Hi Jon, and all
Messier still, I'm interested in 'commissioning' in the context of
unfolding experiences in Scotland and the proposals for Creative
Scotland, a non-artform specific supersession of the Scottish Arts
Council and Scottish Screen said to encompass the 'creative
industries'.
As to a clear division of roles, the commissioning processes you
describe appear not to address the tectonic shift of public subsidy
with regard to encouraged IPR retention & exploitation. (Public subsidy
is already of paramount importance here, but will increasingly be so
given the recession.)
With the proposals, artists/filmmakers will have to 'pitch' to Creative
Scotland in what is increasingly looking like a commissioning process,
with the need to appeal for advocacy within the NDPB. This is a
significant shift from previous 'arms length' public sector models of
support (however partial and problematic they continue to be).
It is still very hazy, even at this late date, but the proposals appear
to include Creative Scotland look to also generate income streams (for
itself, as well as encouraging other cultural institutions to do so)
through the exploitation and retention of Intellectual Property Rights
of the material it will effectively 'commission'. (The proximity of
Edinburgh's financial/legal sector is palpable.)
NESTA was the outcome of such an exploration of copyright- and
profit-orientated approaches to ‘investment’ and would seem to be the
guiding light of Creative Scotland. NESTA advocates its retention of
patent rights for intellectual property resulting from publicly funded
work and the wider state exploitation of IPR. One other example we have
is the Catalan Department of Creative Industries' "refundable
contribution [credit / loans] system as a way to have financial
participation in market driven cultural projects and, therefore, be
subject to enterprise risk." Creative Scotland will also introduce
loans.
As Nicholas Garnham has written:
“ [T]he cultural industries are seen as complex value chains where
profit is extracted at key nodes in the chain through control of
production investment and distribution and the key “creative” labour is
exploited not, as in the classic Marxist analysis of surplus value,
through the
wage bargain, but through contracts determining the distribution of
profits to various rights holders negotiated between parties with
highly unequal power (Caves 2000). ... [T]he political economy approach
placed its major emphasis on the technologies of distribution, on the
ways in which key economic and regulatory debates were to be seen as
struggles over access to distribution under shifting technological
conditions without any necessary effect on either the nature of the
product being distributed or the relation with the audience. In
particular, this analysis stressed the ways in which the profits of the
whole process were returned to controllers of technological
distribution systems rather than to the original producers of the
cultural products or services.”
(‘From Cultural to Creative Industries: An analysis of the implications
of the “creative industries” approach to arts and media policy making
in the United Kingdom’, Nicholas Garnham, International Journal of
Cultural Policy Vol 11, No. 1 2005)
All best,
Leigh
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On 2 Mar 2010, at 11:16, Jon Ippolito wrote:
> Thanks, Beryl, for inviting Rick Rinehart and me as guests for this
> month! Later this week I'll be reporting from the DOCAM conference in
> Montreal, where we'll unveil the third-generation Variable Media
> Questionnaire developed by John Bell, and where I expect to learn of
> other exciting developments culminating from the research that Alain
> Depocas and the Langlois Foundation have nurtured over the past five
> years. And I'm looking forward to hearing reports from other
> correspondents on Friday's BALTIC conference.
>
> Rick and I have the distinction, or perhaps more accurately infamy, of
> having played both roles of artist and curator in various
> commissions. As a double agent, I see the process as a bit messier
> than might be visible from the outside. To see if I'm not alone, I'd
> like to lob some questions at all of you artists, curators, and others
> who have been, or will soon be, involved in the commission of a
> variable media work:
>
> 1. The process of commissioning offers more give-and-take between
> artist and curator than just buying work out of a gallery, which is
> tantamount to shopping at a store for art. But the traditional
> artistic commission still divides responsibilities according to a
> consumerist model, this time based on freelance labor: the curator
> defines the job and hires the artist; the artist makes the work; and,
> depending on the terms of the agreement, either the artist or the
> curator inherits the work, along with the sole responsibility to
> maintain it. I'm interested to know whether the experiences of people
> on this list have echoed or disrupted this clear division of roles.
> How involved are curators in the production of the work? How involved
> are artists in its documentation and preservation? And how subversive
> can an artwork be if it is "work for hire"?
>
> 2. The word "commission" comes from the etymological root "to
> entrust," which in medieval Latin became "put into custody." So, from
> those who've been involved in commissions on this list, I want to know
> who trusted whom with what, and whether that trust was honored or
> betrayed. Who got custody of the "child" of this unnatural union
> between artist and curator? Of the hardware? Of the source code? If
> the work was created collaboratively, how were the rights and credit
> apportioned? What did you keep, and what did you let go? Who made out
> better in the end?
>
> 3. How, if at all, did the variability inherent in technological and
> process-based artwork complicate or enrich your commission? I'm
> especially interested in any problems you encountered--with an
> institution, an artist, or a technology--and whether the solution you
> hit upon was satisfactory.
>
> Cheers,
>
> jon
> ______________________________
> Still Water--what networks need to thrive.
> http://still-water.net/
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