principally requires an understanding of the nature of creative production, and in our case of creative labour. In what ways does creative labour valorise the current predatory economic system, why does its precarious and flexible work model apply so well in today’s capitalism and in under what conditions does the aesthetic coexist with the economic today? To address these kinds of questions, creative producers can on the one hand engage in forms of self-organization that critically asses their practices outside the rigidity of institutionalized spaces, and on the other, permeate institutionalized spaces with practices that advance a contextual understanding of the creative mode of production.

In the first case, networked, non-representative, reflexive, peer-reviewed forms of self-organization, as the ones the Ned Rossiter advocates in his Organized Networks: Media Theory, Creative Labour, New Institutions (2006), can be invented so as to systematically reflect and understand the nature of creative practices. Within these kinds of networks and groupings the ‘poetics of the open work’ could be conceived and articulated according to ethics related to participatory peer-to-peer development models and not according to neo-liberalism’s looting participation model described above. In this sense, novelty as a force of politicization can exist not only at the level of the artwork, but also at the level of an organization. Examples of this kind of networked critical cultural practice in UK can be found among others in groups like the Carrotworkers Collective and Critical Practice, devoted respectively to the precarious condition of creative workers and the instrumentalization of the artistic field by a neoliberal agenda. The significance of these kinds of collectives for the emergence of new value systems is crucial, insofar as they manage to reflect upon their own practice and connect it to larger fields of social relations. In addressing this type of ‘holistic’ critique in its creative practice, the group Critical Practice states that “legitimate subjects” of critical enquiry are also “our research, projects, exhibitions, publications and funding, our very constitution and administration”(Critical Practice, 2011). This type of self-organized practice refers to the self-emancipation of the creative producers, in the sense of constituting themselves as political subjects and collectives.

Within more institutionalized spaces that usually carry their own ideological burdens, questions on the nature of current cultural production and its relations to economic flows can be contextually addressed, again ‘in the making’ of works or projects. An example of this kind, is for instance the curatorial project of the 11^th Istanbul Biennial (2009), organized by the Zagreb-based curatorial collective What, How and for Whom? (Ivet Ćurlin, Ana Dević, Nataša Ilić, and Sabina Sabolović). In an effort to achieve transparency, the curatorial team displayed in the catalogue the ways that the economic and the cultural intersect in the process of setting up a show, by comparing the GDP’s of artists’ countries of origins, by providing details about the legal status of the artworks (whether they were coming from a commercial gallery or not) and by breaking down the incomes and expenses included in the budget. This will to be transparent ‘in the making’ of the project reflects a desire to examine the institutional setting of the biennial not as a neutral site for art display, but as a space entangled in the contradictions that the art market, capital flows and national politics generate. In similar lines, the recent installation ‘The Marx Lounge’ by Alfredo Jaar in Liverpool Biennial and the talks connected to it provided an ‘open’ platform for social exchange that wished to negotiate aspects of the ‘economic’ and ‘cultural’ within a Biennial setting, which in turn is fundamentally relying on both in order to take place.[xiv]

Img.2 “The Marx Lounge” at Liverpool Biennial(2010)

Source: http://www.criticismism.com/2010/09/19/alfredo-jaar-the-marx-lounge-2010/ [visited 04/07/11]

Whether practices like these can potentially provide to capitalism a justificatory apparatus for itself (as Boltanski and Chiapello seem to suggest) is a matter of more empirically grounded research. If we follow Chantal Mouffe’s Gramscian concept of ‘hegemony’ (2007; 2008), every hegemonic order, such as that of the current version of capitalism, does not constitute a totality, but a “temporary and precarious articulation of contingent practices” (Mouffe, 2007: 2). Given this contingency of the social order, the advancement of cultural practices with contextual counter-hegemonic discourses is crucial so as to rearticulate the possibility of alternative social realities and architectures (Marchant, 2010).

Concluding thoughts

To sum up, novelty, the quality of being new and original in respect to the past is a context-depended notion that acquires its value within particular value systems. As it has been argued, the creative economy agenda also recognizes the creative capacities of the audiences as innovative, but most usually regards novelty as a vehicle for producing forms of economic productivity and for legitimizing dominant orders. The rearticulation of the qualities of the ‘openness’ in the form of work, platform or organizational setting principally require an understanding of the role of creative labour today and the ways that it manages to valorise current forms of economic development. Following that, openness can be articulated within emancipatory value systems upon which forms of innovation can emerge. The invention of these systems can take place either through the creative producers’ self-organization or through their contextual critical engagement with cultural institutionalized establishments.

Commenting on Godard’s call for “making films politically” instead of making “political films” (Lesage, 2006), Joanne Richardson states that there is a “need to move beyond the content of political engagement and consider how modes of production, forms of organization, methods of articulating meaning and the ownership of culture all form part of an interconnected whole that must be interrogated in its entirety” (2010: 3). In the same sense, the political dimension of creativity or the emancipatory dimension of novelty should not be regarded as self-legitimizing practices. These dimensions ought to be rearticulated all across the ‘making’ of artistic works, cultural platforms or networked critical organizations by exposing their own faults and inherent contradictions and by providing frameworks for thinking politically, reflecting upon their own practices and innovating within these parameters.

“My Words” is a video engagement with mobility, metadata and identity. These are the recorded lists of people’s personal dictionaries on their mobile phones. In contrast to the manufacturer’s default dictionary, these words were saved into the phone when the individuals were texting. They were saved, often unconsciously, mid-process by the users because these were words not included in the default dictionary, yet used so often by the individual. The result is a localized and highly idiosyncratic portrait of each person. They were filmed with a mobile phone, seeing their list for the first time as they read it.

Between Art and Pedagogy

By

Gry Worre Hallberg, MA in Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Copenhagen and co-founder of Fiction Pimps

&

Anna Lawaetz, PhD fellow, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

Abstract: In this article we will introduce the fictional and art-pedagogical universe of Sisters Hope and describe how it in different ways transcends into contexts beyond the art world and thus functions as a tool to democratize the aesthetic dimension and mode of being within high schools, academia and the virtual world of social media.

The twin sisters Coco and Coca Pebber in the snow enjoying their afternoon tea after a day full of chores at their school, Sisters Hope.  Photo: Julie Johansen

The Aim of Sisters Hope

Our work is rooted in the ambition to democratize the aesthetic dimension and, through that democratization, to activate, what we understand to be, the poetic self in the participants.

We do this through the enlivenment of a fictional universe called Sisters Hope. The narrative of Sisters Hope is based on the story of two twin sisters, Coco and Coca Pebber (us), whose great ambition is to enliven the sensuous mode of being, paradoxically within a structured approach via their position as matrons of a boarding school:

As orphans The Sisters left what they had known to be their home and entered the yet unfamiliar and unknown world, which, to the two little girls, seemed infinite. With them they brought their most treasured belonging: Their Father’s Book. They would read from it on highways and byways. In the beginning The Sisters had nowhere to go, but as they began to read and tell, people assembled around them – they were drawn to them – curious and touched by what they had to say. They found what they heard to be beautiful and as time passed more kindred spirits followed them on their road. They realized that they possessed the power to create and bring joy. And they found that this great gift should be harnessed in order for everyone to be able to partake in such joy. Thus the foundation was laid for the Sisters Hope school.

Sisters Hope in Memory of Rose from Coco and Coca Pebber on Vimeo.

Thus, the narrative of the fictional universe frames a world that is quite simple, in that the two sisters believe to have access to a truth and thereby they understand themselves to be able to guide their students (the participants of Sisters Hope’s manifestations) in the ‘right direction’. Hence, as The Sisters, we place ourselves in a distinct power position, from where we simplify the world, which has a potentially liberating effect on the participants as well as the potential to bring forth awareness.

Beyond a pure Work of Art

As the drawing indicates all the activities of Sisters Hope are connected through the fictional universe, which we understand to be the core of our work.

As indicated, the motivation of The Sisters is “to create and bring joy”. The world they are operating in is dominated by the spread of an epidemic. The story goes that when it strikes, the body of the attacked is slowly paralyzed from within. Every part of the dying body gradually turns numb and the senses dissolve. One will slowly but steadily lose the ability to smell, hear, feel, taste and see. However, one part of the body is left untouched – the brain. In contrast this part of the body is enlarged  (leading to human organizations of very big heads). These remains are called Capita,  and give that name to the epidemic. To prevent the spread of Capita, The Sisters focus specifically on the aesthetic, sense-oriented, mode of being in the world. Hence, the school teaches principles that activate this dimension.

As the drawing indicates the core of our work is the fictional universe framed by the narrative as described above. However, this narrative, more or less explicit, expands into a number of different contexts mentioned here: the high school, academia and the virtual world of social media.

High School

The Sisters sit behind the desk with their fur hats and red lips. Lighted candles are the only source of light in a classroom of the Danish high school, Aurehøj Gymnasium, north of Copenhagen. It is 8 a.m. and 28 high school students enter the classroom. The room is so familiar to them, but today, surprisingly, everything looks and feels different. Two intensive days of workshop are about to start and the students will transform into students of the boarding school Sisters Hope very soon. On the desk lies a stuffed fox and neatly arranged apples. Sisters Hope is not a school like others.

The School from Coco and Coca Pebber on Vimeo.

When Sisters Hope enters into high school contexts our purpose is to activate a critical awareness in the students, and thus inspire them to acknowledge the different opportunities of self-construction in everyday life – not least to ignite their poetic self.

The term, the poetic self, is based on our experiences with participants acting, behaving and living within the fictional framework that we provide. Within this parallel universe we allow our participants to perform a new persona – a fresh character to build and explore, full of poetic possibility – protected by the fiction.

Furthermore, we provide a framework to explore different aspects of their everyday school lives, such as the historical understanding of a specific period.  For example, at Aurehøj Gymnasium we were part of a workshop week on the 1960’s, Beatles and American Poetry (Beat). This meant that we were in close contact with the high school teachers of these courses in the development of the workshop. This also meant that in the evaluating phase of our work we talked with the students about interrelations between their experiences within Sisters Hope and the overall subject/theme of the workshop week.

The evaluation phase is always an extremely important part of our work in the high schools. Thus we are inspired by the formation of the ritual as structured by the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep (1909) with its pre-liminal (separation), liminal (transition (in our case in the fictional universe)) and post-liminal (reincorporation) phase. Thus in the pre-liminal phase we prepare the students for the separation with everyday life and in the post-liminal phase we prepare them for the incorporation back into everyday life. The evaluation serves a post-liminal purpose and furthermore invites the students to reflect upon the ‘somatic teachings’ within the universe, which enables ‘deep learning’.

We construct the workshop as a journey where the students becomes completely involved by physically building the set with us, that is transforming the classroom(s) into the boarding school of Sisters Hope, where they will live, breath, dance, cry, eat, pray and sleep for the next two intense days. In this process of building the fictional universe their imagination is triggered physically and thus, they already start to initiate their journey into the fictional universe.

 Academia

“The Sisters are currently accepting new students and will be participating in the symposium Collective Futures at Goldsmiths, London in March 2011. We invite new students to apply.”

Dangerous Dreams from Coco and Coca Pebber on Vimeo.

This was the announcement we send out to potential participants before the symposium in London. When The Sisters enter the world of academia we set up learning-spaces. Thereby we seek to inspire academics to remember and acknowledge the depth of their projects and the changes they want to see in the world.

Bearing this aim in mind, we also set up a ‘research lab’ to explore questions of importance to The Sisters. For example we have investigated questions such as: what is ‘the poetic self’ and how can we activate it?

Contrary to the method we use in the high schools, where we build up the set-design with the students, the participants in the academic context enter a world that is already built. That means that when you enter the fictional space of Sisters Hope a soundscape will already be playing and visuals will light up the walls. The Sisters will already be in their fur hats ready to provide you with attention and special treatments.

By setting the space ahead of the entrée of the participants our work in academia has strong references to traditional work of performance art work. Furthermore, this is not a natural group experience but more based on an individual journey. During this journey we approach our research questions while activating the senses of the ‘traveler’ within this ‘twisted reality’. This ‘twisted reality’ represents a space where another logic (the logic of the fiction) rather than that of everyday life and that of a typical academic context, dominates.

The frame we work within does not specifically define the journey of the participant. Thus, each voyage is unique and depends on the outcome of the individual talks and tricks that the participant engages in with The Sisters. For example, one would leave the fictional space having to work with their poetic self in their everyday life, another would have to dwell in the space before leaving to truly open their senses, yet another will get the task to write an essay about that which currently inspires them the most.

Virtual world of social media

Communication between The Sisters and a stranger on Facebook:

Stranger: Who are you Coco and Coca?

The Sisters: We are the twin sisters appearing in your dreams, enchanting the streets on which you walk, the ones who pick you like an apple from a tree that you courageously climbed and keep you safe and warm like the heat in your mother’s womb.

Stranger: Sweet like honey, Coco and Coca.

The Sisters: If you see any lost children and youngsters confused, searching the streets and forgotten places of this town, please lead them to Sisters’ Hope  – we shall not disappoint them!

The Sisters have a virtual life. They live, breath and breed on our website, our Vimeo site and on our personal profiles on Facebook. Thus, whenever we post something in relation to the fictional universe of Sisters Hope we communicate as The Sisters. We have had many reactions and some have even been inspired to take photos of women that remind them of The Sisters, others have printed out the images of The Sisters and put them on their wall, one has even been moved to paint the images and turn them into icons.

The quotes below are all responses received on Facebook. We have chosen to anonymise the contributors. Their engagement in Sisters Hope on the sites of social media is also an engagement into a fictional universe. Thus, they should also be – protected by the fiction:

“We labourmen support you sisters PhD, and believe in the rise of Hope for the world, if we will succeed in some kind of collaboration between them intellectuals and them workers!:-)”

March 2 at 5:54 pm

“Did you catch and gently punish any infringers at the Aurehøj Gymnasium? ;-D”

October 1, 2010 at 4:43pm

“The Hat, the Glove, the beautiful coffee cup, lovely image, that is now hanging on my noticeboard ”

March 1 at 10:56am (our translation)

“I am trying to find my poetic self. It seems a bit easier today!”

March 8 at 2:02pm (our translation)

By giving Sisters Hope life on Facebook and other social media sites, The Sisters enters the realm of people who haven’t physically come across our universe. Hence, they too will obtain the chance to dive into the fictional magic and use it as inspiration. Thus, our activity on social media sites relates to our aim to democratize the aesthetic mode of being and the exploration of the poetic self of potentially everyone in everyday life. Furthermore, the fictional life on our virtual sites strengthens the core of our universe (see drawing above) and works as a site to develop and refine the fiction in co-creation with other users of social media.

The Sisters at The Royal Theatre from Coco and Coca Pebber on Vimeo.

The question mark

The question mark in the drawing indicates that Sisters Hope could possibly transcend into all other areas. The only important thing being that the logic of the fictional universe is respected. Thus, The Sisters will always be The Sisters and the school metaphor will always be essential and the name of the school will always be Sisters Hope. However, the way we work with these basic fictional outlines differs from context to context as shown above. That means that where the fictional core is distinct our method is flexible.

The Sisters wish you a beautiful summer

The Sisters in the Garden from Coco and Coca Pebber on Vimeo.

Thanks to our photographer Julie Johansen, our cinematographer Jesper Ravn and Meeto Worre Kronborg Grevsen and our soundscape artist Ulf Rathjen Kring Hansen. The Educational Ministry of Denmark supports Sisters Hope financially.

www.sistershope.dk

Introduction

On the first of May 2009 more than 2000 people gathered together at the “Marcus Omofuma”-Memorial stone in the centre of Vienna for a protest march in memory of the Nigerian citizen Marcus Omofuma, who had suffocated during his deportation in May 1999 because the police tied him up and covered his mouth with tape. The demonstrators followed a route through the inner city districts which saw them  passing by the Austrian parliament to protest against racist immigration laws as well as a place near the Viennese Opera where, in 2004, Nicolae J., a Romanian citizen got shot by the police. The march ended in the Viennese “Stadtpark”, where the Mauretanian physicist Seibane Wague was killed in 2003 during a police action. The organisers of the protest march mostly belonged to autonomous migrants’ initiatives and non-migrant autonomous action groups,  and the demonstration at the 1^st May 2009 can be seen to  mark  the end of a decade of transnational anti-racist urban protest politics in Vienna.

In recent years, urban social movement studies have paid much attention to the emergence of transnational urban protest networks and politics. I discuss these developments with reference to Left-wing urban protest in Vienna, focusing on autonomous protest politics and its transformations within the last decade. During this period the “glocal” dimension of urban protest – i.e. its local impact and its interconnection with economic, social but also discursive shifts on a global scale – are increasingly focused on autonomous street politics. The decade reflects specific struggles within Austrian urban protest, which are related to the national post-nazistic setting.[1]

[1] I acknowledge that these are also connected to globalised political issues related to the Middle East conflict. However, I do not cover these issues in the paper.

This is what radical democracy looks like! Autonomous Urban Protest in Vienna

Starting with the example of the last decade of urban protest in Vienna, I will briefly describe the national setting and relate it to the development of the autonomous movement. In the second half of the 20th century Austria was economically wealthy and politically stable. However, the collective suppression of the involvement in the Nazi regime became an important part of the Austrian national identity after the Second World War. This suppression was combined with the discursive construction of a “victimization myth”, i.e. the shared collective belief of having been Nazi-Germanys first conquest and the importance of a “collective national effort” to regain economical and political stability in the post-war period (Musner and Maderthaner 2007; Uhl 2001). The first developments concerning urban protest politics became visible during the 1970s, while the social-democratic party was in power. Economically, this period was regulated by “Austro-Keynesianism” installed by the government of chancellor Kreisky. The regulation of production and consumption corresponded to the Fordist model and the social-democrats enlarged the welfare state significantly (Penz 2007). There was no considerable extra-parlamentary opposition in Austria following the events of 1968 and the first vital signs of such oppositional movement appeared alongside ecological protest and the development of a squatting movement, which was mainly based in Vienna. In 1975, the historical inner-city building “Amerlinghaus” and in 1976 the former industrial slaughterhouse “ARENA” were temporarily squatted and subsequently transformed into autonomous cultural centres. In 1978 the first bigger ecological protest movement developed around the protest against the nuclear power plant “Zwentendorf” (Foltin 2004). In the 1980s an active autonomous squatting scene emerged and various cultural and/or political centres were established throughout the city, of which the bigger ones like WUK (Werkstätten und Kulturhaus), ARENA, Amerlinghaus and EKH (Ernst Kirchweger Haus) are still existent. At present, the EKH is the largest autonomous social and cultural centre in Vienna; it was squatted in 1990, got precarious user contracts and since has housed more than twenty political initiatives, including migrant organisations and asylum seeker support groups. The 1990s were a period of retreat for movement politics and this holds especially true for autonomous contexts, which are subjected to a wave of state repression after a bomb attack in April 1995. The attack was directed against an electricity pylon in the lower-Austrian municipal Ebergassing to call attention to the threat of nuclear power (TATblatt +164, April 1995). At the end of the decade, however, protest rose again as a result of the aforementioned racist murders and the change of government.

Since its emergence in the second half of the 20th century, Austrian autonomous urban politics has addressed what is known as the Right to the City – or the ´right to inhabit on the one hand, and the right to use and occupy urban space, to gather and to protest´ on the other (Leontidou 2010: 1181). As a focal point of Austrian urban protest, Vienna now contains a counter-hegemonic network of autonomous political spaces, which provide the necessary spatial precondition for organizing politically. The Viennese counter-hegemonic rhizome consists of a network of different infrastructures like autonomous women’s centres, mixed squats, trailer parks (“Wagenplätze”), free shops, autonomous counselling organisations for asylum-seekers, self-organised political clubs and bars, public libraries (“Volxbibliotheken”), etc. This network of infrastructures houses a heterogeneous mix of political action groups and networks working on special issues like anti-racist action groups, anti-sexist action groups, the anti-capitalist MayDay network, the information network indymedia, etc. Although not negating the importance of spatial political infrastructure, I focus on temporary appropriations of urban space, because they can be regarded as the “lynchpin” between autonomous heterotopias and mainstream society and reflect the changing topics and issues of protest.

From Fordism to Neo-Liberalism: Transformations of Urban Protest

Autonomous protest politics traditionally addresses topics such as free housing and law and order politics (Birke and Holmsted 2007). But activists also act in response to prevailing political issues; they react to ´glocal´ political developments and integrate issues such as racism and ethnic profiling, gentrification and increasing surveillance into their protest. All the addressed political issues correspond to material changes as well as to transnational hegemonic and counter-hegemonic political discourses and are linked to the transition from Fordist to post-Fordist urban regimes. Taking a regulation-theoretical stance, Mayer (1998, 2003) distinguishes three major trends of change with regard to their impact on urban protest politics. The author´s three-step model that illustrates these changes for german cities can also be adopted in the austrian situation and thus the transformation of urban protest in Vienna is illustrated following her approach. In doing so, it is possible to take into account how the changing topics are related to hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourse as well as to address the material groundings of the transnationalisation of Viennese protest politics and protest culture.

Co-Option as an Option:

The first trend regards formal political structures and points to the neoliberal shift from “state government” to ´local governance´, introducing a ´deliberative´ and ´inclusive´ form of city governance (Mayer 2003: 286). This creates an ambivalent protest milieu, as protest can get neutralised when heterotopian protest spaces are co-opted. Thus this change in the urban regime implies a sort of dialectical process of co-opting certain urban movement initiatives and/or counter-hegemonic spaces on the one hand and criminalising other movements, mostly the more radical ones (Mayer 1998: 67). In Vienna, such developments are not that new because the city looks back at a history of consented contention (Foltin 2004). The outcome of such politics is indeed ambivalent, because co-opted spaces can still be important nodes of protest within the city. An example would be the history and current role of WUK (Werkstätten und Kulturhaus), which started off as a squat in the beginning of the 1980s and has turned into a highly subsidised cultural centre. On the one hand the WUK clearly lost its autonomous political impact during this process, but on the other hand it is a centre for numerous political initiatives and events and it is also one of Vienna’s oldest and largest autonomous feminist centres, the FZ (Frauenzentrum). This centre is not part of the WUK structure but exists independently within the building complex. The FZ is not subsidised by the city of Vienna but it can still benefit from money given to WUK and also from the WUK infrastructure. Strategies of governing and co-opting dissent are accompanied, however, by a shift in political discourse concerning non-cooptable protest. This development is also stressed by della Porta in her analysis of the protest against the G8-summit in Genoa 2001 and afterwards. The author observes that the public perception of new social movements and the state reaction concerning the policing of protest reveal a shift from acceptance to an accentuation of a movement radicalisation and its dangers for society (della Porta 2006: 195). In Vienna, the last decade also shows various waves of repressive state action concerning movement politics. In 1999/2000 a clear crashing of the newly arising transnational anti-racist mobilisation took place and was exclusively directed against Black people (GEMMI 2005). Furthermore, state repression was also directed against animal rights activists in 2008 and 2010. Currently, drastic policing methods are observable during anti-racist protests against deportations, above all when attempts are made to prevent an ongoing deportation (http://austria.indymedia.org/node/18490).

On a local municipal scale, the division between “good” and “bad” protest was both emphasised and “localised” (Ronneberger et al. 1999; Stadtrat 1998; for Vienna: Foltin 2004). In Vienna, the “battle of the EKH” is one case where such a demonisation of protest and concrete heterotopian spaces can be illustrated. The already mentioned EKH (Ernst Kirchweger Haus) is the largest squatted social and cultural centre in Vienna. In 2003, the owner of the house – the Communist Party of Austria – sold it to a publicly known right-wing real estate company and the activists were threatened with eviction. After a long public struggle that encompassed demonstrations, public interventions, press conferences, etc., a company with close contacts to the municipality of Vienna bought the building in July 2005, and the threat of eviction seems to have passed for now. The struggle to maintain the centre was supported by many Austrian left-wing artists and politicians, but more public attention was paid to a considerable anti-EKH campaign in the media during 2004. Being located close to a giant urban renewal project centred on the reconstruction of the Viennese Main Station (Südbahnhof), the EKH currently could be once again endangered by the ongoing urban renewal process. This observation leads to the second shift focused on by Mayer with a major impact on urban protest, namely gentrification processes and the political protest against them.

Resisting Neo-Liberal City-Face-Lifting:

Part of the economic transition to Post-Fordism is the new role of cities as competitive headquarters in a global city ranking (Mayer 1998, 2003; Sassen 1998 a, b). Contrary to political discourses during the period of Keynesian welfare-state interventionism that focussed on social issues, urban renewal is now to be “achieved via place-bound and spatially targeted redevelopment schemes” (Swyngedouw, Moulaert & Rodriguez 2002: 216). As the city itself became a sort of global player, its image plays an increasingly important role. Major cultural and sporting events satisfy its “spectacular needs” and are linked with an increasing trend towards “spectacle-oriented” urban renewal, which is in turn connected to gentrification processes as well as to “law and order” and “zero-tolerance politics” (Ronneberger et al. 1999; Dangschat 2001; for the Viennese case: Zinganel 2003).

With regard to urban movement politics this has led to a newly increased focus on protest against gentrification processes that is mainly acted out by autonomous activists (Mayer 1998). It is a question of contestation whether the term “gentrification” can be applied to Vienna, where urban renewal does not lead to massive expulsions of marginalised and has only recently included huge restructuring processes of whole districts. Nonetheless, such processes are visible and denominated as gentrification by autonomous activists, who explicitly criticise two developments: the accelerating renewal processes, which in the last years especially have concentrated on the two biggest Viennese train stations and their surroundings, and the issue of gentrification and the endangerment of alternative living projects. Currently, it is above all the Viennese traveller activists (Wagenplatz – Gruppe Treibstoff) who are broaching this second issue. Until summer 2009 there was only one Viennese trailer park, located in the city suburbs. Since the local council chairman wanted to get rid of it, the activists bargained with the department for planning permission for an alternative site where they would not disturb anyone and could use the land temporarily. After six months of bargaining, the city council withdrew its initial offer in July 2009 and, in retaliation, the activists illegally occupied two urban waste areas for the rest of the summer and had to leave both sites in October 2009. Since then they have been evicted various times and are still looking for an adequate site. The whole process of eviction was accompanied by a quite fruitless media campaign in which the activists pointed to the sustainability of alternative living forms, such as political caravan dwellings, and criticised gentrification processes in Vienna, which do not leave any sites left for alternative use.

Neo-liberal politics of urban renewal are accompanied by a discourse on “city-securitization” and by repressive trends in the policing of marginalised groups such as the homeless, beggars, sex workers, drug users and also the political public. In the last years, racialised^[2] social groups are depicted as groups that do not fit into the image of a secure and competitive global city. Such groups are discursively constructed as new dangerous classes and “enemies of the state” and are increasingly affected by ethnic profiling (Kravagna 2005; Oberlechner &  Schasiepen 2010; Ronneberger et al. 1999). This development points to the third area of change stressed by Mayer, namely the growth of informal and precarious working sectors, which is linked to an increasing transnationalization of the workforce, the construction of migration as security risk and the growing importance of anti-racist struggles, which also seek to transform public space into a – temporary – space of resistance.

[2] The term “racialised” (or “racialisation”) refers to Miles (2004) notion of ´race´ as social construction which is historically embedded and linked to biological as well as to cultural categories of otherness, it is.

Transnational Protest Politics and The Right to the City:

The route of the anti-racist demonstration on the 1^st of May 2009 followed an invisible dot-to-dot drawing with each dot marking points where racist murders had occurred. During the march these spaces were transformed into politicised spaces of memory, re-evoking the deadly consequences of structural racism in Austria. Such transnational anti-racist protest politics and space production has gained importance during the last decade; it demarcates a turning point in Austrian movement politics and is embedded in a set of societal transformations. The period of time which is chosen for the empirical illustration also corresponds to a period of massive political transformation. It starts with the change in government in 1999–2000, when the newly formed coalition between the conservative Austrian People´s Party (ÖVP) and the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) brought about a strong and lasting transformation of the political landscape. The last decade has also shown the increasing importance of anti-racist protest politics, itself connected to international “no-border campaigns” which are a response to repressive EU migration and asylum policies and have also been triggered by the racist murders that were protested against on May 1^st, 2009.

Note – used alternating with the term “ethnicised”, whereby the choice of words reflects the austrian discourse, which primarily refers to the term “ethnicity”. 

Critical urban theory stresses the political potential of international migration movements and the transnationalisation of the workforce with Mayer (1998, 2003) and Sassen (2001) suggesting that these processes lead to a growth in urban protest about social issues within the cities of the global North that link in to post-colonial anti-racist struggles. Both agree in their analysis of ´global cities´ as venues for the emergence of transnationalised social conflicts, connected to post-colonial continuities. Sassen furthermore elaborates a brief analysis of the political potential to develop new claims as well as its potential for the development of a post-colonial, anti-racist counter culture (Sassen 1998, 2001). On the one hand she emphasises that the ´new [neoliberal] economic regime´ devaluees and informalises labour and leads to the emergence of ´new classes of disadvantaged workers´ – many of them being ´women, immigrants and/or people of colour´ and stresses that this development increasingly becomes – and should become – an issue of political protest (Sassen 2001: IV). On the other hand, it is stressed that framing of migration as “security risk” accompanied by racist politics of exclusion can be observed on a supra-national and the national level, thereby of course also affecting local politics. This development as well evokes new forms of anti-racist protest focussing on the Right to stay and no-border politics. Drawing on Hall (1996), Sassen finally points to the political potential regarding the development of a post-colonial, anti-racist counter culture and interrelated political subjectivities. In conclusion, she introduces the notion of a “strategic transnational space” (ibid. V) to denominate the discursive formation (and the contemporaneous materialisation) of such new, transnational claims to the city, which make use of and hegemonise post-colonial political criticism within urban protest politics.

Viennese autonomous movement politics of the last decade clearly reflects such analysis. Anti-racist politics gained weight and point to an important re-orientation of political interventions launched by autonomous activists. Autonomous urban protest increasingly focuses on the Right to the City of marginalised groups (including political action groups) interweaving these claims with anti-racist struggles. In Vienna, there has been systematic autonomous protest following the establishment of so-called “Protection Zones” (Schutzzonen) in 2004. Protection zones impede – often racialised – groups like sex workers, drug users and potential drug dealers from residing in public spaces nearby schools, churches and playschools. In 2004, a right-wing citizens’ action group formed around Vienna’s West Railway Station (Westbahnhof) launched a campaign against sex work in the district. The citizen’s initiative thereby exclusively concentrated on the necessity to control and prohibit “Black female sex work”. The racist focus, and the general trend to racialise social issues, was addressed by autonomous activists and was the subject of various political information events.

Autonomous politics has changed also regarding the development of concrete anti-racist political practice and increasingly turned towards transnationalised politics and anti-racist action. The main focus of this protest concerns European politics of racialised exclusion with the counter-concepts such as the Freedom of Movement and the Right to Stay. Apart from that, anti-racist protest refers to three racist occurrences that took place in 1999 and 2003. Two aformentioned incidents concerned the racist murders of the Nigerian asylum seeker Marcus Omofuma and the Mauritanian physicist Seibane Wague. The third concerns the biggest racist police action in Austrian history. These events had a considerable impact on autonomous protest politics in Vienna. They triggered anti-racist campaigns and new transnational protest-networks and have been the main foci of anti-racist protest over the last decade. In the following, these events and their impact on protest politics are described chronologically. On the 1^st of May 1999, the Nigerian asylum seeker Marcus Omofuma died during his deportation after the police tied him up and covered his mouth with tape. After his killing, the African community in Vienna started to organise and protest publicly against racist harassment and, in May 1999, for the first time in Austrian movement history, a big outreach of Black political resistance gained visibility on the streets. Contemporaneously, networks between Black and white autonomous political action groups were established, as well as the anti-racist network “For a World Without Racism” (Für eine Welt ohne Rassismus) and the “Austrian no-border network” – both of which were located in infrastructures provided by the anti-racist wing of the autonomous scene. Initially, the main organisational work was done by activists who belonged to the African community. In May 1999, two large demonstrations and a series of solemn vigils were organised and supported by white activists. However, this form of protest stopped quite soon as a consequence of the so-called “Operation Spring”. Operation Spring has been the largest police action in Austria since the foundation of the Second Republic after the Second World War. It was directed exclusively against Black African males, and rounded up 127 people suspected of being drug dealers. The police operation, and the arrest of the accused persons, was accompanied by a huge media defamation campaign that established the discursive image of the “Nigerian drug dealer”, which was also imposed onto the murdered Marcus Omofuma (Krawagna 2005; Mößmer 2007; http://no-racism.net/article/521/ ; http://no-racism.net/article/848/ ). Empirical data shows that Operation Spring functioned very well as a state tool to criminalise and smash the newly formed Black protest movement (GEMMI 2005; http://no-racism.net/article/2905 ). Indeed, the demonstrations, which were organised by the Black community stopped almost immediately after Operation Spring, due mainly to the fact that the leading activists were imprisoned. Protest went on, of course, but was mainly organised and led by white anti-racist action groups. The second racist murder occurred in 2003 when Seibane Wague, a Mauritanian physicist, was killed during a police operation in which six police officers held him down by standing on his chest. Ambulance men present at the time injected Wague with a strong sedative and did not intervene. Their sentence in November 2005 pointed to the racist consensus within Austrian politics, the judicial and the executive power.  Out of the ten people on trial, eight policemen were discharged, while the doctor present at the scene and one of the policemen were given an eight month suspended sentence. Like the killing of Marcus Omofuma, the murder of Seibane Wague was explained – and thus implicitly legitimated – by officials and in the media with recourse to racist stereotyping of the victims as “hyper-aggressive Black men” (Collins, 2004) who had been endangering the officials during the police interventions. These racist incidents are only two within a very long history of racist oppression and endangerment of people with African background, though they became the triggering factors for the African community to strengthen political self-organisation. After Seibane Wagues death another wave of activism was organised, and in October 2003 the Black Women’s Community (Schwarze Frauen Community – SFC) was founded as a form of self-defence against structural racism.

Notwithstanding these new waves of self-organisation, in the years following Operation Spring anti-racist protest was mainly organised by white anti-racist activists and long discussions about the necessity to protect Black people during demonstrations took place[3]. Sassen’s notion of the ´strategic transnational´ space therefore has to be reformulated regarding two different layers. First, following Mayer’s regulation-theoretical stance, it is not realistic that political opportunity structures should be taken more into account, because they vary significantly between different urban settings. Second, from an intersectional point of view, they vary significantly within one urban setting according to the activists’ ethnicised background and legal status (Messinger 2010). This leads further to the question about who has the Right to the Heterotopian Protest City. The possibility to articulate protest in the public is not the same for everybody: people with a migration background and/or a precarious legal status do not face equal opportunities to build up a radical democratic counter-public at demonstrations and if they do, they are bearing a much higher risk when they are subjected to state repression. The empirical example from Vienna emphasises this fact in pointing to the repression, which immediately followed the political organising of the Black community in Vienna in 1999. The enforcement of a post-colonial, transnational counter-culture is an important political aim of course, and the notion of a strategic transnational space serves to impede a victimisation of people of colour and/or with migration background. The empirical case, however, shows on the other hand that on the level of hegemonic state discourse, African or Black political activists were soon and easily constructed as major enemies of the Austrian nation state through media discourse on “(male) Nigerian drug dealers”. Together with concrete – and material – state repression, post-colonial and anti-racist struggles were soon endangered and partly destroyed. In conclusion, one can thus stress that an empirical look at “post-colonial urban struggles” immediately reveals differing levels of oppression and differing Rights to the Protest City pointing to the materiality of structural racism. Such a conclusion further calls for intersectional analysis considering legal and state-bound categories such as “citizenship” or “legal status”; and, for an analysis and combating of differing forms of “epistemic violence” inherent in processes of racialisation and/or ethnicisation and interrelated racist practices.

   [3] This information is drawn out of an interview with the white anti-racist activist B

Concluding Remarks:

Autonomous activists formulate criticism and – by using their bodies as instruments – transform urban space in creating radical democratic publics. Such issues are very well addressed by radical democratic theoretical approaches. What these approaches leave out however, is the importance of material issues concerning activists´ positionalities. The material level can be integrated when intersectional viewpoints and critical urban theory are taken into account. Such views point to the activists´ embeddedness in state-run ´axes of inequality´ (Klinger/Sauer 2007) and stress the fact that not everybody has the equal Right to the Protest City. Furthermore, radical democratic theory has only recently glimpsed the production of a rhizomatic counter-hegemonic protest space. However, a crucial feature of radical democratic publics is the fact that they politicise and transform the spaces they occupy during demonstrations. Furthermore, counter-hegemonic political niches play an important role in providing space for the “protest bodies” to articulate their critique and in providing spaces for the set up of solidarity-bound communicative networks. These networks are of crucial importance for political mobilisation processes. This is even more the case, when the protest is a spontaneous and urgent one, where people have to be mobilised within a short period of time. This is what happened on the 29th of April 2010, when between 300 and 400 people gathered together within a few hours to impede the deportation of two Nigerian soccer players, who were active in the anti-racist political soccer club “Sans Papiers” (see: http://www.fcsanspapiers.org/; http://no-racism.net/article/3406/; http://at.indymedia.org/node/18058). Unfortunately the deportation could not be impeded but at least the racist incidence evoked strong resistance and could be made public through the activists´ intervention. Such spontaneous “direct actions” are on the one hand the product of an infrastructure, which makes it possible to spread political information within a very short time. Put differently, it would not have happened without the regular gathering of activists and politically interested people in political venues and their willingness to join local information lists. Also, the spontaneous political intervention required a sense of solidarity within the scene and towards the affected “Sans Papiers”. Such politics is thus the result of constant political work throughout years in heterotopian spaces. The material perspective of critical urban theorists emphasises these spatial aspects of protest. Furthermore, it addresses the ´glocality´ of protest and points to the relevance of political opportunity structures, which themselves are embedded in national and supra-national economic, legal and social structures. What this approach does not address, however, is the cultural and discursive influence on movement identities and the specific contents and concrete functionality of radical democratic practices. The autonomous scene, and post-Nazistic radical left-wing politics, in Vienna strongly focuses on Austrian past-politics, pointing to the states´ involvement in the Nazi-regime as well as to past and present anti-Semitism. However, up to now this special focus of Austrian protest politics has exclusively been addressed from a cultural studies´ perspective (Sternfeld 2006; Steyerl 2003).

Concerning radical democratic practices, it is also the radical democratic and cultural studies´ approach, with its ethnographic focus, that has grasped and sought to strengthen concrete political and social protest practices. The last decade also showed an increasing development of such practices. The autonomous political scene in Vienna can generally be described as a ‘white middle-class scene’, but since the events in 1999/2000 new protest formations emerged and migration, racism and transnational politics were increasingly discussed. Ever since, racism as well as whiteness within the autonomous scene have been important points of discussion. These point to “inner-movement” within hegemonic struggles and thus to a radical democratic processes of change within the scene. This observation leads back to Sassen’s concept of a transnational political space in which a postcolonial, anti-racist political discourse can be developed and put into practice.

To grasp and synthesise these two perspectives, or to look at concrete political practices and their transformations, it is important to look empirically at social movements. Enforcing ethnographical works on concrete movement settings would help to link theoretical approaches to a concrete urban movement setting and to reveal forms and content of urban protest as well as heterotopian spaces. As the role of autonomous street politics tends to get marginalised and underplayed within mainstream movement research this seems to be even more important because there is autonomous urban protest in Northern European cities just as there is a vital and active autonomous political action scene in Vienna. This autonomous urban protest politics importantly contributes to public political discussions pointing to societal antagonisms and reclaiming the Right to the City.

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Brenner, Neil & Nik, Theodore, ´Cities and the Geographies of Actually Existing Neoliberalism´, in Brenner, Neil & Nik, Theodore  (eds),  Spaces of Neoliberalism. Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe, Oxford: Blackwell 2002, pp. 2-33.

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Della Porta, Donatella / Diani, Mario (2006) Social Movements. An Introduction, Blackwell, Oxford

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Political Periodicals:

TATblatt

Lotta Dura

Malmoe

Websites:

http://at.indymedia.org/

http://fcsanspapiers.org/

http://malmoe.org/

http://no-racism.net/

http://noborder.org/without/austria.html

http://platzda.blogsport.eu/

http://republicart.net

http://treibstoff.wagenplatz.at/

http://austria.indymedia.org/node/18490

http://india-seminar.com/2001/503/503%20saskia%20sassen.htm

http://malmoe.org/artikel/regieren/2093

http://nadir.org/nadir/periodika/tatblatt/164ebergassing-doku.htm

http://no-racism.net/article/521/

http://no-racism.net/article/848/

http://no-racism.net/article/2905/

http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/503/503%20saskia%20sassen.htm

http://translate.eipcp.net/strands/03/steyerl-strands02en/?lid=steyerl-strands02de

Khan, A. (2010) The Long Struggle: The Muslim World’s Western Problem. Zero Books: Winchester.

The Long Struggle aims to provide an account of some of the historical reasons that explain the tensions between the West and the Muslim world today, tracing the roots of the conflict by taking the reader back to the time when “the world of Islam felt content and secure in its destiny as the pinnacle of human achievement” (p. 5). Amil Khan argues that the Muslim world’s “sense of security and global identity” was shaken when the Ottoman Empire fell in 1918, leading to the rise of the West and its colonial –and postcolonial– domination of Muslim lands. According to the author, the resulting feelings of discontent and frustration have been at the core of the clashes between both worlds in the last two centuries.
Khan has presented a history of struggles for supremacy between the West and Islam by reviewing a selection of events that have led to the feelings of failure that are predominant in some sections of the Muslim world. Every chapter works as an essay on a separate period or aspect of history, from the caliphate system to contemporary conflicts and cases of political violence, although it is not historically exhaustive. For instance, Chapter 8 focuses on the figure of Sayyid Qutb, “the first ideologue of radical Islamist thought” (p. 65), who was significant in the advancement of anti-Western thought in the times of Nasser. Chapter 9, however, begins with the rise of the Second Intifada in 2000, after the violent events that took place during Ariel Sharon’s visit to the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
In his arguments, Khan never loses sight of the historical developments in Egypt, dedicating some considerable attention to Nasser, including the Six Day War. Mainly dependent on American income, Egypt’s pro-Western government complies with all the demands set by America, while also spreading “embedded anti-Americanism on the domestic level” (p. 98). Khan’s argument is that, due to what he calls a “collective wounded pride” amongst Egyptians, the control that the West exercises over their country needs to be downplayed by the Egyptian government in order to minimise the negative impact that this dominance has on their image. The author argues that this is not only true of “anti-Americanism”, but that it extends to the Western world, and that it is also not just about Egypt, but about many governments with pro-Western regimes which are also reliant on American revenue.
Khan’s discussion is not limited to Egypt, but he also covers other aspects, such as the making of the Palestinian conflict in Chapter 7. The author states that the Muslim world watched as Jewish population increased and secured its presence in Palestine after the end of the First World War. In the meantime, Arabs and Muslims considered that the arrival of European immigrants “resembled a European colony as a taste of colonialism’s true plan for the whole Muslim world” (p. 57), which illustrates, once again, the feelings of powerlessness against the foreign invader.
In the post-9/11 context, this book constitutes a good starting point for anyone interested in learning about the background to the current tensions. The book also gains in relevance in the light of the protests currently taking place in several Islamic countries. Benefitting from its clear use of English, Khan’s book assumes no previous historical knowledge, so it may be better suited to readers seeking an introduction of the topic rather than those who are already knowledgeable in this field. Including excerpts from interviews and conversations, as well as personal experiences, the material becomes descriptive at times, although there is always an implicit criticism of both Western policies and Muslim attitudes. Those descriptions of experiences are illustrative of the anger and dissatisfaction which is allegedly felt throughout the Muslim world as a consequence of the selected historical developments outlined by the author, giving the reader a sense of a piece of reality rather than a thorough theoretical one.
The book does not seek to justify or condemn any of the sides’ policies or uses of violence. Rather, it attempts to explain the roots and causes of this violence in the context of Western control and dominance in colonial and postcolonial times. The reader may agree or disagree with the author’s arguments, but the book attempts a balanced conclusion which suggests that an effort is required from both parts. On the one hand, the West needs to recognize that, in order to bring an end to the current situation of violence, they must change their policy-making strategies and build a new relationship with the Muslim world which is based on mutual interest and respect. On the other hand, Islamist groups need to accept that the reason why their glory was destroyed was not the result of hostile external forces (p. 11), and they also need to realize that “fixating on turning the clock back to the golden era of Islam is not enough to build stable societies” (p. 99). It remains to see whether this new type of relationship will ever turn into a reality and, more importantly, how this may be achieved.

RETROSPECTIVE FORWARD; Foreword to Guns for Banta at Gasworks Gallery, Feb-April 2011, Matthieu Kleyebe Abbonenc

As a ‘retrospective foreword to an absent film’, Matthieu Kleyebe Abbonenc’s installation at Gasworks Gallery has a playful temporality, which tactically unravels the complex political constellations around Sarah Maldoror’s work, a militant filmmaker famous for Sambizanga (1972), depicting the armed struggle against the Portuguese in Angola.

However Abonnenc’s installation does not focus on Maldoror’s ‘visible’ work. Instead it seeks to (re)imagine the missing Guns For Banta (1970), which was commissioned by the Algerian Army, but later seized as Maldoror refused to concede editing rights. The film is truly lost, save for a few photographs from the shoot in Guinea-Bissau. It is an absence upon which Abonnenc builds his exploration into Maldoror’s work, an absence from which he departs to navigate the complexities of post-colonial legacies, and the enduring relevance and power of the militant image.

The work takes the form of a diaporama; a two screen slide projection narrated by voices that figure not only Abonnenc’ s close friendship with Maldoror and her work, but Maldoror’s own political affiliations, particularly with Mario de Andrade, her former partner and founder of the MPLA. The stream of photographs that accompany the narrative are taken from Maldoror’s personal archive, but also from partisan publications of the time, such as Triconteninental. Maldoror’s memories of the time are blurry, inconsistent, at times imagined and re-imagined. But by building upon this blurry history, Abonnenc’ s work takes a tangential route to the context, and in turn the meanings of these images. The work prospers from this approach. The images are archival, documentary, yet through the hazy memories and fictionalization, their relevance and potency is expanded.

These images are somewhat archetypal to the period of decolonization; a huddle of young men, dressed in mismatching uniforms brandishing worn weapons, staring defiantly at the camera, or images of women and children dressed in bullet belts. Yet Abonnenc does not allow them to become stereotypical images of ‘African conflict’, by reactivating them through this fictionalized method, they become suggestive of a set of political conditions, rather than representative. Instead, the content of images become secondary to their journey as documentary objects. For it is precisely these journeys that Abonnenc’s work seems to address. For through the absence of Guns For Banta, and the artist’s inability to retrieve it, the circulation of images and their immersion within political contexts can be explored.

For the political conditions of the film and the photographs displayed at Gasworks are physically etched into the film stock- their dusty quality – scratched and stretched with time – their degradation attests to ‘appropriation and displacement’, and their precarity as political documents. In the rhythmical shift of the slides, the absence of Guns For Banta makes clear the complex political climate that allowed for its making – and for its seizure.

The slideshow tentatively activates the militancy of Maldoror’s work through an imaginative process, while allowing for the complex journey’s for these images and films to be revealed. In this way the exhibition seeks to understand the complicated process of cinemas role within armed struggle, as a strategy for mobilization, for feedback and amplification of political loyalties and identities.

Hito Steyerl’s notion of ‘the poor image’ is particularly appropriate for this exhibition. Steyerl writes of the poor image, that ‘[its] situation reveals much more than the content or appearance of the images themselves: it also reveals the conditions of their marginalization, the constellation of social forces leading to their…circulation as poor images’. Although Steyerl is speaking primarily of the digital, her suggestions are strikingly relevant to the kinds of militant images that Abonnenc displays. The absence of Guns For Banta gestures toward the precarious political forces it was embedded within, that allowed for both its creation and destruction, leaving only traces from which we might begin to reconstruct a ghost of its presence, and its enduring power.

In the films made during the liberation struggles, the physical conditions of their making are inscribed within the celluloid itself; scratches, burns, degradation, seizure. Instead of apologizing for the poor quality of the photographs and films within the installation, Abonnenc’s work implicitly celebrates it- for the journey that the images have made is as important as their content.

Steyerl suggests that ‘while some nation states are dismantled or fall apart, new cultures and traditions are invented and new histories are created. This obviously also affects film archives- in many cases, a whole heritage of film prints is left without its supporting framework of national culture’. In the falling of the Portugese colonial regimes, the Soviet Union seized the opportunity to use cinema as a tool to encourage the already communist-inclinations in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. The cinematic image was seen as a useful strategy of re-making political images, and in turn, subjects- ‘by the people for the people’, which was the tagline for the Mozambican newsreel programme Kuxa Kanema. The moving image became a tool through which to build new cultures and traditions, as Steyerl suggests.

The absence of Guns For Banta, and the poor quality of Sambizanga, indicate the ‘real conditions of [the films] existence’. Steyerl writes in the closing part of her article, that the poor image gestures toward ‘swarm circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible temporalities. It is about defiance and appropriation…’. The diaporama at Gasworks seems a sharp example of this kind of dispersion, and reassemblage. Abonnenc’s exhibition approaches the moving image as both a contested material commodity and as a complex political tract, unraveling the political contexts of liberation movements through an imaginative, thoughtful method. The consequence of reactivating militancy in the gallery context seems to allow for the possibility of contemplating the material economies of film, their movement, their availability, and their political power in a radically open way.

New York University

The Meaning of David Cameron, by Richard Seymour (Zero Books, May 2010)

In his recent book, Richard Seymour, an activist blogger who has been running Lenin’s Tomb since 2003, provides a short but well thought and compelling inquiry into the meaning of David Cameron. The title can immediately remind bookworms of Alain Badiou’s similar book, The Meaning of Sarkozy, in which Badiou attempts to unravel the rhetoric, strategies, and motives in Sarkozy’s success as well as the rising conservative power in France. Like Badiou, Seymour seeks to understand the current British political landscape through the rising Tory leadership before the most closely fought general election in recent British political history. At the time, David Cameron emerged to represent the ‘hope’ of British politics that vehemently required a change in the wake of the global financial crisis. His offer of a new politics did not bring him enough votes to form a single-party power but created the Britain’s first coalition government with the Liberal Democrats after 65 years. Announced as a ‘historic and seismic shift in British political landscape’, this Con-Lib coalition has undoubtedly disappointed many who were expecting novelty and change in British politics. At this point, Seymour’s book explains why it was wrong to have such expectations in the first place.
Unlike the promise of its title, his book does not focus solely on Cameron but tells the bigger story of Tories’ progressive political agenda. Seymour sheds light on the recent history of British politics, traced back to Thatcher and Blair, an