Simon, this is the best that has been said sofar on this subject on this list, I can only agree.
While I will sign any petition I sometimes feel the new media scene is suffering a persecution complex. Those cuts, as disagreeable as they are, need to be seen in a wider context of an era where arts and humanities programmes are cut (100% funding cut of university funding for humanities and social sciences in UK, lots of cuts in the US), independent research is being cut (NL, AT), generally 'discourse' is not being liked much by current political powers and administrations (cuts of funding to small magazines and publishers) and that in parallel to wide and deep social spending cuts that hit the poor, deprave people in need of public services, steal pensions (in England biggest strikes of public service unions since 100 years), reduce workplace democracy, decrease civil rights ... Indeed, neoliberalism is an awkward term to describe such a period in time, "dictatorship of finance" coupled with a neo-conservative cultural bias might be more approriate. The current time does, despite many differences, resemble Lenin's analysis in "Imperialism". As we know, the financialism of around 1910 led to "the age of catastrophes" as Hobsbawm called it, with two world wars, fascism, etc. I am not a scaremongerer and I don't predict anything, rather, I hope similar catastrophes can be avoided, yet it should be obvious that if they happen they will be much worse this time round for climate and resource reasons. Yet the positive outcome is that people start to fight for a different kind of society. Mainstream media don't report it much but in Athens on Syntagma square remarkable scenes are happening I have been told from recent visitors. Permanent protest camps offering a combination of protest, discussion and carnevalesque atmosphere with cultural programs are on every night. Resistance is forming in England with the UK Uncut campaign and now the unions waking up, not to forget the students of course. Thus, rather than seeing this as a narrow case where one defends one's interests as a cultural producer in a narrow field, a broader solidarisation and political activisation is called for. Since WWI in which NL had the luck not to participate it has been a place where progressive artistic movements and political expressions were often closely aligned. This link between the arts and political movements has been considerably weakened since the 1980s - the de-politicization of arts is a relatively recent occurance and so maybe this trend needs to be reversed. Maybe NL is the place where with all the tradition of N5M and all that, the new media scene can find its political voice in solidarity with others and add unique image making and communication skills in a bittorrent of protest regards Armin On Sat, 2011-06-18 at 11:17 +1200, simon wrote: > respectrespectrespectre... > > reading with interest the causes and claims, from Nederlands, to Brasil, > Slovenia, England, cutting funding for the arts and culture, I would > like humbly to submit another explanation, other, that is, than economic > expediency, or ignorance and gross (and net) stupidity on the part of > policy-makers. The state is scared. > > I would suggest that it is the institutional throat that is being cut, > having seen a similar culling of institutions in NZ: cutting funding > goes together with removing the autonomy of arts and cultural > institutions, same as universities - any erstwhile politically > autonomous institution, and therefore locus of critique. But when I say > critique, I mean at the level of a power, which is that of institutions, > of the power. > > Where is the undermining of the power actually occurring that > governments might be frightened? At a wholly other level. Yet the muting > of institutional critique can be seen as a reaction to certain events, > the recent financial crisis among them, the ongoing crisis around energy > consumption/production - and its economics - included. I suggest this > muting to be in reaction and to entail two actions on the part of states > and nations: cutting funding to and removing autonomy from educational, > arts and cultural institutions. > > Best, > > Simon Taylor > > www.squarewhiteworld.com > www.brazilcoffee.co.nz > > ______________________________________________ > SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe > Info, archive and help: > http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre > -- thenextlayer software, art, politics http://www.thenextlayer.org ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
