I'd agree with Alan that group governance or collaborative management
can become unexpectedly manipulated (especially when money or status
is at stake). Accountability and communication may be more practical
goals. And "professionalism" is an unfairly derided term.
A lot of non-profit organisations are now juggling with the option of
becoming charitable bodies so they can take advantage of taxes and
donations. But it seems to impose somewhat restrictive regulations on
what you can do (e.g. nothing remotely political) and is heavily
bureaucratic in its management. So take lots of advice on that route.
One alternative is to become a Community Interest Company which is
easy but the only real advantage is to advertise the fact that your
org operates for the public good. So it may prove an additional
attraction for more institutional "donors" and partners and so forth.
(Of course this all begs the question of who to target as potential
"donors").
My recollection was that the Lux was rescued after its Hoxton square
decline for similar reasons that the banks were recently bailed out.
Because of its large library and distribution of publicly funded
artists moving image it could not be allowed to fail completely. So
an analogous "ransom" scenario might be that Furtherfield archives so
much artists work and documents and texts and databases that it
simply has to be funded!
Happy New Year,
Richard
On 1 Jan 2011, at 17:30, Alan Sondheim wrote:
Do let us know about the write-in campaign!
I want to add that I'd be careful of group runnings of a non-
profit; I've seen politics develop constantly that way, and almost
always not for the better. One of the things that, in the US,
seemed the most problematic, was the idea of matching funds -
suddenly the *donor* appears who wants some decision-making powers.
One of the great things about Furtherfield is its openness and the
kindness of people here - it's wonderful - and in a way that, and
the creative work that emerges - are the most important things!
Happy New Years!
- Alan, glad we have the prime number (2011) back
==
email archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/
webpage http://www.alansondheim.org
music archive: http://www.espdisk.com/alansondheim/
current text http://www.alansondheim.org/qv.txt
==
On 1 Jan 2011, at 12:38, Ruth Catlow wrote:
And a Happy New Year to you : )))
Thanks Helen, Rob, Richard, Sal, Mez and Renee for your
encouragement and suggestions.
We think that we have a bodacious thing going here at Furtherfield!
This is all down to the energy and persistence of the people who
take part in the ongoing exchange of the content and contexts of
our lives as artists, explorers, thinkers and doers- not forgetting
the all the things that make up the ever-changing infrastructures
in which this takes place.
It's pretty rare to have a shared space where people bother to
grapple with the complexities of hyper-connected network culture in
the way - at once scrappy, rigorous and unexpected - that happens
on this list.
In addition to giving me a warm fuzzy feeling, your comments have
crystallised a practical thought we hadn't quite got to yet...
online donation facility.
A group of Furtherfielders have been holed-up in the sweat lodge of
web development and data migration at Furtherfield for the last 9
months (at least). We hope to have the new Furtherfield site live
by the end of next week. The purpose of this work has been to make
the every day life and work of this community more visible and open
to newbees and also to create a more sustainable and flexible back
end (now running in Drupal).
So Helen, thanks for the prompt! We are going to attempt to set up
a donations facility in the new site. At this time all donations
will go towards technical work on the site (hopefully with
everyone's feedback and suggestions). Great stuff!
Over the last few years, funding from the Arts Council has made it
possible for us to run an exhibition programme and to develop tech
infrastructure. In the face of the coming landslide in public
funding for the arts in the UK we are doing what we can at the
moment to argue for the ongoing public value of this work- both
Furtherfield's contribution and the wider contribution and impact
of this area of work (do we still call it new media art, media
art?) to wider society. I think what is interesting is that orgs/
communities like ours produce extraordinary value but not
necessarily in terms that relate to GDP.
Your answers on a postcard please :)
I may ask this again soon- be ready with your postcards : )))
Once we are awake to the new year it would be good to have a proper
conversation about different organisational and constitutional
structures for a small group such as ourselves too.
Furtherfield is currently registered as a not-for-profit LTD company
Richard what is your experience of a company LTD by shares?
The only reference I have is my father's description (he's a
cellist) of the running of the London Symphony Orchestra where the
players own the orchestra - and they appointed their own executive.
It seems to work really well.
However I have a feeling that these kind of structures work best to
run more traditional, established kind of operations. It might
become more difficult when working with emerging cultural forms
where lots of people contributed different things and different
times and with different intensities both to artistic and
organisational stuff.There is also the connotation with
"shareholders" of a membership motivated by financial gain.
A cooperative sounds more like it...but we don't know enough about
it and it isn't so easy to take advice about these things as the
people who are purported to know also tend towards establishing
more fixed and permanent things.
Finally, thanks Rob for this - Art after Neoliberalism
http://robmyers.org/weblog/2008/10/art-after-neoliberalism.html
You didn't mention Hirst's "For the Love of God" (perhaps you
didn't want to give him more air) but I think its an excellent
example of neo-liberalism expressing itself and finding
representation through an artwork. I was reminded of something I
heard on the radio a while back that said that Koons's and Hirst's
market success could be put down to hedge-fund managers needing
somewhere to park their millions and having an affinity with these
artists' 'entrepreneurial' spirit ie
I think I have been struggling for years to really resolve the
philosophical arguments for and against artists becoming
"entrepreneurial". I do know that if everything becomes about
money; ways to get more money, faster, more efficiently, we will
not survive and perhaps we won't even live before we die.
thanks everyone.
warm fuzzies all round
x
Ruth
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