On the creative industries

The creative industries are closely linked to the economy and to manufacturing. They are also linked to culture – to the various fields of applied art and, increasingly over the last decade, to media art. More has been written about what culture’s contact with industry has given the latter, what potential it might hold and so on. Less attention has been paid to the effects industry has had on creative work and on developments in culture. Paradoxically, so little that cultural institutions may no longer be aware of works created within the creative industries but detached from industry in their content and presented outside the official cultural scene. I found this to be true this spring, when I was looking for appealing young media artists for a festival presenting Estonian media art at the Le Cube art centre in Paris: nobody seemed to have heard anything about the joint work of the artists finally chosen, Andres Tenusaar and Taavi Kerikmäe. Perhaps the reason also lies in the feedback a media artist would get when appearing on the local cultural scene… Or in the difficulty of fitting into predefined concepts. In any case, over the last 15 years a connection with media art has run through the development of the Estonian creative industries.

Tencu & Taavi Kerikmäe Photo: Andres Tenusaar