In Catalunya the Conseller de Cultura , Ferran Mascarell, has just
announced a new project of law - known as the Llei Òmnibus - which
effectively dismantles arts funding (including reducing the recently
created Arts Council to a merely consultory function) and changes it
into Cultural Industries - so if your project isnt seen as being
profitable you dont get funding ...
http://www.lavanguardia.com/cultura/20110603/54165359572/mascarell-suprime-todo-poder-al-conca-y-lo-deja-solo-como-consultor.html
http://blog.aavc.net/tag/ferran-mascarell/
minipimer now streaming a debate on this from barcelona :
http://stream.hangar.org:8000/minipimer.ogg
x
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Honor Harger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Further to the brief comments by Simon and Jon earlier this week, I think it
> is important to elaborate on the fact that our colleagues in the Netherlands
> are set to experience savage cuts to their funding, which threaten to change
> the face of new media arts in that country, and possibly beyond as well.
>
> The Dutch Secretary of state for culture, Halbe Zijlstra, has announced
> sweeping and historic cutbacks which take effect in January 2013. The cuts
> effect the entire field of arts and culture, but are particularly damaging
> for experimental arts, and media arts. Key factors for our sector include:
>
> - NIMK: The Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk) is facing a 100% cut in
> its governmental funding.
>
> - "e-culture" as a sector of the funding system will be scrapped and be
> combined with other fields to create a new "creative industries" fund.
> e-culture currently funds STEIM, De Waag, V2, Mediamatic and several other
> media arts organisation we know well. It would seem that all of these
> organisations face an uncertain future.
>
> I welcome the comments of colleagues who are closer to the situation than I,
> particularly those who are in the Netherlands, who may have comments or
> insights to offer.
>
> In the meantime, I am copying below this email two postings from Spectre and
> nettime, respectively. Apologies for those of you who have already seen
> these postings, but for those who haven't, they provide some useful context
> into the scale of the changes afoot.
>
> There is a statement from the Netherlands Media Art Institute here:
> http://nimk.nl/eng/media-art-we-care
> They are encouraging comments and feedback.
>
> There is a petition (in Dutch) here:
> http://petities.nl/petitie/bezuinigen-op-cultuur-zonder-alle-feiten-nooit
>
> Personally, I find these decisions deeply troubling. Dutch new media arts
> organisations have had a massive impact on the development of new media arts
> culture internationally, and the demise of all or some of these institutions
> would be felt well beyond the Netherlands. From the outside it appears that
> Halbe Zijlstra is effectively razing arts and culture in one fell swoop.
> Taken in light of similar (but by comparison, less drastic) decisions in
> the UK, and new moves to chop arts funding in Slovenia, there is discussion
> on other lists about how this may herald a more general withdrawal of the
> state from arts and culture across Europe.
>
> I certainly hope this isn't the case.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Honor Harger
> Director
> Lighthouse
> http://www.lighthouse.org.uk
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> From: Andreas Broeckmann <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: New Media Art Organisations in Netherlands lose funding
>
> (fwd)
>
> Last Friday the new policy plans of the new Minister were announced and
> published and they are very dramatic in general for the whole field of art
> and culture in The Netherlands. On the PNEK list it was announced as:
>
> New Media Art Organisations in Netherlands lose funding.
>
> The Dutch New Media Art Organisations Steim, De Waag, Mediamatic, V2 & NIMK
> are about to lose all their funding.
> The Dutch secretary of state for Culture in the Netherlands, Halbe Zijlstra,
> has published his policy plan for coming years. In contrast to the official
> recommendations given to him by the Culture Advisory Board, the cutbacks
> will not be spread out over a number of years, but will take immediate
> effect in 2013. The budget for visual art will shrink from 53,3 to 31
> million.
> Among the more damaging and destructive decisions is the complete cutting of
> funding for the six leading New Media Art Organsiations that produce,
> distribute and facilitate New Media Art;
> -STEIM: Independent Live electronic music centre that is exclusively
> dedicated to the performing arts.
> -De WAAG: Organisation & Worklab for old and new media, developers of open
> source tools, research & technology for the creative independant industry &
> intermediate between art, science and media.
> -Worm: Rotterdam based laboratory, venue and studios for film, music and
> internet featuring concerts, new media events, screenings, production of
> film, music and software art.
> -Mediamatic: software art projects, lectures, workshops & screenings aiming
> on the young generation of artists, designers & tinkerers.
> -V2: interdisciplinary centre for art and media technology in Rotterdam,
> activities include organizing presentations, exhibitions and workshops,
> research and development of artworks operating in an international network
> -NIMK: The Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk) promotes the wide and
> unrestrained development, application and distribution of, and reflection
> on, new technologies within the visual arts. Since the Netherlands Media Art
> Institute came into being in 1978 an extensive collection of video and media
> art has been assembled, to which new works are constantly being added.
>
> These institutes together form the foundation for New Media Arts in the
> Netherlands and forfil an important role in the International Network that
> shares knowledge, exchanges, produces, distributes and promotes various
> forms of New Media Art.
> For most of these organisations the budget cuts will mean their
> disappearance.
>
>
>
> (fwd)
>
> BUT of course there is more to it. In the document one can read that
> Architecture, Design and eCulture are fusing together in a new fund called
> Creative Industry (something non of these sectors wants). ALL organization
> in the 3 domains won't receive any structural funding anymore in this plan
> BUT the new Fund, that is now being structured, will likely offer the change
> to organizations to get structural funding (2 to 4 years). But since this
> fund is not there yet and since they are having strong debates about the
> role and function, and program of this fund nothing is indicated about this
> fund in the published document. So when reading the document you get a
> different picture of what is being debated right now insight the Ministry
> and with the 3 sectors.
> The thing that should be in place for this fund are
> 1. structural funding to some of the important plpl.ayers in the 3 sectors;
> and
> 2. creating space for basic research in the 3 sectors.
> When we get this done we are still facing a hardcore economic agenda (the
> Minister is a hardcore liberal) but that we can shape and address
> 'creatively' since we can't and don't want to fullfill this agenda
> ourselves. Dealing with the goals of the new Fund will be a major challenge
> since NO ONE wants this Fund and it has NO bearing grounds.
> Still, if you read the whole document you can see that probably eCulture,
> design and architecture are coming out best if you compare what is happening
> in other sectors like theatre, performing arts, post academic education,
> visual arts a.s. For example all production houses for theatre won't be
> funded anymore; all post-academic organization like the Rijksacademie, Jan
> van Eyck and Berlage Institute won't receive any funding anymore after 2012.
> This are just some of the cuts that have been done.
>
> NIMk nevertheless, since they are not part of eCulture but the visual arts,
> are serious trouble up from 2013. The Minister indicated that he has NO
> responsiblity for an archive that is not set up by the Ministry but by a
> foundation itself, so it's NIMk's responsibility to deal with their archive
> he thinks. The same for the Theater Instituut Nederland that won't get any
> funding and who also have a large archive on theatre on theatre covering
> decades of history. but it's also an archive setup and organised by the
> institute itself so also here the Minister sees no responsibilities for him.
>
> So you can imagine that I have been lobbying, having meetings last months
> since we saw all of this coming, even though the result is very unexpected
> in its format (bringing architecture, design and eCulture in one new sector
> called Creative Industry - that nobody wants to be related to).
>
> I keep you updated since the coming month will be essential for the future
> of eCulture in the Netherlands since the new fund is now being discussed and
> shaped and should be announced end of July. And of course we think and push
> that this new fund will supoort some organisations structuraly since the
> budget is there (eCulture is far less cut down then any other sector, only
> about 15% while other sectors face cut downs to 25 till 50%).
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:19:53 +0200
> From: Florian Cramer <[log in to unmask]>
> To: Nettime <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
> Some comments/remarks from someone living and working in the
> Netherlands, more or less in the same sector (but only in education).
> It's not correct that the new media arts organizations will lose their
> funding completely. At the moment, the situation is not completely
> clear yet. What is known for sure:
>
> - NiMK (Netherlands Institute for Media Art, still better known as
> Montevideo) will lose its funding.
> - "e-culture" ("e-cultuur") as a sector of the arts funding system
> will be scrapped and be moved into a new sector "creative industries".
>
> "E-culture" is a word of which many Dutch people may not know that it
> only exists in the Netherlands. It's not completely synonymous with
> media arts, but encompasses all activities in between information
> technology, digital media, the arts, design and social aspects of new
> technology. The word originated with the organization "Virtual
> Platform" in Amsterdam. In the past couple of years, it grew more
> broadly into a "sector" of cultural funding, next to other "sectors"
> like visual arts, music, performing arts, film etc. The organizations
> receiving public funding within this sector are rather diverse: STEIM
> (an institute for experimental electronic music), Waag Society
> (nowadays a Creative Industries-oriented institute with particular
> orientation towards projects in health care, culture and school
> education), V2_ (organization for "unstable media", often in the form
> of interactive art/systems), WORM (a DIY-oriented space for
> off-mainstream music, film and media hacking), Mediamatic
> (research/educational organization for new media, culture and
> society).
>
> The funding budget for the "e-culture" sector will be moved into a new
> "Funds for the Creative Industries". This funds/sector will cover
> architecture and design next to new media. According to Dutch design
> critic Max Bruinsma
> [http://www.items.nl/2011/6/13/het-ministerie-van-de-markt/], it may
> be represented by a new "sector institute" created out of a fusion of
> Virtual Platform, Premsela ("Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion")
> and the Dutch Architecture Institute NAI. A sector planning for the
> creative industries in the Netherlands, which will also affect higher
> education, is currently by made under the leadership Victor van der
> Chijs, a former manager of the Schiphol Airport, ING Bank and
> currently of Rem Koolhaas' bureau OMA. It's often hard to understand
> for non-Dutch people that this country has a strong [and, all in all,
> quite successful] tradition of all-encompassing, top-down master plans
> for all areas of the country, from economy to urban development,
> infrastructure, education and culture. We're just witnessing the birth
> of an extremist new masterplan that will undo structures that have
> grown in the arts sometimes over centuries.
>
> Outside the "e-culture" sector, all post-academic art institutes will
> lose their funding completely and thus, with all probability, shut
> down. This includes the Jan van Eyck Academy, where a lot of Nettimers
> have been researchers or lecturers, and the traditional Rijksacademie,
> the oldest art academy of the Netherlands.
>
> What the new sector plan will really mean for the former "e-culture"
> organizations - aside from the fact that they will now be considered
> service institutions for the creative industries - is not fully clear
> yet. It could mean that they lose their base (structural) subsidies
> and will only receive project subsidies. On the other hand, most of
> these organizations receive a mix of national and local funding. Some
> of them, like WORM, have been receiving national funding since only a
> short period. By itself, the new policy concerns national funding
> only, but will likely form the framework for local funding as well,
> according to the Dutch "cultuurplan". The current cultuurplan period
> began in 2009 and will end in 2012, so the changes will be effective
> in 2013. Whoever considers this an odd marriage of socialist-style
> plan economy and market hyper-capitalism, is not completely off. It
> is, and always has been, one of the charms of this country.
>
> Halbe Zijlstra, Dutch minister of culture from the pro-business
> liberalist VVD party, has decided to abandon the e-culture sector
> against the recommendations in a commissioned rapport written an
> external consultancy. In the visual arts, which will be cut 50%, he
> has equally ignored the (previously requested) advice of the Dutch
> Arts Council. His memo is a document of the current wave of populism
> in Dutch politics: It states that, after WWII, the arts have been
> defined by a small group of experts and funded according to their
> taste. Today's society, according to Zijlstra, is more individualist
> and has a right to arts that cater to people's diverse tastes. By
> catering to them (and, by implication, becoming more
> popular/accessible), art institutions can finance themselves, with the
> exception of cultural heritage organizations whose function it is to
> preserve the memory of Dutch history worldwide, including (to cite one
> of his examples) coats of arms of Dutch ships in the colonies.
>
> Interestingly, net cultural concepts such as crowdfunding are being
> taken, turned around and heavily promoted by the Dutch government as
> way for arts organizations to finance themselves in the future.
>
> - Dutch higher education is being transformed according to the same
> policies.
>
> Florian
>
>
> --
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
> honor harger
>
> present location: brighton, .uk
>
> email: [log in to unmask]
> sms: +44 7765834272
>
>
> -> w o r k
> director of lighthouse: http://www.lighthouse.org.uk
>
> -> b l o g
> particle decelerator: http://decelerator.blogspot.com/
>
> - > b l a g
> twitter: http://twitter.com/honorharger
>
> -> l i s t e n
> radio astronomy: http://www.radio-astronomy.net
>
> -> w e b
> bio: http://www.radioqualia.net/honor
>
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