Culture Clash [Revisited]. Redesigning Value in a Postindustrial World.
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Originally delivered as an inaugural lecture at Delft University of Technology in November 2016, Culture Clash: Redefining Value in a Postindustrial World explored how digital technologies challenge established notions of value, authorship and creative practice. Moving between art, design, science, music and popular culture, the lecture questioned the hierarchies through which we distinguish artistic from everyday production, original from copied work, and thinking from making. Ten years later, Culture Clash Revisited returns to these questions in a world increasingly shaped by generative technologies. The accompanying afterword reflects on experiences across different educational and professional contexts, reconsidering the relationship between theoretical and practical knowledge, and the role of design in connecting disciplines, practices and ways of knowing. Where the original lecture examined the implications of digital abundance for authenticity and creative distinction, the revisited perspective shifts attention towards context, judgement and responsibility. Rather than locating value primarily in the originality of an outcome or the capabilities of its maker, it asks how meaning emerges through relationships, decisions and consequences. Together, the lecture and afterword offer a personal reflection on the changing value of design, knowledge and human agency in a technologically mediated world.
Author: Van Middelkoop, Catelijne
Institution: Delft University of Technology
Language: English
Topic: Art, Technology, and Culture
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225562465