I have been intrigued to reflect on my career in the arts, and compare personal long-term aspirations with current shifts in attitude. This has involved the discovery of life-long learning and exposure to communities of practice whom I had not previously encountered. It is a liberating journey, and a challenge to old romantic beliefs around the arts and artists. I find myself in a school that has developed a response to the multidimensional arts practice with which I identify, the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

The term ‘Creative Industries’ is not universal, and there are many boundary issues within the intricacies of its definition. What has struck me by the term is a shift in the word ‘creative’. This is perhaps due to an association with the fine arts imagination, and the intangible, intuitive element of practice whose origins are not easily explained. More recently, this has been challenged by cultural theorists, and adopted by governments including those of Queensland and the United Kingdom. ‘Creative’ now, is broadly defined through a proximity to the ‘new economy’ covering the arts, media and innovation. It is possibly the inclusive sweep of ‘innovation’ that swells the ‘creative’ catch phrase. Areas such as: artistic disciplines, publishing, information and communications technology, software development, scientific research and development, amongst others, have a place under the new ‘creative’ umbrella, although not all of these disciplines are included in the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT. Of greatest significance to the fine arts is the contemporary relation to economics that the Creative Industries identifies, one brought about through the organisational principal of ‘clusters’, although I prefer the phrase ‘communities of practice’.

So what is it that draws these disparate areas of creativity together?
Central to the ‘new economy’ is the acquisition and management of ‘information’, hence the now familiar term ‘knowledge economy’. This is evidence of an economic and philosophical shift from objects to ideas, as the key growth area for creative disciplines. The value of these ‘ideas’ is that they can be traded as: intellectual property, skills, know-how, ‘do-it-yourself (DIY) citizenship’, self-initiated projects, and media content, entrepreneurial, experiential, tactical and strategic. The ‘new economy’ is characterised by a shift in principle from the supply of products and services to relationships and experiences. At one extreme is the ‘hyper-capitalism’ of globalisation and at the other, ‘DIY’ identity and cultural self-determination. Some key points of the new ‘DIY’ creativity are: tolerance, acceptance, multiplicity of choice and significantly greater access to the arts, in addition to the distribution possibilities of self-publishing and broadcast/streaming media of the ‘digital revolution’.

But what do all these reinvented words mean for us?
These issues highlight that choices and strategies for survival in the arts are expanding. Debates of the kind: high-brow vs. low-brow, no longer seem pertinent to contemporary careers, rather issues that are shared sector wide such as unpredictability of success, and challenges of running a micro-business or portfolio career seem more pressing. As do niche marketing, skills development and repertoire. Alternatively, what has been identified is a broader definition, and therefore broader placement of creative professionals within the fabric and niches of our society. Contemporary ‘creativity’ has spread from the ‘fringe to the mainstream’.

The Creative Industries do not replace fine art practices, and traditional artforms, forums and institutions continue to operate. However, the already vulnerable subsidised arts sector comes under pressure in an increasingly ‘free trade’ system, hence the decrease in levels of government support generally. The arguments of Creative Industries pundits include not only redundancy in the arts and ‘creativity’, but also a rate of change that suggests constant turnover of ideas, innovation and talent as an intrinsic condition of the ‘knowledge economy’. Change is what distinguishes the ‘new economy’ from an older economic model based on static organisational conditions. Displacing the traditional notion of “finding one good thing and sticking to it”, the new creativity is about nurturing a diverse repertoire and seeking alternative mediums for the imagination. In short, it is multidisciplinary. This new version of the creative economy has a ‘fault-line’ between new and old practices, at times expressed as tension between new communities and historical values.

The primary concern of the Creative Industries is identification of an economic structure and policies for its longevity. Issues around the aesthetics, philosophy and ethics, of arts practice although vital to individuals and key disciplines, are concerns that take their place in the multidimensional and experiential matrix of the creative milieu. Perhaps this is the point, Creative Industries despite the economic barbs, tolerates diversity, cultural and creative identity, democracy and the ‘aestheticisation of everyday life’. This is expressed as a ‘sense of place’ through renewed investment in our environments, both the urban village and the regional city. Creativity is increasingly defined by the visibility of surprising and controversial new convergences along with the contributions of many skilled and talented people.

Russell Milledge February 2003