Friday, 2 October, 1998
 
panel 3
Informal knowledge cultures 
Repositioning of culture in employment context.
Aim: position paper
  • The end of monosequential (employment) careers means reorganisation of education, training and culture (new broader cultural term is needed). 
  • Cultural competence of complex lifestyles 
  • New work culture, new culture - new skills - new education concept
  • working paper DG V”Culture, the cultural industries and employment” (May 1998) 
This panel centres around discussion of the current overall fundamental social change in present-day living and working structures with regard to changed work structures in the fields of culture and art, in order to make the potential of ”Cultural Competence” in its equivocal dimension a topic of discussion. If, in fact, everyone is looking for new jobs the art and culture sector is particularly well suited for introducing and discussing so-called ”atypical” conditions of employment. Through the question of ”New Technologies, Work and Culture” we want to focus more clearly on this burning socio-political issue. 

The working paper presented in May by the European Commission DG V on ”Culture, Culture Industry and Employment” may be read as a structural expression of the culture sectorís new relevance. 

Increasing awareness of culture and cultural processes as value-added socio-political fields in the European context, the repositioning of îcreativityî in European employment concepts and much more are matters which ought to be given more concrete consideration.

It is further assumed that the traditional educational institutions (schools, art academies, universities) have decreased in importance as knowledge brokers for development of media skills, and new qualifications and skills in connection with the new technologies. 
 

  • Which new forms of skills have developed, how are they acquired and communicated? 
  • How does the positioning of artists, scientists, of so-called ”creatives” change as a result? Given the complex effect of the information highway there in fact seems to be an urgent need to confront the meteoric technological developments (”îdigital revolution”) with a cultural policy interrogation. 
  • New communication, social and cultural skills are necessary. 
  • Has a ”new feudalism” of the economy occurred parallel to weakening of the State and the ”public sphere”? 
  • What is nowadays holding together the many unsynchronised experiences of everyday and professional life? 

    • What new educational concept is needed if culture is regarded as a synthesis of lifestyle, skills and creativity? 
 
panel 1 panel 2 panel 3