In modern society we were used to thinking
of culture and its production as business of specialized institutions of
groups. (Swedish: kulturarbetare). Indeed the
progressive disappearance of spontaneous popular culture, and the concomitant
institutionalization of mass culture, were understood to be to central
tendencies within the modernization process.
“Spontankultur”
Since the post-War years this development
has been reversed, and there has been a continuous tendency towards renewed
forms of autonomous cultural production, first with youth culture and the
counter culture, then with participatory consumerism, fan culture and finally,
through the socialization of networked ICTs, today’s generalized interactivity
or Web 2.0.
To some extent this new cultural production
constitutes a revival of older forms of traditional, popular culture. Largely
however it emerges form a new situation, itself created by the massive
reorganization of social relations that have resulted from the modernization process.
‘Spontaneous’, non-institutionalized
culture today is the outcome of a dual technological and existential condition.
From a technological point of view, the diffusion of networked ICTs has worked
as a massive socialization of the means of cultural production, much like that
imagined by Hans Magnus Enzenberger in the early 1970s. The multi-purpose,
networked computer radically facilitates the production of culture, its
distribution and, of equal importance, the organization of productive processes
that can span over geographical distance. Existentially, the ‘post-modern
condition’ where tradition and inherited identities count less than before
force a growing number of people to themselves understand what their values
are, know their motivations and aspirations, give meaning to their existence,
in short to produce a meaningful, affective and ‘ethical’ context for life.
When networked ICTs combined with these existential needs, they work to release
an immense productive condition that is immanent in social life itself: the
desire to overcome the alienation and solitude imposed by the modernization
process and to come together and produce community: what Italian philosopher
Paolo Virno has called ‘mass intellectuality’.
Sustainable Policies (after Florida)
Such mass intellectuality has been the
focus of a number of theories and suggestiosn for urban development, from
Charles Landry to Richard Florida. Mostly however these suggestions are not
sustainable: they tend to use up the very creativity that they seek to build
on, in transforming it into an ‘experientially rich’ consumer environment for
the educated middle class.
In this project we want to develop a
different more sustainable strategy for valorizing creativity. This presupposes
a more advanced and multi-faceted definition of the value of this mass
intellectuality. With ‘value’ we mean three different things. First, these
practices can have what we call an ‘ethical value’, that is they can generate
valuable forms of community and belonging that serve to anchor individuals into
a social context and can function as a point of departure for political
participation and awareness. Mass intellectuality can work as a driver for new kinds
of democratization. Second, these
processes can have direct economic value. As the distinction between cultural and
material production keeps breaking down (BMWs most valuable resource is their
brand), companies take an increasing interest in the immaterial productivity of
everyday life. This is particularly true for the kinds of ‘cool’ or ‘creative’
productive processes that unfold in the urban environment. Can the mass
intellectuality function as an economic resource for the city, and how can it ,
in that case be valorised? Finally, mass intellectuality has symbolic or ‘brand’
value. Too many cities try to brand themselves as ‘creative’. Mostly this is a
matter for rather superficial forms of intervention. Are their ways in which
the city of Malmö can make actually existing form of mass- intellectuality
contribute to developing its brand and attraction?
to be continued..