Objectives of a Research Project on Creative Cities

As the theoretical awareness of the analytical limits to capitalist growth increases (Schulze 2003; Munch 1994, 1995, 1998), it becomes imperative to take recourse to comparative sociological approach to cities as the sites where historically more important stages of development of capitalism took place (Lazzarato). The objectives of this research aim to explore the theoretically significant role of culture in capitalist development (Schulze 1992, 2003; Munch 1984, 1986, 1994, 1998) in close relation to cities where novel cultural developments paved the way for historical cycles of capitalist accumulation (Braudel). As a basis for comparison urban spaces will be taken. In the interdisciplinary approach of sociology of space adopted here, cities provide provileged epistemological entry-points into the urban dynamics of global and local contradictions that drive the development of capitalist. From this perspective, capitalism is interpreted as part of a variable structure of modernity that countries in the process of their modernization adopt in accordance with their particular circumstances. The predominantly national focus of comparative studies of capitalism and modernity still waits for a greater attention being paid to cities as sites where dynamic forces and structural contradictions of modernity play out. While economic globalization has long been in the center of sociological attention, cultural globalization is only recently receiving attention due to it in the theoretical works and comparative studies.

Both in historical economics and in comparative sociology there are considerable and durable disagreements over key terms of scholarly reference such as capitalism, modernity and culture. At the same time, there is a growing body of emergent theorization of space as a central analytical category that has extending body of applications in urban studies, cultural studies, and policy studies. The emergent field of sociology of space promises to make interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary cooperation possible across diverse institutional environments. Art biennials serve as a key example for this development. As their number continues to grow around the world, art biennials bring curators, entrepreneurs, administrators, educators, artists, writers and directors into intensive interaction around events that take place from once a year to every five years. The growing role of culture as a decisive factor of economic development makes it imperative that a full gamut of institutions that are constitutive of modern capitalism - such as universities, corprorations, museums, governments, newspapers and foundations - meet and exchange ideas across theoretical, organizational, and cultural boundaries. This change in the cultural dynamics of modern capitalism takes place on the background of unavailing interdependences that span the globe.

From this city-oriented perspective, globalization is made of local places that make global connectivity, cooperation and understanding possible. Among the universities, airports, bookshops, coffeehouses and museums, the urban spaces of art biennails are the late-comers in a historically much longer process of institutional change that as one of its concequences has modern capitalism as a dominant configuration of relations on a global scale. However the cultural side of the developments that for over more than two centuries has defined the configuration of modernity as not only economic but also cultural formation once again becomes important as the current crisis of global capitalism sets in. The literature on global cities routinely comes up with city rankings that produce hierarchies reflecting long-term shifts in both cultural and economic relations. At the same time, in the publications on cultural capitals it is relatively uncontested that particular cities have played dominant roles, in both cultural and economic spheres, at different time periods, so that, for example, Paris in the interwar years of the twentieth century has been a cultural capital of modern art while New York has been at the epicenter of post-WWII artistic life. Therefore, attention to cultural capitals that hold globally alternative positioning can lead to important insights regarding the changing geography of global culture. By extension, the concomitant tendencies of economic development can be surmised as well, even though they are beyond the scope of this research project.

The objectives of this research project are limited to the urban dynamics of global culture. Urban spaces in Germany, Italy and Israel provide apposite base for comparison of art biennials in these countries. The theoretical rationale for this approach is provided by the developments in sociological theory that through the deconstruction of the notion of agency allow for previously overlooked aspects of social and cultural change such as things, spaces and networks to find their due place in sociological research (Latour). The interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary orientation of this research project that seeks to bridge the latest developments in both humanities and social sciences favours renewed attention to classical figures of sociological theory such as Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer. The reasons for this return to classical figures of German social and cultural theory are manifold. In sociological discourse, along with other classical figures, such as Max Weber or Gabriel Tarde, they attract increasing attention in relation to theorization of space. As contemporary art exhibitions become ad-hoc research platforms for urban, cultural and policy studies, the insights that Simmel, Benjamin and Kracauer have originally formulated receive a contextually informed reading in relation to a wide range of issues that arts, cities and countries address. Moreover, for the emerging field of sociology of space, there is a necessity to build tentative bridges between these classical texts, in their original formulation and through their continious reception, and a comparative reading of urban spaces that participate in staging art biennials.

This research project starts with a limited sample of Germany, Italy and Israel as a theoretical sample that is intended to be expanded during further research. The theoretical logic behind drawing this initial sample of countries lies in comparison of the oldest art biennale to date - the Venice biennial -, with the biennial that has a shorter track record and lesser frequency - the Kassel documenta -, and with a less established contemporary art biennial - the Jerusalem biennale. Each country has another point of contemporary comparative reference to control for the effects that time and location have on the conclusions of this research - Torino biennial, Berlin biennale and Tel-Aviv biennial respectively. The methodology of this research draws on analytical comparison of these art events and theoretical reconstruction of the role that particular spatial contexts play in the relationships that these events establish between urban spaces and global culture. Among the participants in this project are Prof. Mario Perniola, a professor of aesthetics at the Tor Vergata University of Rome, Prof. Wolfgang Kaschuba, from the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies of the Humboldt University of Berlin, and Dr. Jeanette Malkin, from the Theatre Studies Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.