Patrick - respect is due to you for your work and the impact of the many
tactical media artists (Yes Men, Etoy, Ubermorgen etc.) who address
power where it swaggers.
However "recognition by the money elite" currently also impacts (through
money and mass-media ties) wider access to all kinds of arts (their
creation and appreciation) by more diverse people.
It's not only about artists' working conditions, but about what kind of
society we want, and about how to provide ways for all of us to engage,
stimulate and "better ourselves" (individually and collectively).
Shopping is not enough.
We can also end up arguing the toss about whether, when we are eeking
out the last few pennies from our stricken public coffers, whether we
choose to commission an artist or pay for life saving health care. The
"a luxury or a life" argument. But this ignores the fact that austerity
ideologies justify subsidy and support to many other more well heeled
sectors of society. Which I think brings us back again to Michael's
post; ) "The marginalisation of working class voices in the arts is a
consequence of the fact that our rulers believe they have us licked and
under control in general."
It's good to see a-n building up an argument from different perspectives
as part of their Paying Artists campaign.
http://www.a-n.co.uk/tag/paying-artists
On 15/09/2014 19:35, Patrick Lichty wrote:
Honestly, I think it just depends if you want to be recognized by
money elite. We have been doing work that has gotten press for
decades on a small budget, but I agree it gets tiring to do work
continually that is never funded for decades. It leaves you a little
tired and with a lot less money than you might have had for retirement
(I mean at 90, you gits!)
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *michael
szpakowski
*Sent:* Sunday, September 14, 2014 11:04 AM
*To:* NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
*Subject:* Re: [NetBehaviour] The privileged few are tightening their
grip on the arts
It's interesting that the original article uses theatre as a starting
point. Having started out in the late seventies working in the theatre
and keeping a toe in that camp until very recently I can vouch for the
change.
I remember on my second job ever in 1977 I asked one of the guys in
the small touring company I was working for what he'd been before he
became an actor. "A burglar", he replied. It was true - he came from
a poor working class area of a big industrial town and rebelled in
perhaps not the most social of ways. He'd wanted out though & learned
to play the bass, joined a band and then got into acting through the
many connections and opportunities there were then ( and which were
not tied to expensive training). He later became quite a celebrated TV
performer playing a part that was related to his earlier life and
authentically so.
Many of the people I worked with at that time came from similar
working class backgrounds to my own - I myself am the child of a
Polish refugee turned furnaceman in the Sheffield steel.
Now , unless it is someone who worked their way in through the soaps,
working class accents are produced to order by the "skills" of the
largely privileged cadre who can afford to make it through drama
school. In the 90s I taught theatre to FE students one of whom (the
daughter of a classroom teacher from Essex) went to RADA, through
merit not connections. I went to see her rather star studded West End
debut ( a triumph which gave her a good deal of class satisfaction)
and she told me she'd spent three years at RADA playing "second
secretary" or similar whilst the sons and daughters of those already
in the "biz" or simply the well heeled and confident scooped the leads.
What is the timeline? - I can tell you exactly what it is - when the
working class were fighting and winning in the UK, mid-sixties to
74ish, miraculously there were ways for us to "better ourselves" in
other ways than struggle.
It took awhile for these gains to be chipped away but it has been
downhill in proportion to the series of (often entirely unnecessary)
defeats that have been the outcome of workers' struggles since the
Winter of Discontent in the late seventies.
The marginalisation of working class voices /in the arts/ is a
consequence of the fact that our rulers believe they have us licked
and under control /in general/. My greatest hope (and belief) is that
sometime before I shuffle off we will show them how wrong they were.
michael
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:*ruth catlow <[email protected]>
*To:* [email protected]
*Sent:* Sunday, September 14, 2014 1:53 PM
*Subject:* Re: [NetBehaviour] The privileged few are tightening their
grip on the arts
Do we care if our arts are increasingly practiced, disseminated and
discussed in the media by a privileged few?
Were the post-WWII gains in diversity an illusion? or did time really
stop, and start going backwards?
If so when did this reversal start?
Early 80s, mid 90s, early noughties?
On 14/09/2014 11:12, marc garrett wrote:
The privileged few are tightening their grip on the arts | The
Guardian - http://go.shr.lc/1wsoLXu <http://t.co/LqXQEQDy72>
--
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