New Media Art Subsidies & Alternative Support Models :: Cool Media Hot Talk Show :: David Garcia, Lexter Braak :: October 17, 8:30 pm CET :: De Balie - Centre for Culture and Politics, Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam :: Tickets: 5 euro :: Reservations: call 31.20. 55 35 100 or visit the website :: or Tune in LIVE online. Join the discussion, post your questions, vote, and select the questions for the show.

Public Funding for the Creative Un-commons by David Garcia: For the last year I have been part of a network of researchers looking at the role of art and design as both a catalyst for collaboration across sectors and disciplines. The project is all about coming to terms with the reality not only of our interconnectedness but also of our interdependence. It explores examples of groups collaborating with others outside of their usual tribal affinities. Our metaphor of uncommon ground indicates that we can only do this by accepting and living with our differences even our antagonisms, hence uncommon not common ground. The project is not about consensus building it is about the accepting even dramatizing difference.

I see the corporate, industrial and governmental sector as unable to do take this role alone without a vibrant cultural sector willing to tell risky stories that take us outside of our comfort zones. Such work can never be financed from the market place alone.

The last sentence should make it clear that in this talk I am not taking a neutral stance. I see an urgent need for an increase in public subsidy for the arts. I will give case study examples of where the public and private sectors along with individual artists and developers have worked together successfully. But I also want to make it clear that these collaborations will entail a fight to maintain a well resourced publicly financed cultural sector. This should be based on revising many of the current notions of accountability and re-introduce the notion of responsibility. More about this distinction in the talk.

Every experience I have during the development in the (Un) common Ground research project points to the value of maintaining (in fact increasing) public funding for both research and the arts. However, a shift in mentality is required in which the public sector should be seen as more than another income stream, or an alternative venture capitalist looking for a return on investment, or even a means of consolidating national norms and values. The public sector should hold to a wider conception of the public good that embraces the implications of an interconnected world.

A balanced cultural diet in our pluralistic societies (containing both minorities and minority tastes) should maintain a full cultural spectrum ranging from popular culture to uncompromising and difficult cultural experiments which are able to take risks that accountability to share holders alone would never permit, Such a balance is part and parcel of a healthy society. So my argument will call for a widespread movement to protect public subsidies for serious cultural discourse, which are currently being whittled away across all the liberal democracies. But I will also argue that it is important to achieve this in ways that go beyond the “container category” of the nation state. Our issues are simply too big for the current epidemic of nationalist obsessions; art should lead the way in re-metropolonisation of our societies.

At a point in which all other areas are globalising is it possible to think of public funding for the arts in ways that transcend conceptions of national identity and competitiveness?

In my talk I will use examples case studies and evidence from both inside and outside of the (Un) common Ground research program, to support these arguments. I want to make it clear however that I am just one editor these are my views and conclusions. The question is are they mine alone?

David Garcia is a founding member of Amsterdam’s Time Based Arts and creator of a number of international conferences which explore ways in which live events and public debate can be enhanced by being combined with electronic communications media such as television, radio and computer networks. Initiator of The Next 5 Minutes (94-2003) a series of international conferences and exhibitions on electronic communications and political culture. Initiator, organiser, co-edited of many other projects.

Lex ter Braak is the director of the The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (known in the Netherlands as Fonds BKVB) is the national body responsible for making grants to individual visual artists, designers and architects. Its objective is to nurture excellence in visual arts, design and architecture in the Netherlands. Recently he was the co-editor of the book “Second Opinion” about Subsidies for Visual Arts in The Netherlands, which created a vibrant discussion about public support for artists. This discussion in newspapers and other media, also prompted the topic on this website.