Hi all,

As you know, the fate of new media art 
organisations in the Netherlands hangs in the 
balance, as it's government is moving towards a 
slash and burn policy for the entire arts sector.

This Monday 27th of June is a critical day for 
Dutch culture. The parliament will discuss Halbe 
Zijlstra's proposed plans.  So the arts world - 
and of particular relevance for us, the media 
arts sector - is mobilising in protest.

They need our help.

Our colleagues are asking us to sign the 
petitions.  They are all linked to at this 
website: http://www.schadekaart.nl/page/1946/nl

The one specific to media arts is here:
http://www.change.org/petitions/save-dutch-media-art-orgs-govt-plans-to-slash-them-all

There are marches planned on 26 & 27 June in 
Rotterdam & The Hague: 
http://www.marsderbeschaving.nl

I'm also including below this email a letter from 
the group Sonic Acts (written by Arie Altena & 
Lucas van der Velden) which provides a bit more 
context regarding these alarming and destructive 
plans.

Best wishes,

Honor Harger
Director, Lighthouse



------------------------------------------------------------

A new Dark Age for Dutch Culture
http://www.sonicacts.com/A_new_Dark_Age_for_Dutch_Culture.html

The letter 'Meer dan kwaliteit' ('More than 
Quality') by the State Secretary for Culture, 
Halbe Zijlstra (VVD, People's Party for Freedom 
and Democracy) arrived in the electronic 
mailboxes of Dutch art and cultural institutes on 
Friday, 10 June 2011. It stated that ¤200 million 
would be brutally slashed from the arts and 
culture budget, starting as early as 1 January 
2013. Apparently, Zijlstra, who admits that he 
lacks any understanding of art and culture, has 
blatantly ignored all the recommendations made to 
him on this subject, including those from the 
Arts Council (the government's official advisory 
body). Subsidies for a limited number of 
'world-class institutes' such as the Nederlandse 
Opera, which already receive a substantial 
portion of the existing budget, will be 
maintained. As far as Zijlstra is concerned, most 
of the other institutes can disappear - they will 
no longer be able to rely on structural support 
from the government. This not only applies to all 
the production houses for theatres, half of the 
orchestras, the Muziekcentrum Nederland (formed 
in a recent merger), the Foundation Art and 
Public Domain (SKOR), renowned exhibition spaces 
and research facilities for visual art such as De 
Appel, but also to the entirely new media sector 
with its internationally acclaimed institutes 
such as V2_, the Netherlands Media Art Institute 
(NIMk), Mediamatic, WORM, the Waag Society and 
STEIM, as well as to the Rijksakademie, de 
Ateliers and the Jan van Eyck Academy. Support 
for critical-analytical journals such as Open and 
Metropolis M, and for the literary magazines, 
including De Gids, will be discontinued. 
Furthermore, the budget that will be allocated to 
project subsidies, i.e., for individual artists, 
one-off projects and festivals, will be more than 
halved. Only 'international world-class talent' 
and art that has already proven itself will 
remain.

This is not merely the austerity plan that was 
anticipated from a centre-right minority cabinet 
that is at the beck and call of the populist PVV 
(Party for Freedom): it is a direct attack on 
art, an attack on anything that does not fit into 
a market economy, on anything that refuses to, or 
cannot be, adapted to a populist-tinted, 
neo-liberal mindset. It marks the end of a 
cultural sector that was birthed with a great 
deal of effort and difficulty. His letter does 
include a few obligatory sentences that could 
fool a hasty reader into thinking that there 
actually is a coherent vision behind this policy, 
but each substantive phrase is contradicted by 
the proposed regulations. The letter brims with 
resentment towards innovative and investigative 
art, towards groundbreaking art, art that cannot 
survive if it is only supported by the market. 
The letter expresses contempt for artists' works, 
contempt for the wealth of experiences that art 
can provide, and contempt for people who enjoy 
it. The contributions that art makes to society 
and innovation have been completely ignored. The 
idea that sustaining art and culture is in the 
public interest is negated; in fact, the notion 
of the public interest is ignored altogether. The 
right for works to exist is reserved only for 
those works that 'the market' - whatever that 
might be - or wealthy patrons will support. 
Zijlstra's letter is nothing more than a 
dictatorial ruling. We are being spurred to our 
downfall by populist neo-liberalist policies.

There are absolutely no policy reasons for the 
¤200 million of cutbacks. This deal was struck 
with the PVV in exchange for its support in 
parliament of the minority cabinet. The intention 
is to inflict irreparable damage on an entire 
profession. Zijlstra is striving to decimate and 
eliminate this professional group's creative, 
innovative and critical potential. Not a single 
member of his own party (VVD), or anyone from its 
coalition partner, the CDA (Christian Democratic 
Party) has opposed him. As far as they are 
concerned, traditional art is merely the 
superfluous ornamentation of a society. 
Contemporary art is labelled as alienating, and 
even, although no one actually says it out loud, 
as 'degenerate art'.

Prioritising world-class talent implies that the 
State Secretary makes a distinction between 'art 
that has already proven itself' and all other 
art. This is illogical and downright ignorant. 
Art is in a state of constant change, it reflects 
on a society and the time in which we live, it is 
frequently at odds with accepted norms and 
values, and reveals new and unexpected 
perspectives. Zijlstra is of the opinion that 
there is only room for art from the distant past, 
for cultural heritage such as centuries-old 
ballet, opera, classical music and visual art. 
But classical art only has meaning in the context 
of new art, they enhance each other and validate 
each other's existence.

This means that from 1 January 2013 no money and 
thus no time will be made available to create 
unique or ambitious artworks, for fundamental 
research, for developing complex technological 
works, for art that critically examines our 
complicated world, for artworks that enrich 
society and people in sometimes unparalleled 
ways. What remains is 'music for the millions'; 
all the rest will be amateur art. Artists who are 
driven by their craft will have to create their 
art in their spare time. Cultural vitality will 
disappear, as will the economic vitality that is 
driven by art. We can forget about innovation and 
international allure entirely.

Of course, the situation as it stands at the 
moment can and should be criticised. For a long 
time many of those who are active in the sector 
have been dissatisfied with the ways in which 
funds are allocated. But Zijlstra's plan has 
brought an abrupt end to this discussion, as well 
as to the discussion about how funds can best be 
used to stimulate culture. He has opted for the 
simplest solution: get rid of it all.

Reactions to the proposals have been manifold, 
and they have naturally provoked a rebellion by 
artists and the employees at the affected 
institutes. It has also inflamed a furious 
backlash from private funding organisations, 
wealthy right-wing culture aficionados and 
patrons - after all, Zijlstra's intention is that 
they should fund the arts sector. During the 
parliamentary hearings they repeatedly reminded 
Zijlstra that the Netherlands is a country where 
private sponsorship of the arts has always been 
in short supply, and that there are almost no 
financial incentives for patrons. They stated 
resolutely that they feel betrayed, burdened with 
the impossible task of saving art, and declared 
in no uncertain terms that the government has 
revealed itself to be an untrustworthy partner. 
In their opinion, the proposed policy is 
offensive, irresponsible and counter-productive. 
Rick van der Ploeg, a leading economist, a former 
State Secretary of Culture and a proponent of 
professionalising the economic aspects of art, 
wrote in the NRC (national newspaper) that it is 
"a measure of their brazen brutality that this 
cabinet wants to be remembered for its 
irreversible butchering of a closely-knit, 
high-quality and multi-faceted network of 
cultural opportunities in our country," and 
continued, "The policy being proposed lacks the 
standards of quality which are necessary in a 
democratic, constitutional society." This 
sentence is worth reading twice.

It should be a cause of concern for everyone that 
a minority cabinet with the feeble support of a 
parliamentary majority of only one seat would 
take such draconian and drastic measures without 
paying any heed to the other half, which has only 
one seat less than the ruling coalition. Zijlstra 
shamelessly admits that the proposals have no 
basis in fact, and display a total lack of 
sympathy for the field. This undemocratic 
attitude only compounds the suspicions about this 
government's much more drastic proposals for 
cutbacks in health care, education and pension 
schemes, and it underscores the steps they are 
(not) taking to discipline the financial sector.

Despite all the government's hollow arguments, 
nobody has actually explained why these cultural 
cutbacks are necessary. All those who were asked 
to make recommendations about the plan advised 
against it in the strongest possible terms, and 
all of the unsolicited recommendations were 
negative too. There is unanimous agreement that 
the plans will have disastrous consequences. A 
staggering number of institutes will have to be 
closed and there will be very little funding for 
artists. There will be a wide-scale destruction 
of capital, costs will not be offset by the 
profits, and the Netherlands will be downgraded 
to a cultural backwater. It is clear what the 
implications of this will be for the cultural and 
economic business climate: international 
companies or professionals working in the 
knowledge industry will no longer consider basing 
themselves in the cultural wasteland that the 
Netherlands will become.

The government has disdainfully cast aside all 
the recommendations and is bulldozing ahead with 
its plans. The only possible conclusion that can 
be drawn is that they are intent on the 
wide-scale eradication of art and culture in the 
Netherlands. Halving the project subsidies - in 
an arts budget that was one of the lowest in 
Europe, even before the cutbacks - means that art 
in the Netherlands will cease to exist in its 
current form and diversity. After 600 years of 
growth and progress that started in the 
Renaissance, the Netherlands will once again find 
itself in a Dark Age.

Sonic Acts - Arie Altena, Lucas van der Velden, 
Martijn van Boven, Annette Wolfsberger, Nicky 
Assmann, Femke Herregraven, Gideon Kiers
(and thank you to Mark Poysden for the translation)