Be realistic, demand the impossible. In answer to Malcolm�s what do �we lack here to make things a bit more happening�? That�s pretty easy, responsive funding bodies that are not out to instrumentalise culture -- bodies that recognise that culture does not come about by a top down transaction, as if under some form of Thatcherite competitive rationing. Let�s stand back and recognise that we�ve already lost an international film festival (NewVisions), and more, to insidious haggling.
On: �The absence of a magazine for the visual arts which can be critically distanced on the one hand, but partisan on the other has had an effect on practice I think (which is not to belittle the key role for Variant in embracing viewpoints not given a platform anywhere else) but to say we need more forums through the published medium.� Firstly, we have to acknowledge that the SAC are about to put out to tender for a Scottish Arts (Council) Arts Magazine via the �Visual Arts� Department. (So Malcolm might want to acknowledge a vested interest in raising this issue at this moment in time.) ScotInform have been paid �60,000 for a consultancy to fabricate the tender for this magazine. As I understand it, ScotInform were also responsible for Stills Gallery�s Lottery consultancy -- I think it�s fair to say on the basis of which it went bankrupt, so you can judge for yourselves the �quality� of the �tendering� process on offer this time. Just what are the institutional motivations behind this apparently �spontaneous� (supposedly ahistorical) act? Who benefits from such novelty �innovations� within established power structures? Can it really be an attempt at opening up a range of phenomena for investigation that have previously fallen between the cracks of disciplines OR is it really about reproducing established relations of power under the guise of reportage? Once again, are not political questions being disguised as cultural ones? What would it mean if an artist-run space were to be �put out to tender�? Is it not a blatant contradiction in terms? Rather than the tendency towards a narrow consolidation of mutual-self-interest (court chronicling), it is essential that we retain access to alternative possibilities and particularities. (A decade on from the Tactical Media Conference and with Geert Lovink�s impending visit, the excessive control freakery over what passes as the cultural landscape today is a damning inditement.) Is the term �Visual Arts� even relevant to contemporary practice? Is it anything other than an academic and bureaucratic precinct -- a description of the territoriality of �professional� managers and cultural commissars? I suppose its putative boundaries describe the largess of public funding, and as such orientates what purports to represent aspects of the field of cultural production. But this is raking over old coals, as the marshalling of sensual experience into domains such as �Visual Arts� has been challenged elsewhere, long ago -- such as with the academic advent in the US of �Visual Culture�, which again problematically has the ocular as its primary reference. I agree we need more forums through the published medium: even supporting/funding the ones that manage to exist (Matters, Product, Portfolio, Variant, a raft of zines and self-published pamphlets, etc...) AND encouraging new ones, would be a mark of cultural maturity -- but such support for a diversity of independent publishing is not going to happen, is it? IS IT? I suspect it�s going to be like watching fish thrashing around for oxygen in a small muddy pool rapidly drying up in the midday sun... again. Somehow my impending interview with WorkingLinks (third time lucky) doesn�t seem too bad. Leigh PS We're getting an article together for the next issue of Variant on WorkingLinks and are planning to run a column of people's experiences of them, of course in absolute confidence. Please send items to the address below, or get in contact if you would like to discuss it further. Variant, issue 17 will be on the web site in the next few days. -- NEW ADDRESS: Variant Flat 1/2 189b Maryhill Rd. (2nd Close) Glasgow G20 7XJ +44 (0)141 333 9522 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.variant.org.uk ------------------------------------------------- a m b i t : networking media arts in scotland post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] archive: http://www.mediascot.org/ambit info: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and write "info ambit" in the message body -------------------------------------------------
