Why Curate Live Arts?

To Discover Meaningful Ways to Be Together by Bertie FerdmanIn the Era of Context by Ken TakiguchiThe Cultural Industries in Africa by Funmi AdewoleSome Observations on Terminology by Gordana VnukNational Dance Platforms: Building Danceland or Curating the Nation? by Gustavo FijalkowA Reflection on the Start of It All: Festival Curation as the Artist’s Liberation of Divulgation by Lieven BertelsWhen Curatorial Practice in the Performing Arts Meets Production by Ashley Ferro-MurrayToward the End of Innocence in Programming Live Arts by Brandon FarnsworthCuratorial Practice as a Claim to Public-ness by Gurur ErtemSome Aspects from a European Perspective by Sigrid Gareis and Nicole Haitzinger

The Acting Class and the Myths of Meritocracy

Our feature documentary The Acting Class (2017) is here contextualised in the context of a critique of the cultural industries as part of the ideology of meritocracy and a resurgence of work around class in the sociology of culture. The Acting Class focuses on the question of class stratification in the UK acting industry. We here review our research on this issue and contextualise it within the scholarly literature on diversity and inequality, the creative industries and the broader reconfigurations of the political economy of British capitalism. We also discuss the importance of the interview in creative practice research as a way of democratising knowledge production and socialising experience.

Marketable religion: How game company Ubisoft commodified religion for a global audience

Videogame companies are selling religion to an overwhelmingly secular demographic. Ubisoft, the biggest company in the world’s biggest cultural industry, created a best-selling franchise about a conflict over Biblical artefacts between Muslim Assassins and Christian Templars. Who decides to put religion into those games? How? And why? To find out, we interviewed 22 developers on the Assassin’s Creed franchise, including directors and writers. Based on those, we show that the “who” of Ubisoft is not a person but an industry: a de-personalized and codified process. How? Marketing, editorial and production teams curb creative teams into reproducing a formula: a depoliticized, universalized, and science-fictionalized “marketable religion.” Why? Because this marketable form of religious heritage can be consumed by everyone—regardless of cultural background or conviction. As such, this paper adds an empirically grounded perspective on the “who,” “why,” and “how” of cultural industries’ successful commodification of religious and cultural heritage.

Factors of evolution and coevolution of cultural and creative industries in economics

It is important to determine the main directions of evolution of economic views on the formation of scientific approaches to the interpretation of the economic nature of cultural and creative industries. The purpose of the article is to find out the main social and economic conditions for the formation of the conception of cultural and creative industries in economics based on the analysis of evolution and co-evolution of the Ukrainian and world economic thought on that subject. The scientific methods of induction and deduction, historical and logical analysis, comparison are used. The author has shown that the key reasons for the formation of theoretical and methodological principles of the conception of «cultural» and «creative» industries were related to social and economic environment for the society development, and the peculiarities of the integration of cultural and creative activities into the system of economic relations and production processes. It is defined that the features of the formation of theoretical and methodological approaches to the interpretation of the economic nature of these industries are scientific discussions about: the importance of creativity/art in order to produce competitive goods; inclusion of specific types of cultural production in the system of division of labor; the methodology for determining the value of works of art and creative activity; clarification of the subject of economics taking into account the character of cultural activity and manufacturing of cultural products; interpretation of the essence of culture and creativity and their influence on the economic system evolution; and identification of the definitions of «cultural Industry», «cultural Industries» and «creative Industries». It is revealed that the major factors of the evolution and co-evolution of cultural and creative industries are the increase in the interaction between economic agents and economic activities in this sector of the national economy, and improving the technologies of replicating cultural products and relationships with potential consumers. The author has substantiated that the foundation of the theoretical processes of evolution and co-evolution of these industries is the inclusion in the creative and cultural industries of all types of economic activity, which belong to them according to the classification criterion.