Editorial

With investment in stocks and property now inducing ambient neurasthenia, mainstream investors are allegedly turning to ‘alternative investments' like wine and art, not to mention gold. Although art and wine were considered riskier than property in the pre-credit-crunch era, according to one recent article they are now regarded as safer than bricks and mortar (‘Credit crunch fuels investor search for art, wine', Clara Ferreira-Marques, Reuters.com). If this appears to spell good times ahead for the contemporary art market, further inspection reveals that a new breed of fund manager specialising in this asset class is looking to ‘strip out the risk' by focusing on established artists - or wines. In other words, cultural conservatism will be (even more) the order of the day.

Meanwhile, in London's East End, the once-Young British Artists (Tracey Emin, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Rachel Whiteread, etc.) are protesting a series of planned high-rise developments in fashionable Shoreditch, and Mayor Ken Livingstone's ‘destruction of London' more generally:

We, and thousands of others who live and work in this community, are facing the prospect of being driven out of the area by runaway development ... As developers seek to multiply their profits with every floor we feel as if we are living in a latter-day gold rush where ordinary rules do not apply.

Apparently these ‘ordinary rules' didn't apply in the early '90s either when the mass influx of artists and other culturati replaced existing businesses in the area, industrial space becoming studio and cappuccino space. Nor do they apply when it comes to the prices fetched by the YBAs' art - not least in the current risk-averse moment, when, the story goes, only market-approved names are considered safe investments. A correlation between the bubble economy which sustained the astronomical prices of ‘fashionable' contemporary art and the real estate industry planning to raze Shoreditch simply does not seem to exist in the minds of these people. Indeed, the very notion that ‘ordinary rules' have suddenly ceased to apply in the present era of capital accumulation is clearly absurd.

The rule of no rule is what has made watching the slo-mo free fall of the global economy so perplexing, not to mention gripping. Since the crisis began there has been a frantic search for rules, patterns in the chaos. Risk has given way to rampant indeterminacy: is the real economy in recession yet? Is this 2002 or 1998, 1973 or 1929? When do we know we've hit the bottom of the crisis? 

In the case of Shoreditch, perhaps the credit crunch will cut off the supply of cash to developers before the first demolition ball is swung. This seems to be the only hope, since the celebrity-endorsed Open Shoreditch campaign has forged minimal links with the local community, and Hackney Council has already earmarked anticipated revenues from these developments for the building of its new £45 million town hall.

It is somewhat apt that Shoreditch, the ‘creative hub' par excellence, is about to be converted into a corporate non-place at the same moment that the creative economy runs out of hot air and the city braces itself for upward of 40 thousand job losses. One can only dream of Shoreditch's half-built and abandoned turrets of commerce overrun by a Ballardian anarchy. 

Under straitened circumstances, however, it is more likely that ‘creativity' in all its social forms will be subjected to more finely calibrated measurement and capture. In this issue of Mute, Benedict Seymour touches on this in relation to art and sport, within a longer history of the suppression of working class activity by the state and culture industry. He also discusses the Arts Council's 2008 McMaster report and its mooted policy switch from funding criteria promoting ‘social inclusion' to the vapid catch-all of ‘excellence'. An implicit admission, perhaps, that ‘art for all' hasn't unleashed a tsunami of creativity in the general populace. In his discussion of radical pedagogy Stewart Martin argues that the autonomy of labour is being instrumentalised across higher education and the flexibilised work place. If these articles conceive of autonomous activity in different ways, they beg the same question about the terms of its continued existence. 

Meanwhile, for those not buying art, wine or gold as a hedge against recession, you can at least download free We Are Bad posters protesting the 2012 London Olympics from the Mute website [http://www.metamute.org/ en/We-Are-Bad-Posters] - no YBA status required.