Creative Acts

Imaginary manifesto for a playfull society

‘Es wird wieder’ was sprayed on sidewalks and streets all over Berlin some time ago, it is going to be again. This promising text made me wonder who left the fraces behind. Was it a marketing trick or was it really some crazy people spreading this mysterious omen through town? Later I met the guys who did it, and I was happy that they did it just for the sake of itself. No marketing trick, no spreading of names or fames, just making people wonder.

Somehow this incident raised important questions: is creativity becoming occupied by economic influence and commercialization, or is creativity becoming the new central value in our society? Is the economy taking over the human sphere, or is creativity taking over the economy? I believe we are aproaching a more creative and playful society, and we are really closer than one would think. Creativity as at our side.

The concept of the Homo Ludens (playful men) is raised by the dutch historian Johan Huizinga in 1938. Huizinga stated that playing is a serious matters. According to him, the Homo Ludens is an important element of a vital culture, and if playing is less present in a culture, this culture will go down. Playing is having spirit, it frees us from being just a mechanism in the weels of progress. Our ability to play proves that we are more than just reasonable people, because the essence of playing is not reasonable.
The concept of play is put in contrast with processes of mechanization and instrumentalization in modern societies. In example Herbert Marcuse recognized that in industrialized societies there is a minimalization of life and culture, with no space for personal development and autonomy. A revalualization of the eastetic and playfulness would create a free space for a more human development of our societies.

The ideas of a ‘homo ludens’and playfulness influenced a various spectre of avant garde artists, intellectuals and creative activists from the sixties and on, starting with the situationist international and the provo movement. Their playful actions and tactics have been a source of inspiration for other actists across the planet, finding a broader public through reclaim the streets and the antiglobalization movement. Meanwhile these ideas of play became adapted in the professional fields of education and in play theories.

The paradox is that the concept of play has become instrumentalized itself as a means to reach certain goals. In the idea of Huizinga, playfulness would be the solution to the rising instrumentalization in our society. Creativity and playfulness are nowadays used as effective means to create markets and gain economical power in all fragments of the public sphere, from commercials, entertainment industries, mass-events, festivals, arts, media and all cultural spaces. The so called ‘creative industries’ are becoming pretty central in economic bussiness. This development is made clear by Richard Florida’s idea of a rising ‘creative class’. This creative class is a group of people who are a driving force for economic development of post industrial areas. They are people who’s job it is to create meaningful new forms. With the rise of this creative class, creativity is becoming a central value in today’s global society. In city areas where artists reside, a rich cultural life will develop, and this will attract people with more money to work, live and consume there, which results in higher rents and often in coprorated, clean city areas. This process has been recognized by sociologists as ‘gentrification’.
If Richard Florida is right or wrong, creativity is boom ing bussiness. The effect is that econmic power is gaining a greater and greater influence on the terrains of art and culture, instrumentalizing creativity for its own purposes. More and more city governments and corporations are recognizing the economic power of creativity and trying to use it as a means in order to gain more economic power.

The positive effect of this developments is that you can find more and more contemporary art and cultural events in the public sphere. On the contrary these are more and more occupied by economical players. Most cultural events and art exhibitions are sponsored, more and more art and artists are used as a marketing tool. An old nightmare of dadaists, surrealists and situationists comes alive in a new, spectacular form, occupying the human sphere as a whole. The described avantgardists declared art dead, or stated that only life itself could be art. With these radical statements they opposed against the rising commercialization and misusage of creativity and arts. For them art and creativity should be part of the human sphere and not just be a toy of economic power. But how to cope with todays occupation of creativity and the cultural sphere to be used as economic means?
This process of occupation of the creative, cultural and even personal spheres is intense and all present. If you think about cars it is not posible to not be influenced somehow by what commercials have been showing you for years. You cannot walk thourgh the streets without the presence of commercial images, and meanwhile almost all parts of human life have become instrumentalized as tools to increase influence on the human mind.

On the contrary, the cultural, creative and human spheres are concuering terrain inside the economical and political spheres. As creativity is the new economic fuel, economical interests are changing their focus. The economical world is getting under greater influence of human values, etihical and estatical ideas and spiritual thinking. If creativity becomes central in our economy, this will change economy itself. It will include more space for human development, for cultural values, and social and environmental awareness.

Playing managers are just one of the preludes of what is happening. Quite some people at power are starting to recognize the changes, and understand that if they do not play with the game of this creative revolution, they will be the dinosours. But as creativity is not a source of order, control, and instrumentalization, but a source of inspiration, chaos, expression and playfulness connected to the human soul, our society expects big changes. This creative shift will set accounts with the instrumentalization of creativity and culture, it will de-instrumentalize society and take over economy itself. It will provoke more social awareness and responsibility, and this mental change is our greatest change for a truly sustainable living on our planet. These are preludes of a human play jard, with space for free expression and personal growth. We are expecting a playful society where the children are our greatest teachers. It is somehow happening now, and it is just up to us to realize it.

Literature:
- Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure and Everyday Life. (Basic Books, 2002)
- Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, proeve eener bepaling van het spel-element der cultuur (1938)
- Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century (1989)
- Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (1964)

* THE ABOVE TEXT IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION; FEEDBACK IS WELCOME *