Hei Mathias!
It was not so long ago when artist and non-institutional participants were
considered an asset for festivals and conferences.
Halcyon days indeed.
I remember that the group of invited artists to 1994 ISEA in Helsinki threatened
the organizers with a boycott, in case we were forced to pay conference fees.
Our argument was that we 1) did not have the money to pay for conferences, 2)
that our supporting institutions, the arts councils and embassies would not
understand that we have to pay for delivering artistic work and 3) that these
festivals and conferences create income based on the participants' input.
In the end, none of us paid.
I also remember that instance there in Helsinki, long on 21 years ago. It would
be interesting to see how a similar situation would unfold these days. Would the
artists resist (*resistance if futile*)? Or would there not even be a mention of
it. You were lucky to be selected to be a part of our august event. ...
Today?
Speaking from very recent conference experience, I became a bit of a pariah for
trying to make a tiny re-adjustment of the system (all presenters had to
register for the whole conference, although this wasn't stated explicitly until
I got an email a week before after I had made a query as to why some sessions
had individual registration possibilities and others not. I was told that those
were only to allow the public to attend single sessions, that option wasn't
meant for presenters.) I'm presently unemployed in that careerist sense, but
submitted a paper and was also asked by a Canadian colleague to join in a panel.
I felt bad about asking for a variance on the accepted protocol, but then, I was
presenting content and bringing my own network and experience to the gathering
at the same time as living on savings.
The economic pressure on organizers from the wider institutional setting was
such that in the end I was asked to pay for a day's registration, about 3x what
I had hoped to spend (and about 3-4 weeks worth of food).
I don't think the argument can be made in the US that a conference makes money
directly for the organizers, although indirectly, the ultimate 'success' of a
conference bolsters the university's prestige. The local community makes some
profit on hotels and restaurants, airline flights, and this further reflects
back on the university's status as an income generator. Money is made for
someone, somewhere.
These days, I thing a higher percentage of 'artists' have been absorbed into
academic contexts, where there is funding (though certainly not in abundance)
that is earmarked for conference attendance. This is a core element working to
bolster the university's wider social status. (At the same time noting that few
conferences actually interface with the wider social milieu!) Faculty *have* to
present at conferences. The 'publish-or-perish' paradigm also
drives/maintains/strengthens the hierarchic structure of the university itself.
Conferences in the arts organized in the US, of which there are few, I suspect
probably have extremely low numbers of non-academics. This is also a result of
there being *zero* public funding for an artist to attend such things. It would
have to be fully out-of-pocket for the artist. This provides an exclusionary
result that threatens to keep the Ivory Towers completely ivory, outsiders need
not knock.
I can't really think of a way around this: it is a consequence of the
socio-economics of academic institutions and the wider dis-interest and even
hostility in the US towards education, culture, and the arts. It is also a
consequence of larger forces at work by those who control system-wide flows of
power.
In Europe, where cultural funding is one order of magnitude greater than the US
in a typical situation, things are a bit different, with many more non-academic
funding options. Of course, it's been getting squeezed in the last years, but at
least there is something!
I think that all of these micro-stresses are manifestations of the fact that
there are too many people on the planet all who are competing for limited resources.
so it goes.
jh
--
++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++
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