The Missing 200 MillionThe following text relates to severe cuts in infrastructural funding of several canonical, even vital, Dutch Media Arts organisations. It derives from a post I wrote on the Spectre Mailing ListFirstly, I think it's important to question the root expectation of State support altogether, however absurd that question may seem. Where I come from, New Zealand, students finish humanities degrees with $30,000+ loans and media-arts organisations scrape by on vastly less arts funding, 1/20th at best, of what the Dutch enjoy; a reason I left. Since, European arts funding has been very good to me and I wish it to remain. I've greatly enjoyed (and benefited from) working with several of the Dutch organisations now under the axe. What is happening in the Netherlands is grim indeed.. That said, I do believe it's foolish to expect a persisting agenda of cultural support from the State. The modern European state is increasingly a geographically-abstracted Capital enterprise whose executives we vote into power from time to time. With post-crisis economic rationalism the call of the day, the State-as-enterprise wants competitive capital growth, first and foremost. With exploding populations stressing infrastructure in an aggressive marketplace, supporting this thing called Media Arts may not appear to be in State interest, may simply not make any sort of capital sense. Moreso, the executives that the democratic majority put in power bring with them their own strategies and interests, each of which may or may not later reflect the terms under which they were voted in. It's always going to be a gamble.. As such, depending on the state to support Media Arts organisations, let alone culture infrastructure altogether, is not wise. We will need to be more dexterous than this. Cultural projects that are believed to not: stimulate new markets, generate cultural tourism, revitalise a struggling post-industrial town (Newcastle, Linz, Karlsruhe), contribute to industrial R&D, project an image that fits State branding will increasingly be dropped. It's here where a lab that hosts workshops on Edible Computing, The Programmable Crochet Symposium, Fungal Antennae Propagation or Kite-Based Mesh-Networking master classes may not appear a sensible investment when appearing in Times New Roman under the red pen. Noise music or bio-art may also appear extraneous or simply not popular enough to justify support. It doesn't matter how intrinsically important these disciplines and their representative institutions are within the broader human project: it appears some European countries are following the New World and rationalising away from support of the arts, perhaps ultimately preferring privatisation of the so-called Arts Sector altogether. All said, if we are to continue to gamble with state support, we need to further educate voters as to the real value of what we are doing. The gain in supporting it must be tangibly, publicly felt. This means more successful public programs, increased accessibility to research, extensive knowledge sharing etc.. This is not to say those troubled Dutch organisations haven't been particularly active in this regard already.. Good things sometimes end, or are ended. Cheers, Julian Oliver |