White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 1According to this classification, we canidentify 12 economic sectorscharacterised by creativity and theproduction of culture (Table 1.1). Eachsector will be dealt with below in aspecific chapter describing the mainstrategies in the sector and the relatedstakes.The sectors related to material culture inItaly are Fashion, Industrial Design andCrafts, and the Food and Wine Industry.The sectors of Fashion and IndustrialDesign and Crafts are based on historicalexperience, the accumulation ofknowledge through various generationsof creatives and on industrial districtsystems. In these sectors we not onlyconsider the role of the designer andstylists but also the creative contributionof the material culture handed downthrough the generations and whichconstitutes a fundamental intangibleinput in most of the high-qualitymanufacturing and craft industries inItaly.While the definition of the Fashionsector includes textiles and clothing, theIndustrial Design and Crafts sector is moredifficult to define. Stressing the value ofthe material culture, this sectorencompasses economic activities mainlyconcerned with wood products, musicalinstruments, toys, art glass, ceramics,jewellery and household goods.Similarly, the Food and Wine Industry, theexpression of the Italian gastronomictradition, is strongly bound to a localterritory and its history. This sectorincludes high-quality wine and foodproducts and tourism related to thefood and wine industry. The economicvalue of this sector has beenenormously enhanced by the capacity todevelop symbolic attractions for theconsumer-tourist.The sphere of the production ofcontent, information andcommunication embraces the classiccultural industries, associated with thecapacity to conserve, reproduce andtransmit, often in digital form, soundsand images (Publishing, TV and Radio,Film). This sphere also includes thesectors of Computers and Software andAdvertising. The Computers and Softwaresector is strongly characterised by thecreative content of products and themass distribution of their content. Themarket value of these products isgrowing rapidly, as is demonstrated bythe fact that the market value ofvideogames in 2007 outgrew that of thefilm industry. At the same time, thissector is characterised by creativeprocesses involved in applying andpersonalising software and operatingsystems, which today is vitally importantfor the computerisation of processesand the digitisation of content.Although never considered a culturalindustry in its own right, Advertising is asector in which creativity and theproduction of culture are crucial aspects.Advertising and communicationtechniques require a strongly creativepersonal input and, in turn, produce andcommunicate messages and contentwith high symbolic value. The cultureproduced by advertising is of a stronglyrelational type and is able to transformcreative ideas into lifestyles and rolemodels.WHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 31