Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

Discussion about Creative Europe programme (2014)

 

Thanks to all contributors to KEA Creative Europe.The network counts 3000 members.Creative Europe is now the name of the European Programme.KEA wishes to connect creative minds and projects.

Philippe Kern Founder and managing director at KEA European Affairs Top Contributor

Comments

Giuseppe Mazziotti, Fabricio Chavarro and 16 others like this

9 comments

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    Dominique C

Dominique C GUILLERM

Cofondateur du blog Les ARMES secrètes de la POESIE

Top Contributor

Créative Europe, joli nom en français aussi. Merci de m'accueillir dans ce groupe.

Hatto Fischer

Advising and evaluation

Philippine, since KEA advocates so much the 'creative and cultural industries', and therefore sees the Creative Europe programme in such a positive light, please read the review by Robrecht Vanderbeeken.

http://www.stateofthearts.be/?author=1

If you want, we can talk more about what his review means in terms as to where the EU wishes to take culture.
ciao
hatto

Gabriele Giampieri, Dominique C GUILLERM like this

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    Dominique C

Dominique C GUILLERM

Cofondateur du blog Les ARMES secrètes de la POESIE

Top Contributor

Merci Hatto pour ce lien extrêmement instructif ! La lecture en est longue et parfois ardue mais assez convaincante. Du coup, on a atténué l'enthousiasme de la première version de notre article : < L'Europe EST sa culture, pas juste un marché culturel ! > http://armesecretepoesie-axodom.blogspot.fr/2014/04/leurope-est-sa-culture.html

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    Philippe

Philippe Kern

Founder and managing director at KEA European Affairs

Top Contributor

Rubrecht is right to send warning signals. He is wrong to paint everything in black. I guess his aim is rather to take a stance against what he calls 'neo liberalism' instead of looking at ways to make culture and art more central to society's developpements.
I do not recall making any comments on the Creative Europe programm. I guess time will tell whether we should positive about it. The programme is the result of political compromises essentially in favour of Europe's film lobby. However the budget increase to support cultural activities not a small victory , Is it ?

Petya Koleva likes this

Hatto Fischer

Advising and evaluation

Dominique, you might want to look at the speeces given by Michael D. Higgins, now President of Ireland and a poet himself; see
There is an enormous sadness at the heart of Europe by Michael D. Higgins
http://poieinkaiprattein.org/culture/position-papers/there-is-an-enormous-sadness-at-the-heart-of-europe-by-michael-d-higgins/

The cultural space by Michael D. Higgins
http://poieinkaiprattein.org/europe/european-debate-2/position-papers/the-cultural-space-by-michael-d-higgins/

Philippe, the money supposedly gained for culture does not stand up to the loss of indepdent funding for the arts and culture. You speak about it having only value when contributing to the development of society, but what kind of development do you mean? If this is valorized solely in economic terms, then you are no longer talking about any cultural development. I think Ruprecht articulates quite a clear stance as to why your constant advocacy of creative and cultural industries leaves no space to the arts and culture. It is quite a different ball game, so to speak, if you talk about fashion design, but even famous fashion designers would admit they are not artists.

 

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    Philippe

Philippe Kern

Founder and managing director at KEA European Affairs

Top Contributor

I never advocated that fashion designers are artists, even if some can pretend to such status such as Steven Mc Queen or Missoni. Generally they are creative professionals. There cannot be art and culture without artists - I recommend you read the contribution i just made on Culture in EU External Relations.

Petya Koleva likes this

Hatto Fischer

Advising and evaluation

I did not say you said...The argumentation for or against the EU given the highest priority to cultural and creative industries has to be seen out of two perspectives: what does it mean for artists and cultural workers who would like to rely to some degree of certainty upon such European funding which does justice to their circumstance of work, and what policy options do politicians like to adopt, but which might be misleading in many ways if not all the consequences are discussed. The review by Ruprecht does offer an insight into an evaluation of the Creative Europe programme as it promotes mainly 'cultural and creative industries', and therefore it would be good to know what you say to this criticism as I consider you to be a prime promoter of this policy option after having proven in the eyes of the EU Commission what value culture adds to the economy. Basically I am saying the promotion of 'cultural and creative industries' is not a cultural but an industrial policy.

Petya Koleva likes this

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    Petya

Petya Koleva

Managing director, trainer and consultant at Intercultura Consult

Dear gentlemen,
I am reading your comments and finding truth in all of them. This makes me remember an article by a colleague that is discussing the difference between cultural indicators (mostly relying on social and economic data) and arts indicators (qualititative as well as quantitative). To my mind we are at the early phase of the programme but the exhange is fruitful and needed because culture and values are of essential need to other sectors that are not GDP contributors but spenders such as defence, crime, education, social welfare etc.

Dominique C GUILLERM likes this

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    Dominique C

Dominique C GUILLERM

Cofondateur du blog Les ARMES secrètes de la POESIE

Top Contributor

En effet, Petya !
Cet article sur la différence entre indicateurs culturels et indicateurs artistiques est-il disponible en ligne ?
Vous mentionnez à juste titre des domaines qui ne contribuent pas au PNB (produit national brut) : défense, etc. Mais j'en ajouterai un autre qui est bien plus proche de l'art et de la culture : la recherche fondamentale. Il arrive souvent qu'une découverte ne devienne une source de profits que très longtemps après.
De même, Albert Camus (l'un des auteurs les plus lus dans le monde avec "L'étranger") ou Maurice Ravel (dont le Boléro est le numéro 1 des exportations de musique française...) n'auraient pu imaginer leur apport financier au commerce extérieur de leur pays, et à la culture européenne.

 

Hatto Fischer

Advising and evaluation

Dominique, already in 2000 but especially after the WSSD (World Summit on Sustainable Development) did we develop models for cultural indicators, and this with an expert of the European Commission. This development got stuck because usually politicians will only want to recognize such indicators which they can affect with their policy measures, and then be proven as having been successful.
Quite another methodology evolved out of the understanding of 'cultural impact studies', but its base line should remain the same, namely what can and do people support not only in the short, but in the long run.
For example, if you follow up the recommendation by Bob Palmer with regards to European Capitals of Culture, then it is all about the creation of such specific audiences which continue to support not merely the arts in general, but become lovers of dance, theatre, etc. And the cultivation of these audiences requires still many other things to sustain the most important aspect of all, namely receptivity. Thus critics, but also special ways of interacting with audiences e.g. the theatre director Grotowski developed here new techniques and relied at the same time on ritualized forms of chanting so that the human voice becomes audible, show how theatre productions evolve over time. But all that is missing in discussions talking about culture, generally speaking, and therefore becoming really a new type of ideology.
As for Camus, Marseille 2013 wanted to refer to this author in order to restart the dialogue not only with Algiers, but with the entire Middle East having gone through so many changes since the Arab Spring started in 2011. Yet the necessary 'dialogue between cultures' has not come about because both sides cannot agree on some deeper and more basic value dispositions.
Philippine, you asked me to look at your latest report to culture in foreign relations. Can you pleace give me the reference as to where I can find the contribution of KEA. One person who attended the most recent conference on this subject in Brussels said to me afterwards it was mostly rhetorics and nothing really of substance.
To give this discussion perhaps another angle or perspective, culture is also in learning to know how to use cultural resources, and this is best done by investing in them. This includes setting standards and in knowing what are artistic achievements in handling instruments, or materials, while opening up perspectives to imagine still other possibilities.
If I understand the last point you are making, Dominique, then I would say the arts and therefore culture is lost if its very concept would depend upon money as guidance as to what needs to be done.
A good question is what do we have in mind when not so much teaching, but giving children growing up opportunities to learn to speak in not just any but in a humane language. Here then enters the most crucial point so easily forgotten by those who drive the cultural industries into the economic direction and try to foster a kind of cretivity leading on to innovations of if not products then such services which mean business opportunities. Here Marx said decisive is that we use such a language which addresses the human self conscioiusness in the other and therefore as well in ourselves. And this is only possible when the language combines categories of productivity and creativity. As this is impossible if culture and economy are seperated (the economist Louis Baeck called it the Atlantic tradition), it depends how the economy is included in and governed by culture. For this reason the Western model of economy is deemed by many in the Mediterranean countries as not being workable, and indeed their households are other units to making decisions than global corporations. We need to understand that difference and comprehend the underlining conflicts as to which decision making process shall prevail as it depends on how we assess successes and failures.
A Good Easter to all
hatto

Athens 17.4.2014

 

 

Critical comments:


The EU cultural policy is the problem, not the solution

by Robrecht Vanderbeeken

"The Creative Europe policy documents, the cultural policy of the European Commission, reads like a good news show. The EU declares that it wishes to help the arts sector in this difficult time of crisis, in which the continuing austerity policy in the Member States only threatens to increase. The fact that the EU itself is responsible for this threat because it implements a policy in which austerity and social disintegration are the answer, regardless of the question, for obvious reasons goes without mention. According to the EU, it also does not just want to leave art subject to the caprice of the free market. On the contrary: Creative Europe would – according to the newspeak used – be a ‘sustainable’ and ‘social’ policy serving as a corrective to the market.

The problem, however, is that from its very first lines, this programme approaches art and culture like a market economy: according to the EU, it simply concerns creative sectors that together create 8 million jobs and 4.5% of the EU GDP. In other words, this support policy is a pure, market-oriented economic policy with its principal objective being to increase free trade to Europe’s advantage. This implies that art and culture must be in conformity with the market as much as possible: developing more markets, generating innovation for the creative economy, developing transnational business cooperation, increasing internationalization. It may be clear that critical art or artistic freedom is not a priority here. On the contrary, the EU conceives artists and art institutes as resources, that is, as raw materials.

The broader picture: Creative Europe is dominated entirely by the main objective of the European policy, namely, international competition. In recent years, the US as well as Europe quickly lost ground in comparison to the emerging BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Furthermore, the crisis that started in 2007 in the US has been nicely passed on to Europe. José M. Barroso, Chairman of the European Committee, publicly admitted (see here) that the EU is conducting a silent revolution against the Member States and is currently making major efforts to increase competitiveness. In other words: wages, working conditions, social security and public services are being reduced in order to safe profits and give large companies more ‘oxygen’ for paying high dividends. You first have to make a large pie before you can redistribute it, as the popular fable of liberal fanfare goes. But that so-called ‘trickle-down effect’ is clearly a false promise when in the meantime it appears that lot of efforts are done to dismantle the welfare state, job security and labour conditions. Due to the desire for competitiveness, the EU exerts control at two speeds: there are the northern countries with a surplus, and the southern countries with debts, which ever-increasingly relate to one another like jockey and horse in a race to the bottom. Those who stand up for a social or cultural Europe are facing a losing proposition: the battle with countries such as Bangladesh also cannot be won without catapulting Europe back to the middle ages."

Read more: Robrecht Vanderbeeken

April 2, 2014generalwe

http://www.stateofthearts.be/?author=1

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