Una de las últimas publicaciones relacionadas con el proyecto que han visto la luz es Material Conditions of Production and Hidden Romantic Discourses in New Media Artistic and Creative Practices por Ruth Pagès & Gemma San Cornelio, en la revista Leonardo Electronic Almanac, el ‘brazo digital’ (como ellos la definen) de la prestigiosa revista académica Leonardo.
El artículo aborda, desde una perspectiva del trabajo cultural, una reflexión sobre las incoherencias entre los discursos románticos del trabajo en el arte -más concretamente en el ámbito digital-, y las condiciones reales en las que éste se produce. Todo esto en el marco del monográfico Red Art, centrado en las utopías vinculadas al arte. El artículo toma como casos de estudio, dos experiencias de ‘mediación’, o de programas que conectan artistas con la industria con el fin de desencadenar la innovación. El caso de los mediadores constituye, asimismo, uno de los seis casos de estudio sobre co-creación que forman parte del proyecto de investigación Prácticas creativas y participación en los nuevos medios.
Abstract:
Despite today’s ruling of neoliberal capitalism, New Media Art could be re garded as a place of resistance, where radical ideologies such as commu nist utopias and other social discourses are able to proliferate and spread through social connectivity. By looking into this apparent contradiction, we find that whereas New Media Art-work discourses are full of passion, self-realization, freedom, creativity, anti-capitalist values, etc., their material conditions of production are remarkably complex and operate on self-disciplinarity, flexibility, precarity, and ‘lottery economy’ work. Moreover, the neoliberal regulation of ‘mainstream and acceptable’ art as well as the creative aesthetic processes as potential economic sources of income has also extended these conditions to most new media creative practices, which exist as separated from the mainstream art world.
This paper endeavors to capture a detailed view of the previous assumption, based on the analysis of some examples and posing these material conditions side by side with the discourses of creative work, which rely almost solely on old romantic notions of creativity evoking the rewards of such work and yet, the relinquishments -in terms of stable work conditions- to be also made as a counterpart of creative grace. The research we present focuses on initiatives which mediate between creators and industry based in the Spanish territory.
Prácticas Creativas y Nuevos Medios 