Los desafíos mayores

In this section, I discuss the complicated relationship between commerce and creativity to provide a foundation for analysis of the relationship between the

subcontracted OEM animators--who can be regarded as driven by commerce--and the independent animators--who are regarded as more creative and less commercially driven. This will be detailed in Chapter 9. The tension between the two groups of animators is a living example of the tension between commerce and creativity today.

Furthermore, as will be demonstrated later, the Korean animators’ negotiations in-between commerce and creativity blurs the boundary in-between the two. ‘What drives creativity?’ Is it the pure satisfaction of creating something? Or are there other

elements? The debate between commerce and creativity is a major topic at the moment in the business and industry field as well as academia.

The relationship between creativity and commerce has been uniquely problematic.

Mainly, this is because creative products are not simply machine-generated but require the human ability to create and imagine, and are thus ‘perceived to be cultural’ (Gibson, 2003: 202). Richard Florida encapsulates this point:

Creativity has come to be the most highly prized commodity in our

economy – and yet it is not a “commodity.” Creativity comes from people.

And while people can be hired and fired, their creativity capacity cannot be bought and sold, or turned on and off at will (2004: 5)

Hence, creative products are usually treated as different from other commodities.

According to Richard E. Caves, who has examined the organisation of the creative industries, the creative industries have been omitted from numerous industrial studies.

He lists a number of economic features of creative activities to illuminate why it is hard to take creativity as a commodity or to treat the creative industries as other industries (2000: 2-10). First, Caves explains that the demand for creative products is uncertain.

How much value a newly produced creative product possesses is the judgement of the consumers. Here, he introduces the term ‘nobody knows property’ (ibid.: 3), to suggest no one can guarantee visible success until the result is revealed. For example, the success of television drama depends on the viewing figures. Similar examples can be found in many other creative industries, such as the popular music industry. In

Producing Pop, Negus (1992) shows how commercial success becomes the main reason for the struggle between the artist and other staff in the collaborative production of popular music, as ‘what is commercially successful is always known in retrospect’

(p.152). Since different groups have different tastes, companies in cultural industries seek to find the right texts for the right audiences and Hesmondhalgh describes this as

‘risky business’ (2002: 6). As Caves suggests, consumer satisfaction will be a

‘subjective reaction’ (ibid.: 3-5).

Second, one assumption of economists about workers is that they would not care much about the products, only their wages. However, as Caves argues, creators are ‘art for art’s sake property’ producers and show affection towards their works and express their pride (2000: 4). As a consequence of this particular affection towards their work, Caves adds that ‘artists turn out more creative product than if they valued only the incomes they receive, and on average earn lower pecuniary incomes than their general ability, skill, and education would otherwise warrant’ (ibid.: 4).

In modern consumer culture, creativity tends to become a commodity. Hence, the encounter between creativity and commerce is a challenge to the ‘art for art’s sake’

outlook. From this perspective, the above economic properties encapsulated by Caves raise the issue that even though creative products are subject to uncertain levels of demand, the creative industries continue to promote them to meet consumers’ tastes.

The creators, regardless of their will to maintain an art for art’s sake approach, may also seek ‘what could be sold’ to maximise the sales and income potential. Following Caves’

explanation above, the creators/artists could produce work that is more creative when they have more affection for their work. If there is such a correlation between creativity and commerce, then economic logic may affect creativity negatively. However, is this always the case? Is commerce a hindrance to creativity and the creative process? Florida names creative people as the ‘Creative Class’ and differentiates them from other classes of people:

The key difference between the Creative Class and other classes lies in what they are primarily paid to do. Those in the Working Class and the Service Class are primarily paid to execute according to plan, while those in the Creative Class are primarily paid to create and have considerably more autonomy and flexibility than the other two classes to do so (2004: 8)

But is this really the case? Are creative people mainly interested in creativity and not in monetary rewards? To answer the question, Negus and Pickering (2004) show us three contrasting aspects of the relationship between commerce and creativity (also Negus 2002:115-131). First, there is polar opposition, which is our starting point of looking at this issue. There is an interesting word, ‘humdrum’ which refers to those who

try to maximize their income and is contrasted to ‘the artistic’ who in any circumstances try to maximise their creativity (Towse, 2002 cited in Miller, 2004: 59). These notions clearly show the polarisation of the two - commerce versus creativity (or, art versus popular culture). For this, Negus and Pickering explain the generally assumed view that the profit-chasing market would not leave the essence of creativity intact but that it

‘corrupts and leads to compromise, fake, or fabricated cultural forms which adhere to the most vulgar of market-oriented formats and formulae’ (2004: 46). On this line of argument, the creative industry is viewed as an oxymoron (ibid.). A similar view or the polarisation of creativity versus commerce has also been recognised by Hesmondhalgh, who criticises the overtly exaggerated polarised view that regards those who reject material reward as the creative and the best artists. He continues to remark that ‘all creators have to find an audience, and in the modern world, no one can do this without the help of technological mediation and the support of large organizations’ (2002: 71).

Hesmondhalgh then talks in favour of the creative managers who encourage the creators toward ‘the direction of genre formatting’. This may become a worrying factor as the creators may lock their creativity into one particular genre. However, Hesmondhalgh seems to support genre as a ‘productive constraint within a certain boundary [that] still allows creativity to be generated between audiences and producers’ (ibid.: 71). From such a perspective, we can turn to the second perspective, which argues that commerce generates creativity.

Negus and Pickering suggest that commerce can also ‘inspire creativity’ (2004:

47), since the money and the financial rewards can be a material reward to waken creative inspiration. In the modern world, where income is the best initiative for most industries, this makes reasonable sense. For example, the television production market tries to be creative and to provide new and attractive programmes in order to increase

viewing figures, which directly relates to commercial profits.

Commerce may also motivate and generate creativity. Similarly, Florida points out that the current economy is ‘a fundamentally creative economy’ (2004: 46). What this tells us is the indivisibility of commerce and creativity. The intertwined relationship between commerce and creativity is the final aspect examined by Negus and Pickering.

They explain that in the modern economy system, it is not necessary to separate the two as autonomous subjects, but to realise that ‘contemporary cultural production entails fusions, blurrings and genre crossings’, which brings about such fused facets of the two (2004: 47). For this, Justin O’Connor the director of Manchester Institute for Popular Culture, shares a similar view. He argues:

Those involved in contemporary cultural production increasingly move between [commerce and art] systems … The key point is that we cannot start from the notion that these are two separate sectors divided by ‘cultural value’ versus ‘commercial value’. We need to remember that … the

commercial sector provides wealth and employment, but it is also a prime site of cultural consumption for the vast majority of the population (in Johansson and Sernhede, 2002).

The conflict between commerce and creativity seems to continue. The cause of that conflict emerges from the tendency to seek ‘authentic creativity’ (Nixon, 2003: 76).

However, is authenticity or novelty of creativity really important now? What dissects creativity from commerciality really matters? Should it really be our focal point? What we should notice is not the conflict between commerce and creativity but rather the growing and changing value placed on creativity and its role in various aspects of

society. To attempt to separate commerce and creativity seems unnecessary as they are interactive and, indeed, their interactivity becomes yet another creative activity or part of the creative process. More than pursuing authenticity from creativity or the creative process of personal work, its value has shifted to grow as a part of the creative

industries. The values and concepts of creativity treated in the industry are broader than the artists’ personal aesthetic values and they are regarded as a source to grow a stronger nation in the modern world. As Florida states, ‘creativity is now the decisive source of competitive advantage’ (2004: 5). It is to this aspect that I now turn.