144 The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction: The Significance of the Creative Industries Mark Blythe Abstract This paper reflects on the social and political context of the emphasis on vocationalism by significance of the new classification of the successive UK governments. It is suggested that ‘creative industries’. The new aggregate expands while the new aggregate may be useful in terms previous classifications of the arts and cultural of certain kinds of promotion, the category should industries and produces figures which suggest be recognised as arbitrary and politically motivated. that these sectors are increasingly vital elements Finally, the paper examines the notion that the of the UK economy. It is argued that these statis- creative industries might be harnessed to achieve tics on the creative industries are, to an extent, social inclusion and urban re-generation and misleading. The paper considers some of the reflects on some of the social costs of such sectors. implications of the recent and continuing advances in technologies of digital reproduction and distri- bution. The importance of the creative industries to Arts and Design education is placed within the JADE 20.2 ©NSEAD 2001 Background: Well-Rehearsed Statistics statisticians. [8] It is not creativity, then, which 145 There is at present, a great deal of interest in the brings these sectors together. Mark Blythe ‘creative industries’. The work of art in the age of The sectors vary enormously in terms of digital reproduction has become primarily, a revenue and growth. The Interactive and Leisure means of bolstering the economy. Rationales for Software industry has expanded exponentially in supporting the Arts in terms of their social and recent years but the same cannot be said of spiritual importance have been replaced by sectors such as the Performing Arts. High turn- economic justifications for the support and devel- overs cluster around sectors like Advertising far opment of the Creative Industries. The Creative more than sectors such as Crafts. There are also Industries is a relatively new aggregate established wide differences in terms of culture. Craft makers, by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport for example, are unlikely to be as commercially (DCMS) in 1998. It expands previous classifications driven as, say, Designers. Although there are some of the cultural industries [1] to include commercial similarities between the sectors in terms of size arts such as advertising and interactive and leisure and structure (most are micro enterprises and software. [2] The new aggregate of sectors has heavily dependent on freelancers) there are also produced some startling and well rehearsed important exceptions (for example large media figures: the creative industries are growing at and broadcasting companies). twice the rate of the economy as a whole, they The DCMS acknowledges that the sectors are contribute to more than four percent of the domes- not homogenous and do not form an integrated tic economy, they employ around one and a half sector, but argue that there is ‘a sound case for million people and generate over sixty billion encouraging them to appear so’ [9] for the pounds a year. [3] While manufacturing industries purpose of promotion. Any government must face are in decline, the creative industries are presented the problem of how to fund the arts and how to as the great hope of the British economy: legitimate that funding. By bracketing ‘high’ and The UK’s distinctive capacities are not raw ‘commercial’ art together, promotional opportu- materials, or cheap labour, they must be our nities arise in terms of increasing the perceived knowledge, skills and creativity. [4] cultural importance of the commercial arts and No longer the workshop of the world, Britain increasing the perceived economic importance is ‘rebranded’ as a knowledge nation, a creative of high art. Sectors generating low incomes can country. There are, then, high hopes attached to be presented as more economically significant the development of these sectors. than they actually are when grouped together with high income generating sectors. Likewise Defining the Creative Industries commercially driven enterprises may benefit in The DCMS mapping document defines the terms of cultural capital [10] from their association creative industries as: Advertising, Architecture, with more ‘artistic’ enterprises such as the Art and Antiques Market, Crafts. Design, Designer Performing Arts. In this sense the aggregate is Fashion, Film, Interactive and leisure software, political and the statistics are rhetorical. Music, Performing Arts, Publishing. Software, The aggregate collapses distinctions between Television and Radio. [6] This breakdown includes low, middle and high brow culture but this strat- industries ‘which have their origin in individual egy can highlight as well as disguise difference. creativity’. [7] The sectors are so diverse as to There is a far greater market for mass cultural have little in common except this abstract and products such as video games than for elite arts fluid concept of ‘creativity’. The broadest concep- such as opera and ballet. However, public fund- tions of creativity could, and have, included the ing is weighted towards these elite minority work of scientists, doctors, teachers and even pursuits. It has then been argued that this imbal- JADE 20.2 ©NSEAD 2001 146 ance must be addressed if the creative industries production. And what is called production is in Mark Blythe are really to become the bedrock of the econ- fact, design, product development or R&D. [18] omy.[11] In order to counter such attacks the arts must fall back on earlier validations of fund- However, there is a fundamental difference between ing in terms of social or public service benefits. the products of the cultural economy and those of The defence of the arts as a public service is, of the ‘real’ economy and that is reproducibility. The course, politically contingent. The purist cry of l’art products of the cultural industries can easily be digi- pour l’art only became necessary with the advent tally reproduced; the products of the real economy of mechanical reproduction, when art had lost its e.g. – cars, cartons of milk, video recorders – ritual and symbolic uses. [12] Post war Arts fund- cannot. Intellectual copyright is a complex and ing policies have been characterised by three crucial issue for the creative industries precisely major stages: ‘the mission to civilise’ of the fifties, because its products are reproductions, not produc- ‘the mission to socialise’ of the seventies and ‘the tions. As Lash and Urry note, where a product mission to commercialise’ of the eighties. [13] manufacturer’s copyright may be infringed by a The DCMS aggregate statistics have been cited rival manufacturer those most likely to infringe the in recent Arts Council publications to highlight the copyright of the cultural industries are their own importance of the arts to the UK economy. [14] customers. It is relatively easy for consumers to But claims of economic significance by associa- obtain illegal reproductions of music, film, games tion do not bear close scrutiny and recourse must and even books, but no-one has yet successfully be made to earlier validations of the arts. down-loaded a motor car from the internet. In clas- sical Marxist terminology, the cultural industries do Standardised Products in the Creative not retain control of the means of production, Industries because they produce reproductions. Furthermore The term ‘cultural industries’ was coined by the means of reproduction are not concentrated in Adorno and Horkenheimer in the nineteen fifties. the hands of capital, but are widely available. This It was, originally, a pejorative term intended to is perhaps, one argument for considering the replace phrases like ‘show business’ or ‘the enter- creative industries as a distinct sector. tainment industry’, which even then were losing Again, there are exceptions, the Performing their ironic connotations. [15] The term ‘industry’ Arts and Crafts for instance do not conform to the Adorno warned was not to be taken too seriously. ‘production of reproductions’ formulae. Neither It did not refer to production processes but to the of the products of these sectors are easily repro- standardisation of products and the rationalisation ducible and this is, in part, their selling point. The of distribution mechanisms. [16] Following Walter uniqueness of the pot and the un-repeatability Benjamin, he recognised that cultural artefacts of the theatrical event are part of their value. such as film have no original which is reproduced, Although a theatre company is re-producing rather, the reproduction is the product itself. [17] Hamlet, most directors will attempt to offer a These standardised products were seen as deter- unique interpretation of the text. In this sense, mining the market rather than being determined advancement in technologies of reproduction are by it. In this sense, Adorno saw similarities in struc- less of a problem for these sectors in terms of ture between the various sectors of the cultural intellectual copyright but, also less of an advan- industries. Lash and Urry argue that: tage in terms of reducing overheads. If we begin not from the metaphor of the cultural The Creation of Markets in the Creative economy, but from the real economy, then what Industries is commonly called reproduction is in reality Adorno saw the consumers of cultural products JADE 20.2 ©NSEAD 2001 as essentially complacent, passively accepting designer and many institutions have spent a great 147 the hegemonic messages of the dominant deal of time and money on longitudinal studies of Mark Blythe classes. This view of consumption has become graduate employment to demonstrate that the deeply unfashionable and is criticised as elitist sometimes dismal first destination figures improve and reductive. Empirical studies of the ways in over time. [21] While for many graduates courses which cultural products are consumed have since in Art and Design are entirely vocational leading demonstrated that audiences are not passive.