Come the drones

It’s a brave new world a coming, and we’re witnessing a global revolution, says Dion Chang. The only way to survive is to embrace chaos and the state of disorder.

Technology, now an unstoppable juggernaut disrupting every sector of life as it slams into them one by one, and sometimes a bunch at a time, is the runaway truck running headlong through the main road of our 20th Century village. You can get out of the way (good) or hitch a ride (better), but standing in its way would be plain stupid.

Those of us working in the creative industries are supposed to be imaginative and flexible and on good terms with chaos so this global shift that is sweeping away the old order of doing business should be a great opportunity.

‘Those of us’ were of course sitting in the University of Johannesburg Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture auditorium at the start of the ACT/UJ Arts and Culture Conference due to continue over the next two days.

Dion, who has carved a niche for himself over the last ten years as a predictor of trends and remains a respected opinion on such, was the opening speaker.

We’re rapidly moving toward virtual reality, robot customer service, the death of the capitalist economy and emergence of a new economic system based on creative commons which we don’t have a name for yet, 3D printing and warfare involving “non-state combatants” such as ISIS and Boko Haram. “The tectonic plates are shifting,” says Dion, but the fissures where volcanoes erupt and earthquakes occur are also areas of opportunity where the creative economy can move into the gaps and develop new ways of doing things. It’s all about “innovative thought, design thinking”.

Always focussing on the positive, he believes the move toward “solution based innovation is key” to making the best of the burgeoning disorder, and creative thinkers in Africa are best placed to profit from this. Not only are we right brained in a world moving away from left brain logic and increasingly requiring imagination, lateral thought and empathy (which we could do with a lot more of), we are living on a continent which has long put products to new uses – often through necessity. In Africa we are used to doing a lot more with a lot less.

To get down to brass tacks, creative economy is big business. In the UK, measurements have come up with a figure of £71.4bn a year created by the creative economy, translating into 1.68 million jobs, which is 6% of all jobs in the UK. It contributes $690bn to the US GDP per annum, apparently. So there’s money there, we just got to tap in, essentially.

But while Dion said technology is disrupting every industrial sector, or will soon be, he conveniently didn’t mention that one of those sectors, obviously, is the arts sector. If the old ways of doing business has seriously disrupted the media sector, the transport sector (think Uber), is disrupting the health, travel and toursim sectors, why should the arts sector be any different? Just think of what’s happened to the music industry – just one part of the arts sector. Are all us painters, performers, directors, writers, sculptors and musicians going to have to learn to code and develop innovative user experience (UX) interfaces for apps and games and customer service robots? Are we all destined, in this new world, to become drones for Google and Apple, actually?

This is the potentially negative side of things Dion didn’t examine. Generally, he prefers to be more upbeat. But I guess if we’re imaginative enough, we’ll carve our own niche. Just like he has. Perhaps we’ll discuss this a bit more over the next two days.

The food jam, by the way, which is a scenario where everyone gets thrown together with two or three other people they don’t know in order to cook something everyone else gets a taste of, was a great way to get us all to mingle and meet someone new. It takes care of the opening function snacks too. Very new order. Much appreciated.