[spectre] Alternative economies and the funding cutbacks + a few words on the situation in NL
Dear Spectrites, A fascinating discussion is emerging in (late) response to the funding cutbacks in the UK, NL, and now Slovenia. Without wanting to take anything away from what has been said so far, I would like to introduce a slightly different angle to the discussion. Because this is all still in becoming, it necessarily has to be sketchy. That public funding for arts, especially the experimental arts and media arts / networked arts, are under increasing pressure is not really new - the scale and acceleration of austerisation is, obviously. Seeing for a long time the shifting funding priorities (from an 'arts' or slightly more autonomous designation to the 'economistic' notion of 'creative industries - a bit more about that in respect to the situation in The Netherlands at the end) it was clear that alternative models of sustainability for the kind of practices that are at least close to my heart should be probed and developed. In 2008 we started this discussion around the rapid growth of on-line collections of audio visual material and their public accessibility with the Economies of the Commons conference series, inspired by the term that Felix Stalder had originally suggested to us. The conferences provide a relevant constellation of heritage, archive, as well as independent initiatives, producers, cultural and arts organisations and representatives of (public) broadcasting. This is an on-going discussion and exploration. The idea in rough terms is to investigate how in view of the unreliability of public support structures (as has become abundantly clear now, but remember we started this discussion in 2007/8, alternative support structures can be constructed for these kind of experimental and public access practices and resources that still retain the ideals of accessibility, of publicness, of sharing, of free exchange (free as in unfettered - not 'gratis'). Documentation of the first ECommons conference: www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=208416 Website of ECommons 2: www.ecommons.eu There are different layers to this undertaking. One important step is to understand what kind and how value is created in situations where no immediate transaction takes place when having access to the resources, productions, gatherings, exchanges we are studying. Here the figure of the commons (a highly anglosaxonian notion and not 'common' in The Netherlands at all), comes squarely into view. It is possible through this notion of shared resources, the commons, to tap into a rich experience and body of both practical work and excellent (economic) theory that has been developed in the commons movement suis generis, by a.o. Ollstrom and Hess and many others. The figure of the commons identifies a third economic logic, next to that of the Market and Public (State) support, that is highly productive in a multitude of situations to resolve problems of access to resources, knowledge, skills, means of production, reputation building (important for the general art economy / market that is essentially a reputation economy), distribution infrastructures and more. The commons is not an ant-thesis to the market, nor is it replacement for public support structures, much rather it is complementary. Current debates about crowd funding that have suddenly become popular (surprise!?) are hopelessly beside the point, they reflect the simple logic of established cultural institutions who see their public funding go down and want to compensate this monetary loss simply by extracting more money from 'the crowd' - rather than rethinking the nature of their own practice and ways of working. We can see that this will lead nowhere as 'the crowd' will not be willing to supplement dwindling public arts funds, meanwhile not getting anything new and not getting a stake or a new kind of involvement in the organisations and their cultural output. In other words, this short term strategy amounts to the same as simply raising the prices of your ticket sales, and we know what the result of this will be, raise them too much and the audience will stay away. After two conferences (2008 and 2010) and extended discussions in the local and international environment the main observation that I take from the Economies of the Commons debate is that new realities are forcing cultural organisations to both rethink how they work and how they raise support for their activities. Replacing public funding with a commons based revenue stream will not work, while complete commercialisation will de the death trap for what makes this cultural activity most valuable (i.e. public accessibility, active dialogue, reuse and remix, critical engagement of the aesthetics and politics of experimental and media arts). Therefore it seems that hybrid models of practice need to be developed very urgently. Public funding should not be discarded, but should be fought for and where possible reinstated in the fu
Re: [spectre] Alternative economies and the funding cutbacks + a few words on the situation in NL
Hi Eric I'd thought of crowd-sourced micro-funding as opportunistic and glorified begging (although begging can be seen to have a valid social status in certain contexts). However, your vision of not dead, not alive vampiric arts organisations sucking the blood of the crowd is much better. But what does that make the government? Best Simon On 16/06/2011 14:28, "Eric Kluitenberg" wrote: > Dear Spectrites, > > A fascinating discussion is emerging in (late) response to the funding > cutbacks in the UK, NL, and now Slovenia. Without wanting to take anything > away from what has been said so far, I would like to introduce a slightly > different angle to the discussion. > > Because this is all still in becoming, it necessarily has to be sketchy. > > That public funding for arts, especially the experimental arts and media arts > / networked arts, are under increasing pressure is not really new - the scale > and acceleration of austerisation is, obviously. Seeing for a long time the > shifting funding priorities (from an 'arts' or slightly more autonomous > designation to the 'economistic' notion of 'creative industries - a bit more > about that in respect to the situation in The Netherlands at the end) it was > clear that alternative models of sustainability for the kind of practices that > are at least close to my heart should be probed and developed. > > In 2008 we started this discussion around the rapid growth of on-line > collections of audio visual material and their public accessibility with the > Economies of the Commons conference series, inspired by the term that Felix > Stalder had originally suggested to us. The conferences provide a relevant > constellation of heritage, archive, as well as independent initiatives, > producers, cultural and arts organisations and representatives of (public) > broadcasting. This is an on-going discussion and exploration. > > The idea in rough terms is to investigate how in view of the unreliability of > public support structures (as has become abundantly clear now, but remember we > started this discussion in 2007/8, alternative support structures can be > constructed for these kind of experimental and public access practices and > resources that still retain the ideals of accessibility, of publicness, of > sharing, of free exchange (free as in unfettered - not 'gratis'). > > Documentation of the first ECommons conference: > www.debalie.nl/dossierpagina.jsp?dossierid=208416 > > Website of ECommons 2: > www.ecommons.eu > > There are different layers to this undertaking. One important step is to > understand what kind and how value is created in situations where no immediate > transaction takes place when having access to the resources, productions, > gatherings, exchanges we are studying. Here the figure of the commons (a > highly anglosaxonian notion and not 'common' in The Netherlands at all), comes > squarely into view. It is possible through this notion of shared resources, > the commons, to tap into a rich experience and body of both practical work and > excellent (economic) theory that has been developed in the commons movement > suis generis, by a.o. Ollstrom and Hess and many others. > > The figure of the commons identifies a third economic logic, next to that of > the Market and Public (State) support, that is highly productive in a > multitude of situations to resolve problems of access to resources, knowledge, > skills, means of production, reputation building (important for the general > art economy / market that is essentially a reputation economy), distribution > infrastructures and more. The commons is not an ant-thesis to the market, nor > is it replacement for public support structures, much rather it is > complementary. Current debates about crowd funding that have suddenly become > popular (surprise!?) are hopelessly beside the point, they reflect the simple > logic of established cultural institutions who see their public funding go > down and want to compensate this monetary loss simply by extracting more money > from 'the crowd' - rather than rethinking the nature of their own practice and > ways of working. We can see that this will lead nowhere as 'the crowd' will > not be willing to supplement dwindling public arts funds, meanwhile not > getting anything new and not getting a stake or a new kind of involvement in > the organisations and their cultural output. In other words, this short term > strategy amounts to the same as simply raising the prices of your ticket > sales, and we know what the result of this will be, raise them too much and > the audience will stay away. > > After two conferences (2008 and 2010) and extended discussions in the local > and international environment the main observation that I take from the > Economies of the Commons debate is that new realities are forcing cultural > organisations to both rethink how they work and how they raise support for > their activities. Replacing public funding with a comm
