book - Institute of Network Cultures - ISBN13: 9780826418456Printed as the conference proceedings of the homonymous two days conference, this reader take the "creative industries" concept by the UK Blair government in 1997 and much discussed in Richard Florida’s best-seller "The Creative Class" as starting point to dissect and mostly expose the huge contradiction in the promiscuity between creation and capital. The dot com (before unveiling as a bubble) induced some European capitals area to be all of a sudden gentrified, hosting the new online corporation headquarters, and so recognizing it a crucial role in the tertiary industry. Moreover the industry of culture massively recruited most of the Creative Generation, mesmerized by the mirage of a pleasurable form of immaterial labor. In the text there are different essays about the creative processes and their mythology as well as specific regional analysis (Ireland, UK, Austria, China, etc.) and also another masterly text by Brian Holmes deconstructing the U.S. based "Research Triangle". If the commodification of everything can be contrasted with innovative lines of thought (the "gift economy" for example), it's also important to "dismantle the buzz-machine", as it is well done here.
