I just learned (h/t dr.woooo) about this bilingual special issue of the Chinese journal Urban China (城市中国), edited by Mónica Carriço, Bert de Muynck and Ned Rossiter, and published in November 2008. The issue was part of a project organized by cultural theorist Rossiter called Organized Networks: Mobile Research Labs, Beijing. The journal issue seems hard to find (you could try to order copies here), but most of the contents are here, and you can see some of the illustrated pages here. I’ve copied the table of contents below, with links to the articles.

This issue of Urban China sets out to critique and redefine the idea and practice of ‘mapping’ the creative industries. Foregrounding the experimental process of collaborative constitution, we are interested in the multiple idioms of expression that make creative industries intelligible beyond the blandness of policy discourse. Activist researchers, artists and writers in Europe, Brazil and India have been particularly inventive in combining collaborative techniques of production with social-political critique via media of communication. We see this work as part of the prehistory and global dialogue around how to create new spaces and transdisciplinary knowledges able to negotiate the complexities and politics that attend the economization of culture.

Contents

Prologue: Creative China (extract)
Jiang Jun and Kuang Xiaoming

Network of Contributors

Creative Industries Timeline

Introduction: Counter-Mapping Creative Industries in Beijing
Ned Rossiter

Collusion and Collision of Cities within Cities
Shveta Sarda

Section 1: Network Ecologies of Creative Waste (Introduction)
Soenke Zehle

Creative Industries or Wasteful Ones?
Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller

Network Ecologies: Documenting Depletion, Exhausting Exposure
Soenke Zehle

Section 2: Information Geographies vs. Creative Clusters (Introduction)
Ned Rossiter

Every Morning and One Day
Ni Weifeng

Can You Manufacture a Creative Cluster?
Danny Butt

Creative Clusters: Out of Nowhere?
Michael Keane

Demographics, Scale and Business Models for Chinese Internet Companies
Piet Walraven

Holes in the Net? State Rescaling, Creative Control and the Dispersion of Power
Xuefei Ren

Frida V. in Beijing and OpenStreetMap’s First Leaps in Beijing
Luka Frelih

OrgNets + OpenStreetMap Presents: Beijing Bicycle Tour
Umi

Section 3: Migrant Networks and Service Labour (Introduction)
Brett Neilson

Labour, Migration, Creative Industries, Risk
Brett Neilson

Migrant Workers, Collaborative Research and Spatial Pressures: An Interview with Meng Yue
Ned Rossiter and Meng Yue

Inverting the Cultural Map: Peripheral Geographies of Beijing’s Creative Production
Adrian Blackwell

Section 4: Centrality of Real-Estate Speculation for Creative Economies (Introduction)
Ned Rossiter

Cultural Heritage Map of Beijing
Carla Nayton / Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)

Constructing The Real (E)state of Chinese Contemporary Art: Reflections on 798, in 2004
Thomas J. Berghuis

Section 5: Import Cultures / Export Innovations in Architecture and Urban Design (Introduction)
Bert de Muynck

How Foreign Architects became International Architects: A Case Study of China’s Creative Construction Agenda
Bert de Muynck

An Architecture of Mediation
David Brown

Mapping Architectural Practice in Beijing
北京地区建筑设计实践纵览
Hao Dong and Binke Lenhardt / crossboundaries
董灏和蓝冰可

Moving Towards a Creative Society
Shaun Chang

Section 6: Artist Villages and Market Engineering (Introduction)
Bert de Muynck

The Art of Keys: Profit and Loss in the Art Village Industry
Adrian Hornsby and Neville Mars

Other Kinds of Ambitions: From Artist Villages to Art Districts
Alexander Pasternack

BORDERLINE Moving Images 2007
Beatrice Leanza / Borderline

HomeShop Series Number One: Games 2008 Off the Map
Elaine Wing-ah Ho / HomeShop

Beijing’s Art Districts: From Creative Hubs to Entertainment Centres
Manuela Lietti

Detours and Developments in Beijing’s Music Scene
Leo de Boisgisson

The Uncertain Aesthetics of Contemporary Chinese Visual Culture
Paul Gladston

Is there Really Space for Creativity?
Lothar Spree and Davide Quadrio

Section 7: Policy
Creative China, Managerial Innovation, Global Brands: An Interview with John Howkins
Urban China and John Howkins

Creative Industries with Chinese Characteristics: An Interview with Professor Zhang Jingcheng
Urban China and Zhang Jingcheng

Section 8: Creative Portraits