imagine.. seminar on November 11

imagine.. presents

"Project Fox: immaterial labour and creative proletarians in the Copenhagen advertising Industry"

By Dr. Adam Arvidsson Media Studies, Copenhagen University

Friday November 11, 14.00-15.30

CBS - Solbjerg Plads 3, Frederiksberg, Velux Lecture Hall S.13

Recent developments in the Copenhagen advertising industry include the mergence of 'event bureaus'. Unlike the traditional advertising agency, the event bureau does not so much produce advertisements as much as it provides communicative intensities, events and experiences, of which Project Fox has been a notable example. In so doing the event bureau does not only, or even primarily rely on its own employed talent, but makes increasing recourse to the subcontracting of external creative talent. This is driven partly by their need for a more varied talent pool (no longer just copywriters and ADs but also DJ:s, designers, street artists, chefs etc). It is also premised on the availability of a pool of urban creative talent that can be easily appropriated.

This new modality of creative production is a response to the conditions posed by a cultural and economic environment marked by information technologies. Firstly, in an informational culture creating communicative intensities becomes more important than producing persuasive advertising. Second, the availability of image processing and desktop publishing diminishes the value of advertisements. Thirdly, the availability of a pool of urban creative talent that can be subcontracted is premised on the diffusion of new ICts that have greatly enhanced the productivity of the urban bohemie.

This talk will present preliminary empirical results form a study of event bureaus in Copenhagen and elaborate on a theoretical model of the process of creative production that they represent. Emphasis will be put on its relation to new theories of immaterial labour and the value-chain of informational capitalism.