Introduction to some of the issues raised by the rhetorics of collaboration in the creative industries. This was prepared for the first session of a new module on collaborative practices for MA Creative Media Practice students at the University of the West of Scotland.

5. collaboration = conversation?

8. making work together

9. making work in the arts Integrative work: technological, embodied, kinaesthetic, feeling, communicative Raymond Williams: culture as ‘structures of feeling’ Two dynamics: ever increasing and highly visible social inequalities AND Exhortation to collaborate, participate – but on whose terms? The arts as a means of expression – identity – social and political Corporations need constant flow of creative content: brand/image sells products: spectacular capitalism. Conflation of corporate capitalism/individual expression – are there any autonomous spaces? Can markets provide all the solutions?

15. Then….

17. artists’ organisations; media co-ops; cultural enterprises