[-empyre-] short report from NL

[Simon Biggs]

Thanks for the report. All good points Geert. But the evidence is that new media artists are seeking to work in the "real world", as you call it (although that is a deeply problematic concept). Collective and non-institutional platforms like Furtherfield, Floss, FakePress and others have, in some instances, been doing this for years - often emerging out of the new media and net art scenes of the 80's and 90's and applying the networking and community building skills acquired through those earlier activities. You know this as well as anyone as you were (and are) part of this.

In respect of the artist and academia connection - in many instances artist engagement with academia has been driven by the very forces you are describing. When the public funding of the arts dries up then the artists will go where the money is. If, for whatever reason, they find the commercial market (the art world) unviable then many will look to academia as this is a domain long use to spending money on non-instrumental activities. It is true that universities are under pressure to cut their non-vocational programmes and unprofitable research activities but many have the strength, often gained over time-frames far greater than our transient political and economic structures have existed, to resist the sniping of government, at least for a while. It is natural for artists to seek, and find a degree of, shelter under such umbrellas and the price to be paid is often small - if a price at all. Having the opportunity to share how and why what you do with others and to develop it in collaboration with people from diverse disciplines is a great opportunity. You know this, as you work in academia.

I agree the media art scene is something of a ghetto - but it isn't a cattle-market like the mainstream art world. The media art scene does indulge in navel gazing, like any self-defining community. Indeed, navel-gazing is probably a prerequisite to such self-definition. But many media artists can be found seeking to escape that definition at every opportunity. It can be argued that media art is what it is because the artists doing it so dislike being defined by their practices that they are constantly inventing new media forms in order to escape such definition. This is why media art seems unable to successfully define itself. To the art world that appears as a weakness. To those who wish to avoid or subvert the art world, whilst sustaining something like a "practice formerly known as art", this is a strength.

None of this, of course, should take us away from the issue of cuts in public support for the arts, which in the UK (at least) have followed even greater cuts in public support for education (80%). But we should keep such cuts in context, which is that they are symptomatic of a deeper wind-change in the settlement between the public and private sectors, the extent of government responsibility and the locus of power itself. These changes are being driven by a global realignment of power from the West to the East in conjunction with a move away from representative governance to corporate oligarchy (whether a pseudo-state, like China, or a corporation like Shell). The incredible shrinking state, whether Holland or the UK, is just part of this shift. The disintegration of the Euro area is symptomatic of a supra-state structure's collapse when the states that formed it proceed to evaporate.

best

Simon


On 28 Nov 2011, at 09:46, Geert Lovink wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 


Simon Biggs
simon at littlepig.org.uk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ @SimonBiggsUK skype: simonbiggsuk

s.biggs at ed.ac.uk Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ http://www.elmcip.net/ http://www.movingtargets.co.uk/