[spectre] New Media Art Subsidies & Alternative Support Models

[Cool Media Hot Talk Show]

Why should new media artists get subsidies?

Cool Media Hot Talk Show
programmed by the public
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features

topic: New Media Art Subsidies & Alternative Support Models
speakers: David Garcia, Lex ter Braak

October 17, Wednesday, 20.30 CET @ De Balie, Amsterdam

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

David Garcia is a founding member of Amsterdam's Time Based Arts and  
creator of a number of international conferences which explore ways  
in which live events and public debate can be enhanced by being  
combined with electronic communications media such as television,  
radio and computer networks. Initiator of The Next 5 Minutes  
(94-2003) a series of international conferences and exhibitions on  
electronic communications and political culture. Initiator,  
organiser, co-edited of many other projects.
Related info at De Balie website: http://www.debalie.nl/persoon.jsp? 
siteid=&personid=1222

Lex ter Braak is the director of the The Netherlands Foundation for  
Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (known in the Netherlands as  
Fonds BKVB) is the national body responsible for making grants to  
individual visual artists, designers and architects. Its objective is  
to nurture excellence in visual arts, design and architecture in the  
Netherlands.
Recently he was the co-editor of the book "Second Opinion" about  
Subsidies for Visual Arts in The Netherlands, which created a vibrant  
discussion about public support for artists. This discussion in  
newspapers and other media, also prompted the topic on this website.
Second Opinion. Over beeldende kunstsubsidies in Nederland. Gitta  
Luiten, Lex ter Braak, Taco de Neef, Steven van Teeseling (red.)
http://www.naipublishers.nl/kunst/second_opinion_nl.html


STATEMENT OF DAVID GARCIA:

Public Funding for the Creative Un-commons

For the last year I have been part of a network of researchers  
looking at the role of art and design as both a catalyst for  
collaboration across sectors and disciplines.
The project is all about coming to terms with the reality not only of  
our interconnectedness but also of our interdependence. It explores  
examples of groups collaborating with others outside of their usual  
tribal affinities. Our metaphor of uncommon ground indicates that we  
can only do this by accepting and living with our differences even  
our antagonisms, hence uncommon not common ground. The project is not  
about consensus building it is about the accepting even dramatizing  
difference.
I see the corporate, industrial and governmental sector as unable to  
do take this role alone without a vibrant cultural sector willing to  
tell risky stories that take us outside of our comfort zones. Such  
work can never be financed from the market place alone.

The last sentence should make it clear that in this talk I am not  
taking a neutral stance. I see an urgent need for an increase in  
public subsidy for the arts. I will give case study examples of where  
the public and private sectors along with individual artists and  
developers have worked together successfully. But I also want to make  
it clear that these collaborations will entail a fight to maintain a  
well resourced publicly financed cultural sector. This should be  
based on revising many of the current notions of accountability and  
re-introduce the notion of responsibility. More about this  
distinction in the talk.

Every experience I have during the development in the (Un) common  
Ground research project points to the value of maintaining (in fact  
increasing) public funding for both research and the arts. However, a  
shift in mentality is required in which the public sector should be  
seen as more than another income stream, or an alternative venture  
capitalist looking for a return on investment, or even a means of  
consolidating national norms and values. The public sector should  
hold to a wider conception of the public good that embraces the  
implications of an interconnected world.

A balanced cultural diet in our pluralistic societies (containing  
both minorities and minority tastes) should maintain a full cultural  
spectrum ranging from popular culture to uncompromising and difficult  
cultural experiments which are able to take risks that accountability  
to share holders alone would never permit, Such a balance is part and  
parcel of a healthy society.
So my argument will call for a widespread movement to protect public  
subsidies for serious cultural discourse, which are currently being  
whittled away across all the liberal democracies. But I will also  
argue that it is important to achieve this in ways that go beyond  
the ?container category? of the nation state. Our issues are simply  
too big for the current epidemic of nationalist obsessions; art  
should lead the way in re-metropolonisation of our societies.
At a point in which all other areas are globalising is it possible to  
think of public funding for the arts in ways that transcend  
conceptions of national identity and competitiveness?

In my talk I will use examples case studies and evidence from both  
inside and outside of the (Un) common Ground research program, to  
support these arguments. I want to make it clear however that I am  
just one editor these are my views and conclusions. The question is  
are they mine alone?

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Tickets: 5 euro
Reservations by telephone: +31.20. 55 35 100  (during opening hours  
of the ticket office)
Or via the Balie website: www.debalie.nl/agenda

De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics,
Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10
Amsterdam
www.debalie.nl