Culture and Contestation in the New Century

Description

Cultural production as we know it has been undergoing significant restructuring. In an effort to compensate for the global decline in economic growth, governments and corporations have begun to seriously consider the creative fields as markets that can be stimulated through venture capital and regional development initiatives. Along with the neoliberalization of cultural institutions, a conservative agenda that is buttressed by a war economy confronts critics and activists with the repressive forms of state censorship and police control.

From art collectives to the US-led war on terror, from cultural contestation to neoliberal governmentality and from alter-global anti-capitalism to the creative industries, this collection of essays examines the issues and politics that have marked cultural production in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In the context of a proliferation of socially engaged art practices and the interventions of autonomous art collectives, Culture and Contestation in the New Century presents the viewpoints of leading international artists and intellectuals working in the fields of critical and cultural theory. After the impasse of a postmodern post-politics ‘beyond left and right’, what are the possibilities for a radical politicization of cultural discourse? How has oppositionality shifted away from identity and difference, as well as social constructionism, to consider the universal determinations of contemporary neoliberal capitalism? These essays present a number of untimely reflections on the conditions of contemporary cultural practice, subjectivity and political dissidence, making new connections between cultural production, politics, economics and social theory. Simply stated, the book provides an account of the current interface between art and politics.

Introduction: Doing the unexpected, creating the present – Marc James Léger

 

PART I: Critical Cultural Practice

 

Chapter 1: Hans Haacke and the art of not being governed quite so much – Rosalyn Deutsche

 

Chapter 2: Counting on your collective silence: Notes on activist art as collaborative practice – Gregory Sholette

 

Chapter 3: Neo-liberalism with Dutch characteristics: The big fix-up of the Netherlands and the practice of embedded cultural activism – BAVO

 

PART II: Creative Labour and Creative Industries 

 

Chapter 4: ‘Everyone is creative’: Artists as pioneers of the new economy? – Angela McRobbie

 

Chapter 5: Creative industries as mass deception – Gerald Raunig

 

Chapter 6: Creative industries: Neo-liberalism as mass deception – Aras Ozgun

PART III: Neoliberal Governmentality and Cultural Resistance

Chapter 7: Not so quiet on the western front: A report on risk and cultural resistance within the neo-liberal society of fear – Critical Art Ensemble

 

Chapter 8: From reaching Heiligendamm: An interview with Oliver Ressler – Marc James Léger

 

Chapter 9: 1½ Métro Côte-des-Neiges: Do they owe us a living? – Mathieu Beauséjour

PART IV: Subjectivity in the Age of Post-Politics 

Chapter 10: Anonymous monuments to ordinary man and woman: The strange case of Berlin’s Ampelmännchen – David Tomas

 

Chapter 11: Giorgio Agamben’s homo sacer III and the status of the other – Bruce Barber

 

Chapter 12: On the permanent actuality for revolutionary cultural politics of President Mao Ze Dong’s slogan ‘long live the great proletarian cultural revolution’ – Slavoj Žižek

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Arts visuels
• Histoire des Arts
• Histoire des Arts
• Histoire des arts visuels
• History of art
• General officer
• Anthropology
• Art
• General
• Cultural Studies
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841504506
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Culture and Contestation in the New Century
Culture and Contestation in the New Century
Edited by Marc James L ger
First published in the UK in 2011 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2011 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2011 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover designer: Holly Rose Copy-editor: Jaita Mullick Typesetting: Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire
ISBN 978-1-84150-426-1
Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
Contents
Introduction: Doing the Unexpected, Creating the Present
Marc James L ger
PART I: Critical Cultural Practice
Chapter 1: Hans Haacke and the Art of Not Being Governed Quite So Much
Rosalyn Deutsche
Chapter 2: Counting on Your Collective Silence: Notes on Activist Art as Collaborative Practice
Gregory Sholette
Chapter 3: Neo-Liberalism with Dutch Characteristics: The Big Fix-Up of the Netherlands and the Practice of Embedded Cultural Activism
BAVO
PART II: Creative Labour and Creative Industries
Chapter 4: Everyone is Creative : Artists as Pioneers of the New Economy?
Angela McRobbie
Chapter 5: Creative Industries as Mass Deception
Gerald Raunig
Chapter 6: Creative Industries: Neo-Liberalism as Mass Deception
Aras Ozgun
PART III: Neoliberal Governmentality and Cultural Resistance
Chapter 7: Not So Quiet on the Western Front: A Report on Risk and Cultural Resistance within the Neo-Liberal Society of Fear
Critical Art Ensemble
Chapter 8: From Reaching Heiligendamm: An Interview with Oliver Ressler
Marc James L ger
Chapter 9: 1 M tro C te-des-Neiges: Do They Owe Us a Living?
Mathieu Beaus jour
PART IV: Subjectivity in the Age of Post-Politics
Chapter 10: Anonymous Monuments to Ordinary Man and Woman: The Strange Case of Berlin s Ampelm nnchen
David Tomas
Chapter 11: Giorgio Agamben s Homo Sacer III and the Status of the Other
Bruce Barber
Chapter 12: On the Permanent Actuality for Revolutionary Cultural Politics of President Mao Ze Dong s Slogan Long Live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Slavoj i ek
Contributors
Introduction: Doing the Unexpected, Creating the Present
Marc James L ger
W hile it may be early to make claims for the first decade of the twenty-first century, a few broad assertions can be proposed. If the 1990s were the years in which the post-Cold War peace dividend could be reorganized into a New World Order of neo-liberal economic restructuring, an age for which the political theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri gave the term empire , the 2000s were the years in which a post-September 11 world of military aggression gave rise to the renewal of revolutionary anti-capitalist organizing, an age in which the century , as Alain Badiou called it, could be thought to lead not only to a brave new world of philosophical antifoundationalism, but to provide inspiration for radical artists who resist pacification through their passion for the real. 1 On this score, Culture and Contestation in the New Century refuses the post-political view that there are no alternatives to the current, hegemonic forms of neo-liberal capitalism. It does so by holding to the view that the sphere of cultural production is a sphere that is distinct, though not ultimately separable, from the fields of power and politics.
In the last three decades of neo-liberalization, the view that culture contributes to economic growth has resulted in an increased managerial corporatization of cultural work and institutions. In the popular writings of Richard Florida, for example, the concept of a creative class has served as a mediating concept for the expansion of management techniques to hitherto unregulated and state-regulated areas of life and cultural expression. 2 While Florida s work draws attention to creativity as an aspect of all forms of productivity, his specification of a creative sector leaves the question of creativity with only a nominal value. At best, it reiterates traditional humanist concepts of creativity, but at worst, and as it is meant to operate, it serves as an alibi for exploitation. The term does, however, acknowledge the link between cultural labour and economic productivity, allowing for connections to be made between the rise of the creative industries discourse, especially as it has emerged under the Blair government in the 1990s and in the European Union in the 2000s, and the field of cultural production.
In contrast to Florida s neo-liberal model, the work of intellectuals associated with post-operaismo or workerism, such as Hardt and Negri or Maurizio Lazzarato and Paolo Virno, among some of the more well-known, has provided critical concepts like immaterial labour, affectivity and general intellect - concepts that help cultural actors to challenge the dominant conditions of neo-liberal governance. Their work, however, is also subject to criticism inasmuch as it overestimates the possibility of the self-constitution of social subjects within the economic conditions that prevail and inasmuch as it hastily collapses relations of production with means of production. In contrast to Florida s superficial treatment of cultural theory, the lessons of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer on the culture industries, of Pierre Bourdieu on cultural capital, and Peter B rger on the institution art make for more credible accounts of the cultural economy, even if they leave something to be desired for those who see in all Marxist accounts the makings of a white masculinist vanguardism or a pessimistic nostalgia for outmoded paradigms. 3
In Horkheimer and Adorno s writings, the factor that makes the culture industries effective in the process of capitalist integration is their organization of free time and everyday life in accordance with capitalist abstraction, and with culture as amusement, which is itself a coping mechanism for the prolongation of the conditions of work. 4 One major shift from the time of Dialectic of Enlightenment to our day is the shift from the post-war welfare state to post-Fordist market economy. In the decades since the end of the golden age of postwar prosperity, capitalist governments have relinquished their promise to protect employment and promote social equality and well-being in favour of privatization, debt reduction and the entrenchment of economic disparity. As part of the shift to neo-liberal governance, cultural and intellectual work has become the focus not only of ideological efforts to discredit social democratic concepts along with professionalism but of new policies that seek to enforce the privatization of services and the commodification of culture.
Through market regulation and capital investment, the surplus of what was previously considered legitimate culture is today linked to the creation of new markets - the only and ultimate standard of neo-liberal economics as a moral system of discipline. Beginning in the late 1970s, as part of the reaction of New Right governments to welfarism, public institutions were brutally restructured, the argument went, so they could survive economically in the global marketplace. Increasing the power of centralized authority, neo-liberal governments oversaw a shift from manufacturing (i.e. in the developed West, where labour standards increase production costs) to a service economy, creating an unstable employment structure with growth in the consumption of immaterial and leisure services. As a result, a flexible, skilled and educated workforce has become a permanent feature of the new service economy. 5 Linked to this is the growth of unemployment, underemployment and part-time and low-skilled service jobs. One of the costs of post-Fordist restructuring has thus been the reintroduction, following the postwar boom, of unstable working conditions. Needless to say, digitalization and capitalization have facilitated the flows of production, allowing for new forms of independence and cooperation, but they have also helped create new conditions of exploitation and self-precarization. As Isabell Lorey has argued, under conditions of biopolitical governmentality, self-precarization appears to cultural workers as a choice, a normalized economization of life associated with liberal ideals of individual autonomy, lifestyle choice and even deviance or freedom from institutions. Such imaginary self-relating and self-discipline mask the fact that the mass precarization of labour is forced on people who fall out of normal labor conditions . 6 Instead, it works to reproduce the conditions of what Michel Foucault defined in the late 1970s as neo-liberal governmentality. Precarity, however, and as Angela Mitropoulos has remarked, belongs both to labour and to the new forms of capitalist production. As part of the disciplining of labour, neo-liberalism needs not only to profit from production but to govern thought. It did so in the age of Fordism, she argues, by severing the minds of workers from their bodies and attributing knowledge and planning to management. In the age of post-Fordist capitalism, however, and with an increasingly educated population, control is managed through the productivity of desire, affect and sociality itself. 7
The question of creative work, then, re-emerges as we undergo significant restructuring of the institutions of cultural production. Maurizio Lazzarato argues that structural changes to the labour market, introduced primarily by the state, have today transformed artists into a hybrid of employer and employee and thus into human capital that contributes to a new cultural market. 8 He argues that neo-liber