Creating Effects. On the Ideology and Efficiency and Its Institutions

Following the main line of the project transform, which investigates new forms of institutional critique between 2005 and 2008, the conference “Creating Effects” will research the ideology and effectivity of creativity and its institutions in postfordist capitalism. When creativity, virtuosity and communication have become main aspects of production during the last decades, forced labour and exploitation are accompanied and pursued by seemingly smooth forms of voluntary flexibilisation, self-control and self-precarization. In the view of some of the major contemporary theories the cultural field is an ambivalent avantgarde of this development. From this perspective, some of the recent approaches of artistic and institutional critique are confronted with the argument that they contribute to the perpetuation, strengthening and metamorphosis of the structures criticized.

If this is true, which forms of artistic critique are involved in this figure and which forms do not run those risks? What happens exactly when the existing institutions of the cultural field have been and are being transformed during the last years? What kind of new institutions are the structures that are even more suitable for modes of self-precarization and for the self-exploitation of creativity? Are there forms of (self-)institutions and instituent practices that strengthen resistant effects of creativity in postfordist times?

Friday, November 10th, 2006

6.00pm Welcome address, introductions by Gerald Raunig (Vienna) and Ulf Wuggenig (Lueneburg)

6.30pm Maurizio Lazzarato, Paris (in French; translation by Stefan Nowotny): Le malheur de la «critique artiste» (Boltanski et Chiapello) et de l’«emploi culturel» (Menger)

7.30pm Yann Moulier Boutang, Paris (in English): How and Why Creativity and Art Are Playing Such a Role in Cognitive Capitalism

8.30pm Angela McRobbie, London (in English): Formulating a Concept for Culture Industry. Getting to Grips with a Roller Coaster

Saturday, November 11th, 2006

12.00 Beatrice von Bismarck, Leipzig: Theatralisierung und widerständige Effekte

13.00 Isabell Lorey, Berlin: Gouvernementalität und Selbst-Prekarisierung von KulturproduzentInnen

14.00 Klaus Neundlinger, Wien: Vom Unwesen des Grundes - Überlegungen zum Motiv

15.00 Pause

16.00 Stefan Nowotny, Wien: Immanente Effekte. Notizen zur Kre-Aktivität

17.00 Brigitta Kuster, Vassilis Tsianos Berlin / Hamburg: Experiences Without Me. Turbulenzen in den Selbstverhältnissen der Prekarität

Das Symposium wird durchgeführt im Rahmen von transform.eipcp.net und mit der Unterstützung des Kultur 2000 Programmes der Europäischen Union.