hi all,
a collection of small / personal responses to the discussion so far....

On 25 Jan 2007, at 19:35, Sam Ayres wrote:

> I would say that it would be more profitable to WRITE about new media 
> art
> than curate it, (unless you write a blog). I would image that is why 
> Sarah
> and Beryl are writing a hardcopy book, as opposed to an ebook.

profitable in what sense? In academic circles it is always 'profitable' 
to write rather than curate simply because recognised peer review 
publications earn more research points on a CV than do exhibitions 
(though that is slowly changing, and I'm in a fortunate position to 
have my curatorial work recognised, and valued, and invested in, in a 
research framework). and points mean prizes as we know... more research 
grants to do more shows and publish more papers. I'm not complaining 
because i know it is a good life, with the freedom to think, and even 
moreso when you can be slightly sideways about it - i.e. tell your 
grant funder that you are doing research and need to pay travel 
expenses to meet with people, and then give those travel expenses as 
fees to the people you meet to show their work instead. I've known a 
few curators/artists who have circumvented academic limitations geared 
towards publication in this way.

On 25 Jan 2007, at 20:10, Andy Polaine wrote:

>  Pretty soon the management consultants will be (and some are already) 
> making a fortune out of what we've all talked about for many years.

well yes, and the regional development agency arts consultants too, who 
are increasingly becoming curatorial in their roles, with their venue 
being the entire city and their funding being the tourism budget. How 
does an independent curator compete? they don't, they just have to find 
more ways of collaborating with these agencies and their agendas.

On 26 Jan 2007, at 16:07, Leigh French wrote:

> • the manner in which Creative Industries policy, while seeming to 
> offer a certain freedom of creative autonomy and self-realisation for 
> workers, is in fact explicitly bound up in finding new articulations 
> of existing power relations – the way in which notions of passion for, 
> and pleasure in, work serve as disciplinary devices, enabling very 
> high levels of (self-) exploitation, noting the extremely low levels 
> of union organisation in most cultural industries. [...] the way in 
> which an abstract rhetoric of creativity is becoming increasingly 
> important to the fuelling of labour markets marked by irregular, 
> insecure and unprotected work;

i think i wanted to suggest in my first post that we need to address 
the self-exploitation and financial volunteerism and the irregular and 
insecure and unprotected work we all do, and see if it is indeed more 
precarious in new media than in other fields. At the CRUMB crisis to 
bliss centre we (half) joked that we need a wall chart (a bit like one 
of those fundraising goal thermometer charts if you know what i mean) 
where people could write how long they had worked on a project without 
a contract (for instance). over-volunteerism and self-exploitation was 
both what made Node London and what nearly killed it, as far as i can 
see from the outside here. and yet, as Patrick said, it is now a part 
of an important "parallel cultural grid where people are dedicated to 
cultural, rather than economic capital."

On 27 Jan 2007, at 00:35, patrick lichty wrote:

> Not that I'm not saying that curators aren't deserving, but power is
> given only to those who allow themselves to be dominated.  I really 
> hope
> that eventually the tide will change, and that qualitative
> infrastructure will be valued again, but until then, cultural producers
> are going to be increasingly forced into academia, galleries, or the
> entertainment industry.

I recall a curator from glasgow saying that he had always tried to work 
'against the grain' of an institution and when he was given power 
within it (made director) the best curatorial strategy he could come up 
with was to hand the power straight out to the artist to do something 
useful with it. i didn't get the sense there was any domination going 
on in that scenario. but perhaps we are valued ourselves by what value 
we put on the elements of what we do?

On 29 Jan 2007, at 08:49, Andy Polaine wrote:

> It's perhaps the lack of willingness to put out a clear price on what 
> we/you do that makes it so easy for it so be so quickly de-valued by 
> others.

indeed.

On 27 Jan 2007, at 00:35, patrick lichty wrote:

> But, answering the question - sure, curators deserve compensation.  As
> much as any administrator, as they determine content, and therefore the
> product of the institution in many cases.
> Is it the case that there is a labor valuation problem?  That, say, if,
> well, Barbara London _and_ Robert Storr _and_ Chrissie Iles decided to
> revolt, would the boards of directors just replace them? Maybe, but all
> the art magazines would have a field day.

I'm not sure what would happen if there was a revolt, but i can tell 
you what is happening otherwise: potentially good people don't apply 
for the potentially good jobs because they are discouraged by how 
terrible the salary is. and that inevitably has an effect on the 
projects that result. So I see underqualified curators taking on more 
than they can manage and getting burnt out by the organisational 
burdens rather than developing their careers, leading to a knowledge 
gap in the organisation (as witnessed in many 'new' uk arts 
organisations/buildings, where the 'dream team' of talented curators 
and technicians is appointed and then expected to just pick up 
management skills overnight, or work overnight, or both). Or 
overqualified curators doing the job but feeling resentful that their 
positions are limited by funding or organisational structure. This of 
course may be a gross generalisation, and good people definitely take 
poorly paid jobs, which is how we got ourselves into this situation. 
return to square one on this discussion.

On 29 Jan 2007, at 09:16, Sally Jane Norman wrote:

>  I'll have even stronger feelings about this no doubt after a couple 
> of imminent recruitments in my university which will be a sounding 
> board for our "multiple values" system.

perhaps sally jane can tell me whether my assumption/generalisation 
above is the case or not...
and then there is the whole other side issue (see debate on IDC) about 
practice-led degrees --- and what happens when artists decide to do one 
MA after another (eventually finding themselves on a Curatorial MA 
programme, or in a PhD programme) because it's a financial viable way 
of life to be a student, more than it is to try and compete in the 
'professional' art world.

sarah