The creative economy needs co-working

The wave of virtual and augmented reality is breaking. To discover all its uses, it is necessary not to ignore the small actors. And to encourage their networking and collaborative work.

Virtual worlds take place on our screens, in store windows. The increase in reality is displayed on our mobiles. For futile or highly speculative uses, virtual reality has become... a reality.

The economy is feeling the pinch. We boast of pharaonic investments and plethoric markets. Yet the revolution that is underway is, in my opinion, not yet that one. It's the creative economy. Culture-based creativity is an essential component of our post-industrial economies. Digital technologies play an important role in this economy of the immaterial, enabling new forms of social exchange and contributing decisively to the emergence of new ways of expressing creativity. The creative economy is a place of mixtures, of walls knocked down between borders and disciplines; artists converse with technologists and experts with philanthropists.

Ideas are the key to innovation

Their meetings have only one objective: the emergence of the idea. The idea, the key to innovation, creativity and growth at last. This creative revolution does not take place without clashes or resistance. For it is basically a revolution of mentalities, of uses, of ways of working together. To work in 3D, in 3D, in virtual reality. To immerse oneself in images to better understand reality, to simulate or prototype it.

One of the major challenges in the expansion of the creative economy is to ensure that as many people as possible have access to these tools, forms of expression and imagination. However, to a large extent, the major virtual reality industries have already set up, at the heart of the creative economy, the bastions of their power: the American or Japanese style entertainment machines are being deployed with the efficiency of the big players. Futuristic avatars of the image majors, they are settling in with their heavy machines and their know-how-knowledge.

Bringing the actors together

Sadly, I have the impression that the doors of these very high-tech bastions often close behind the weight of investment, expert practices, expensive developments and barriers to entry. Leaving on the threshold creative actors, bearers of seed ideas, small promising companies.

But they also imagine other ways of telling stories, of detecting uses. I am convinced that the creative revolution is the one that will open up production centres, immersive cubes, Fab Labs for augmented reality or innovative design. The goal is to give easy and open access to as many players as possible, to the best technologies, to the best production tools in three dimensions, or more if necessary. To make artists and entrepreneurs, industrialists and creators, thinkers and engineers work together, in real cooperation.

{Jacuzzi on}