Cultural Science

Overview

Project status: In progress

Fundamental research on dynamics of change in the creative industries (for example co-creative relationships between media consumers and producers).

Read details

Research leader
Research team
QUT External collaborators
  • Professor Carsten Herrmann-Pillath
  • Dr John Banks
  • Dr Thomas Petzold
Organisational unit
Lead unit Creative Industries Faculty
Start date
1st January 2007
End date
1st January 2012
Research area
Digital media, communication and culture
Keywords
culture
 

Details

Cultural science is emerging as the result of dialogue and convergence between evolutionary/complexity theory (especially in evolutionary economics) and the study of change in human relationships and identities (especially in creative industries and cultural studies). The problem of dynamic change has proven to be disruptive and challenging in the study of both economic and human values.

Project description

  • Fundamental Interdisciplinary Research
  • A provisional mission statement for cultural science

Creative productivity has always emerged from human interactions, but it is increasingly mediated by technologies that promote subjective mental representations as networks, in which space and time are compressed through the continual dissemination and retrieval of stored events. The interaction of people within this "social network economy" creates a continual flux of ephemeral communities and novel entrepreneurial opportunities, with unforeseen consequences being the norm rather than the exception.

This process of "creative destruction" is best addressed by the humanities allying with the dynamic science of evolution - the study of continual change through variation, interaction, selection and drift. Cultural science therefore seeks an evolutionary understanding of a knowledge- based society past and present, in order to map the possibility space of future scenarios for creative productivity (both market-based and in community contexts) to which public policy and business strategies must adapt. An interdisciplinary dialogue in which:

  • creativity can be understood as reflexive adaptation to unpredictable change within complex systems
  • complexity studies explain how social network markets are a vital enabling technology for the distribution of choice
  • evolutionary theory focuses on the dynamics of change in the growth of knowledge.

Partnerships

Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

Publications and output

Conference/Seminars, Weekly Reading Workshop throughout 2009, Cultural Science website & blog, Publications. See Dean's Research Seminar Booklet for more details.