creative cities

 

the difficult questions

 

Convened by Tara Byrne, gradcam research scholar. Contact: tarasbyrne(at)googlemail.com

 

A seminar series which takes as its point of departure a critical interrogation of the current vogue for creative cities discourse.

Key questions to be considered are:

  • What is meant by 'creative cities'?
  • What is the role of culture in 'creative cities' debate and practice?
  • How might 'creative cities' contribute to communities? what is the relationship between 'creative cities' discourse and gentrification/regeneration theories?
  • What is the relationship between 'creative cities' rhetoric and 'creative economy' and 'smart economy' discourses?
  • “to what extent have the Creative Industries been part of the global financial system bubble and to what extent could they be part of the solution”? (Paul Stark –creative clusters 2008 conference)
  • How do 'creative cities' relate to notions of social belonging, participatory-citizenship and communal identity?
  • What is the impact of 'creative city' theory on cultural policy and cultural practice?

These questions are suggested as an initial point of departure. It is envisaged that participants in the seminar series will agree a shared agenda of enquiry based on an initial critical examination of 'creative cities' discourse. (Access Spring 2009 meetings here.)

 

spring 2010 schedule

 

Wednesday 20/01/10 18:00-19:30

First spring 2010 meeting:
The agenda for this meeting will be the four questions Jim Dunne has posed to us in relation to city branding. For this meeting I am also suggesting we discuss an essay on the work of Richard Florida (Craig Prichard, Bronwyn Boon, Amanda Bill & Deborah Jones, ‘Creativity and Class’ ).
[See http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/6-4/6-4prichard-etal.pdf]
Note: We are looking into alternative venues for future meetings.

 

Wednesday 20/01/10 18:00-19:30

 

Wednesday 03/02/10 18:00-19:30

 

Wednesday 24/02/10 18:00-19:30

 

Wednesday 10/03/10 18:00-19:30

 

Wednesday 31/03/10 18:00-19:30

 

Wednesday 14/04/10 18:00-19:30

 

Wednesday 28/04/10 18:00-19:30

 

autumn 2009 schedule

 

Wednesday 23/9/09 18:00-19:30

First autumn 2009 meeting: Updating on progress over summer and various projects underway.

 

 

Wednesday 7/10/2009 18:00-19:30

Pauline Byrne, Senior Planner, made a presentation on urban city development and regeneration with a particular focus on the contemporary 'cities-from-zero' and related developments in China.

 

 

Wednesday 4/11/2009 18:00-19:30

 

“Creative City schemes thus become an attempt to build competitive ‘urban software packages’; or to ‘program’ space, an expression of French urbanist Lefebvre to denote the top down organisation of space” Merijn Oudenampsen "Back to the Future of the Creative City: Amsterdam’s Creative Redevelopment and the Art of Deception". See [http://www.radicalurbantheory.com/misc/amsterdam.html#_ftn9]

 

The topic was the possible future seminar focus on 'city branding' or 'civic identity'

Tara presented information on a discussion on ‘Branding Dublin’ between higher education institutions and Dublin City Council. She noted that John O ‘Connor (head of DIT’s School of Art Design and Print) has invited the Creative Cities seminar group, through GradCAM, to participate in a potential student-led project How the seminar interacts with this project and in what format is open for discussion, however the focus on citry branding and civicidentity provides a good rubric for the seminar series for the next six months.

Branding questions that were mooted at different poiints in the discussion:

  • Should cities be branded? Can they avoid already being 'consumed' as 'brands' informally established by lived processes ofmeaning-making?
  • Cities as products? (and city council as business unit)
  • The entrepreneurial city?
  • Who does branding serve – citizens (which ones?), tourists, investors?
  • What is the role of democracy in branding?
  • Citizens and branding – Birmingham- using technology to interact
  • Check out Amsterdam’s top city programme (“focuses on creativity as the engine behind the city’s dynamism and magnetism, and on making connections between the different creative sectors”)
  • Competition between old v new city – which has priority?
  • Stereotyping in branding - broader ideas of civic identity?
  • What does Dublin represent to others? (it may be the case that most visitors find its reputation does not match its image – i.e. they are disappointed?)
  • Dublin’s branding and mediation often promotes music and literature – can it be more broadly representative of Dublin’s cultural mix?
  • Georgian Dublin is applying for UNESCO status and linking architecture with literature in its bid – what is the role of such privileged histories?
  • The Spire and Antony Gormley piece proposed Docklands sculpture: funding driven or concept driven? Also, notion of trophy sculptures (and cities ‘ticking the box’ in terms of big buildings and big sculptures – “we’ll have one of those too please”)
  • Should the concept of ‘meaning’ and relevance to a city be inherent in public work commissioning processes, or follow after production and installation (i.e. be superimposed, constructed and/or negotiatedafterwards)?
  • Is branding exclusively a matter of 'positive' 'spin' and publicity generating?
  • What are the roles of culture in city branding initiatives?
  • Many but disparate energies, critical perspectives and communities of interest in respect of Creative City propositions - need for linkage, exchange and coherence?
  • Need to pool information on Creative City initiatives – can this be published on website ?
  • Dublin Science capital in 2012
  • Artists impact on technology development (pioneering new techniques, manufacturers, processes: many more examples)
  • Irish Innovation Task Force – makes report in December- input?s
  • Siena : Palio di Siena, horse race between competing local wards or ‘contrade’ interesting case study of competitive democracy
  • Examples of branding changing social history – ‘Banglatown’ in Whitechapel, London – many histories before 'Banglatown' was coined

 

 

Wednesday 18/11/2009 18:00-19:30

Professor Finbarr Bradley (UCD): Presentation "Cultural Distinctiveness as Competitive Advantage"

Finbarr Bradley is engaged in innovation learning initiatives at a number of Irish and international companies (e.g., Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, OmniPay, RPA, etc.). He held professorships in various universities. During the 1990s, he was Professor of Finance at DCU where he was Director of the MSc in Investment & Treasury, a key postgraduate qualification he set up in the early days of the International Financial Services Centre. Also at DCU, he developed an innovative Irish-medium degree in finance, computing and languages, run out of Fiontar, a center he set up to foster a strong entrepreneurial spirit among students. He is the former chairman of zamano, a telecom company founded by former Fiontar students whose IPO is now listed on the London and Dublin Stock Exchanges.

In 2002/2006, he was a Professor in the Economics Department at NUI Maynooth where he designed and ran an interdisciplinary degree linking the arts, business and the sciences. He also set up a postgraduate degree targeted at executives in the public, private and community sectors. He was the key faculty member responsible for the Innovation Value Institute (IVI), a 2006 initiative by Intel Ireland and NUI Maynooth.

In 2006/2007, he was a Visiting Professor at the UCD Smurfit School. He has also taught at the University of Michigan, Fordham University and NYU in the US and at the Helsinki School of Economics, Finland.

He has published in a wide range of journals such as the Journal of Portfolio Management, Journal of International Finance & Accounting, The Irish Banking Review, Banking Ireland, Studies, Comhar, Feasta, Administration, Sustainable Development, Irish Educational Studies and The Irish Review. His book, Capitalising on Culture, Competing on Difference [Blackhall Publishing], co-authored with James Kennelly, on innovation, learning and sense of place in a globalising Ireland was launched by An Taoiseach Brian Cowen, TD in October 2008. A book of essays on Ireland’s economic crisis from the 2009 MacGill Summer School, co-edited with Joe Mulholland, was launched by the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan, TD in September 2009.

He has an electrical engineering degree from UCC, an MBA from Syracuse University, New York and a PhD from the Stern School of Business, New York University (NYU).

 

 

Wednesday 2/12/2009 18:00-19:30

Jim Dunne, Design Twentyfirst Century, will present on the challenges of developing a viable urban brand and/or civic identity development process based on using an expanded conception of 'design thinking'.

Jim is a designer who believes design can positively impact the world by contributing to the development of better solutions to the ‘wicked problems’ we face in the 21st century.

Jim’s design career began while serving an apprenticeship as a commercial artist in a printing company. At that time graphic design was beginning to be considered as a strategic tool for change in organizations, not simply for surface decoration, and was being applied in this way by designers specializing in Corporate Identity.
During the 1980’s while working in Kilkenny Design, Jim became interested in how Corporate Identity design had the potential to visualize strategic options and possibilities for businesses if deployed in a holistic and democratic way.
Design and some of the unique tools of designers were found to be useful to help clarify complex organizational issues such as purpose, meaning, relationships, structure and competitive positioning. Designers were able to this by ‘holding up a mirror’ and reflecting back what an organisations reality ‘looked and behaved like’ in contrast to its stated strategies and plans.

During the 1990’s and into early 21st century Jim helped build a business in Ireland that demonstrated this belief that design could ‘paint realistic pictures’ of potential futures and bring them to life with such power that an organisation could be shown not only its weaknesses, but also its possibilities.

Jim co-founded Design Twentyfirst Century in 2008 in the belief that we are now on the cusp of another wave where these same tools, processes and methodologies can be applied to the world’s most difficult and complex problems. That using the new technologies of social interaction and communication together with ‘design thinking’ we can help design better solutions for the world.

 

suggested readings

 

Florida, Richard (2002) "The Economic Geography of Talent", Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 92, No. 4 (Dec.), pp. 743-755

http://www.demos.co.uk/files/EuropeintheCreativeAge2004.pdf

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html

 

websites of interest

 

To be posted shortly

 

For additional information on the collaborating institutions consult www.dit.ie, www.ncad.ie, www.iadt.ie and www.ulster.ac.uk.