[https://dotheastralplane.com/2020/09/09/the-soul-of-the-creative-free-labor-and-the-psychopolitics-of-control/](https://dotheastralplane.com/2020/09/09/the-soul-of-the-creative-free-labor-and-the-psychopolitics-of-control/) As the hacker was to the 1990s, the “creative” has been to the aughts and 2010s. They are a figure that embodies changes in the nature of production, consumption and surveillance, as well as the manner in which discipline has developed from a regime of control over the body to one that puts the psyche, or even the soul itself, to work. Neither an entrepreneur nor an auteur, the creative is described by Florida as a producer of “meaningful new forms.” They can be viewed as an instrumentralized dilettante, a master-of-nothing who nonetheless understands and exploits their function as a node of culture, information and capital.

Published in 2002, pop urban studies theorist Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class can be seen as a PR manual for the past two decades of experimentation in real estate, tech and venture capital. Centered on the “three Ts” – technology, talent and tolerance – Florida positions the figure of the creative as the main driver of urban regeneration. Following the book’s success, Florida founded the Creative Class Group, a consultancy that has wooed cities like Austin, Barcelona and Dublin into adopting his formula for lurching out of post-industrial obscurity.