Hi Julian,
Thanks for sharing this bit of history,
I can almost smell the deathly squirms of joy from the sycophants, and
unimaginative slack careerists who'd gladly sell humanity down the river
so they can peddle more shallow crap down our throats.
Wishing you well.
marc
..on Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 03:12:23PM +0100, marc garrett wrote:
Hi Heath,
the arts council scapegoated irational.org instead
of supporting it as is its mandate
Your experience with the Arts Council sounds terrible.
The ACE response at the bottom of the article seems to say their
main concern is about misappropriation of public funds. But what
does this really mean, it could mean anything, what examples do they
have that we can look at?
Surely we are entering a kind of totalitarian initiative reflecting
an arts version of Minority report-- a kind of panopticon of the
arts, where concerns based on losing one's funding creates a
perpetual condition of fear, therefore self-censorship.
Sadly I saw all this before, in Australia in 2002/2003.
Colleagues and I made what many deemed as the first 'documentary video game',
one that drew attention to the Australian government's brutal refugee detention
centers. The project, 'Escape From Woomera', received AUD25000 in Australia
Council (federal) arts funding. This deeply irritated the Immigration Minister
Philip Ruddock (architect of the detention camps) who went on to publicly vent
his
anger and calling his colleagues to act.
The result was a call for review of media arts funding in Australia, with many
rumours that a committee has since been put in place to screen candidate
projects to ensure they're not critical of the government:
"Arts Minister Rod Kemp ominously asked the Council for an “urgent report”.
Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, Dr Sev Ozdowski, argued that “at
best,
this game is insensitive,” while The Age dedicated an entire editorial to
condemning the game (“It's no game if life imitates art,” ran the
headline).
When the New Media Arts Board of the Australia Council was abolished a year
later, dark rumours circulated that it was payback."
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/blog/Daniel-Golding/videogames-politics-Escape-From-Woomera-130901/
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/29/1051381948773.html
http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue55/7103
http://julianoliver.com/escapefromwoomera/
I, for one, was told twice I'll never receive funding from Australia again.
Cheers,
Julian
On Mon, 22 Sep 2014, marc garrett wrote:
irational was blacklisted by arts council
for displaying arts council logo on irational website
as stipulated by arts council funding requirements
after the daily mail newspaper published a hit piece against
arts council using irational.org as a weapon
the arts council scapegoated irational.org instead of supporting it
as is its mandate
i received a call from the chief exec of arts council at the time
swearing and threatening me that if we did not remove the logo
>from our our site immediately he would fuck us up
we waited a few days to discuss internally and then removed it
during which time, other government departments had further
threatened irational.org
this new gagging clause it to protect individual careers in the
arts council not even the arts council itself
Hi all,
Thought this important to share here....
marc
Arts Council adds new gagging clause to NPO contracts
Arts organisations and those connected to them must be sure not
to do anything that could damage ACE’s reputation as a
Government sponsored body, else their grants could be at risk.
Arts Council England (ACE) is inserting a new clause into its
National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) grant contracts for
2015-18 to deter any individual involved with those
organisations in any capacity from doing anything that ACE
considers might damage its reputation. Under the new draft
contract, from 2015 ACE will be able to “impose additional terms
and conditions” on an NPO if it judges that the organisation’s
staff, trustees, volunteers or anyone else “closely involved”
with it may be acting so as to have a “detrimental effect… on
its [ACE’s] reputation as a distributor of public money or as a
Government sponsored body”. Under the 2012-15 NPO contracts, ACE
could withhold or demand repayment of all or part of an
organisation’s grant if it acted in a way that was likely to
harm ACE’s reputation, and this clause remains in the new
contract, but the much broader scope of the new clause has
raised serious concerns across the sector.
Potentially the new clause could not only prevent anyone
connected with an NPO from speaking publicly about ACE decisions
or policies, but it could also give the funding body the power
to withdraw from arts activities that it initially agrees to
fund, but which it subsequently judges to be too politically or
socially sensitive. Simon Hughes MP, Minister of State for
Justice and Civil Liberties, told AP: “I think this clause is
too extreme. I understand that ACE want to discourage
organisations from public criticism but this wording is drafted
also to control individuals and curb their fundamental freedom
of speech. I would urge funded organisations to think carefully
before signing up to this restriction of activity for their
staff, governing bodies and volunteers.”
more…
http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/arts-council-adds-new-gagging-clause-npo-contracts
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Other reviews,articles,interviews
http://www.furtherfield.org/reviews.php
Furtherfield – online arts community, platforms for creating, viewing,
discussing and learning about experimental practices at the
intersections of art, technology and social change.
http://www.furtherfield.org
Furtherfield Gallery – Finsbury Park (London).
http://www.furtherfield.org/gallery
Netbehaviour - Networked Artists List Community.
http://www.netbehaviour.org
http://identi.ca/furtherfield
http://twitter.com/furtherfield
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