DATA browser 01 Economising Culture

The interaction between culture and economy was famously explored by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer by the term "Kulturindustrie" (The Culture Industry) to describe the production of mass culture and power relations between capitalist producers and mass consumers. Their account is a bleak one, but one that appears to hold continuing relevance, despite being written in 1944. Today, the pervasiveness of network technologies has contributed to the further erosion of the rigid boundaries between high art, mass culture, and the economy, resulting in new kinds of cultural production charged with contradictions. On the one hand, the culture industry appears to allow for resistant strategies using digital technologies, but on the other it operates in the service of capital in ever more complex ways. This publication, the first in the DATA browser series, uses the concept of the culture industry as a point of departure, and tests its currency under new conditions. Contributors include the Carbon Defense League, The Yes Men, Raqs Media Collective, Jordan Crandall, Brian Holmes, Esther Leslie, Armin Medosch, Julian Priest, Jeremy Valentine, Gameboyzz Orchestra, and more.