Cultural Industrialisation - cause and effect.

The following article referenced below, concerned the growing difficulties on respect pf art making/makers (certainly here in the UK). Below is a brief excerpt taken from a blog article by Anthony J Hughes http://anthonyjhughes.vox.com/library/post/mad-as-a-march-hare-march-madness-beware-the-eyes-of-march.html


.....What am I saying?

Funding procedures and practice and the funding and economic redevelopment projects aimed at supporting ‘creative industries’ has actually become a system supporting government ‘intervention[1]’ and policy. That policy has either intentionally or inadvertently become a controlling factor in the human act of creativity and now acts in a legislative, often excluding manner and is often damaging for the industries it claims to ‘support’[2].
The funding system has led to: -

1 A skewed artificial view of the creative industries in both nature, practice, shape, scope and for the purposes of counting economic value attached to it.

2 A new industry[3] which originated as a parasite on the back of creativity – and has now been extremely manipulative in reversing the role. This new ‘industry’ is policed by civil servants, accountants, admin paper pushers and is predominantly made up of those who are not from a creative background and have little or no understanding of the nature of either creativity or indeed commercial practice.

My reply to his blog is as follows:

A refreshing thought on the damage that the cultural industrialisation has become. Business as manipulation it certainly is and I agree that civil servants are proudly pushing government policy as art of course. Intervention into the artistic fabric of the day to day is a tragic development. Indeed, cultural industry was a term which was fiercely derided and debated in the early to mid 1990s. Now its accepted common language and way of being for many people (and artists).

As a strategy to this, I continue to disengage from this persuasive financial and political process. Anonymity as hoax and prank work for example, humiliating the art mainstream at times, ad hoc and unpredictable manifestations, mean that I'm less involved in cultural tourism/governance, service led cultural activity (simply helping the needy (which I don’t deride by the way)) and the attack on intelligent human beings (who are of course, innately creative).

In the late 1990s, I was increasingly aware of the dangers of a mediated art making culture and the mechanism in adopting the coercion of money lead creativity. In the 2000's it is clear that many so called artists are robots to a system other than their own autonomy as makers. This has not only dumbed down any potential artist as extraordinary and experimental, but on the contrary, become a way of moronisation of the said individual. Its all about what fits in, with who and how.....the artist is political despite the guessing games that are encouraged to make the quick and continued £1 sale!

I do believe that we are living in a culturally pitiful time (I refer to the UK), devoid of the extension of ideas that foster the superb evolution as humans (worse now than the 1990s which is saying something!). I am lucky to know and work with some great people fortunately, who resist and push forward art-as-ideas in ways that I and others would not expect, hence limit the insistence that I should become involved in the tragic tale of New Labour! I didn't believe it for one minute of course!

It's been great to read this article. Thankyou.

- Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms B.