art-e-conomy _ reader - marko stamenkovic

162
Saskia SASSEN
Economy and Art Today:
Design as Blurring Mediation/
Art as Intervention[1]
The world of work today increasingly blurs the distinction between creative work
and economic activity/commodity production. The ascendance of design as a key
feature in a growing number of sectors captures this well. Much of this design is
corporate. This is so even when in it is produced by small firms with highly creative
designers: it still runs through the market, adding utility --profitability-- to the object
or process.
Here I want to examine briefly the conditions in our political economy that have
led to this growing importance of design as a type a profit-adding creative work. The
capacity of design to add profitability can reposition creative work in circuits that
are now central to the economy, including the global economy. Secondly, I want to
identify domains that can escape this commercialized design practice and bring art
and artists into spaces now increasingly taken over by design.
The ascendance of process and flow:
A greater need for intermediaries
In addressing these issues I distinguish three conditions in today’s political
economy within which it might be helpful to situate this ascendance of design as the
blurring between artistic work/practice and profit-making work, or as a mediation
that blurs that distinction. One is the ascendance of process and flow and networks
over than final product per se. This raises the importance of intermediary actors and
interventions. I think of designers in this regard as intermediaries. A second is that
globalization unsettles existing arrangements and boundaries, and does so with
great velocity. This raises the importance of narrating that unsettlement, and at the
limit making it attractive rather than something to avoid. Here I think of designers
as narrators. This unsettlement and the push to innovate leads to a sharp increase
in new products, systems, configurations. This raises the importance of giving them
form, shape.[2]
Seen through these three lenses, design is an intervention that bridges the
subjective and material world by bridging global corporate growth strategies and
place-bound consumer needs. Corporate branding is a key tool. Fashion bridges
the human body and the world of clothing. Architecture and urban design bridge
individuals and public space. Much of this bridging can be inspired, witty, brilliant,
evincing great talent.[3]