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
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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%).
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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
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