[-empyre-] short report from NL

[Geert Lovink]

Dear all,

there is a lot that can be said about the budget cuts in the  
Netherlands.

As Bill Laskas already discussed also here in NL digital/new media  
initiatives are being deleted and not seen as real art/contemporary  
art/visual arts. This 'discrimination' has been discussed in the past  
already on many occasions (see my large chapter on this in Zero  
Comments which I wrote in 2006). We can observe that the new media  
arts scene is itself, in parts, to blame for this as has never  
seriously tried to leave its own ghetto. ISEA is the prime exemple of  
this inward looking culture that is more and more depending on  
academia and lacks any audience except for the presenters themselves.  
Bad move. Wrong direction. ISEA IMHO show be dissolved asap and make  
way for international networks and campaigns that show that artists  
are part of society and intervene there and there and everywhere,  
going towards the heart of the (digital) matter. Digital media arts  
has a lot to contribute to society and to protest movements like  
Occupy, and show stop focussing on somehow securing its own history, a  
move which only further isolates the artists. The same I could say of  
arts and science, which is a hopeless instutional game, not focussed  
on the outside world.

Here in NL the relative small 'new media arts' ghetto (in comparison  
to theatre, classical music, the largely untouched museum world) is  
really only one of many problems, and probably one of the least  
interesting ones. A tiny one, for instance, in comparison to the way  
they are now cutting back into experimental theatre, dance and  
performance, and to a lesser extend also visual arts.

We can protest the cuts, and have done so, but many were unhappy with  
the rhethoric of it all. The theatre scene (which is the most  
affected, in fact) came up with rather strange and hollow phrases such  
as "the cry for culture" and even worse: "the marsh of  
civilization" (suggesting that those in power are barbarians). The  
quasi-existentialist metaphors made it quite hard to understand the  
neo-liberal policies and push towards creative industries approaches  
(everyone is an enterpreneur etc.).

The problem with defending what is there is the insistence on autonomy  
of the arts. But no one is buying that anymore. The quite arrogant  
demand that artists should be left alone, be given money to do 'their  
own thing'... there is simply no consensus about that anymore. This is  
reflected in the 'business as usual' approach of most cultural  
institutions in this country. Even those faced by 100% cut in a year's  
time are pretending if there is nothing about to happen (and this is  
oddly reflected in their websites). The survival is delegated to the  
regents that are supposed to lobby inside the liberal elite of the  
country. Or make some backroom deal with The Hague bureaucrats or  
local city hall officials. Sounds unlikely, isn't? Then change to  
project money? Look for corporate sponsers.. International grants...  
Yeah, sure. All done to just keep on going like in the past. There is  
little support for that in society. Or is there? We'll see.

One ironic detail. This weekend the threatened Rijksacademie where top- 
of-the-bill visual artists hang out with international curators in a  
two year residency had an Open Day to show what they were doing.  
Admittance fee: 7.50 euros.

Yours, Geert