[spectre] * state support for media culture in Croatia in disfavor with recently appointed right government

[darko fritz]

To add a small personal story from today: I call Office for international
affairs of Ministry of culture Croatia to check-out what is going on with my
individual application for a small-scale project from few weeks ago, as I
did not receive any reaction yet. I get an answer that minister of Culture -
Bozo Biskupic approving *all applications personally*! I asked about
[de]centralization of decision-making, competence on different art
disciplines and so on, but i have been told that we can discuss that in
private [on the coffee].

Btw mr Biskupic, this is his second term as a minister, after his despotism
during whole decade of the 1990s. Further on the subject, I will quote
myself [from Media art in Croatia, Institutions, events, data bases]:
...
The culture of networking and the existence of such structures in media art,
that recognize and give support to similar actions have yielded greater
results than the activities of a large centralized institution. The history
of institutions will show us a remarkable presence and topicality of the
tendencies within media art in their redefining forms during the 1960s and
70s, and the stagnation and almost complete isolation from the international
scene during the 1990s. Only since 2000 have media art production and the
social environment necessary for its existence, established new, positive
parameters and received certain recognition by cultural institutions that
provide funds for the realization of programs.
...
During the 1990s, years of war and transition, the Croatian artistic
production stagnated, with the exception of the continual tradition of video
art. Given the right-wing (retrograde and traditionally bound) official
cultural policy, the presentations of foreign media art became rare and the
scarce work of Croatian media art was the product of individual enthusiasm
without the support of institutions; it was mostly done abroad.
...
http://www.culturenet.hr/v1/english/panorama.asp?id=42

d





> From: Zeljko Blace <zblace at mi2.hr>
> Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 00:52:59 +0100 (MET)
> To: spectre at mikrolisten.de, nettime at nettime.org
> Subject: [spectre] * state support for media culture in Croatia in disfavor
> with recently appointed right government
> 
> 
> Dear friends and colleagues,
> 
> on behalf of the Multimedia Institute (Zagreb, CROATIA)
> I would like to inform you of the decision made by the recently appointed
> right government and minister of Culture - Bozo Biskupic, to terminate
> Council for Media Culture and reduce the remaining councils to the role of
> advise giving bodies.
> 
> Croatia never developed institutional frameworks for the development of
> media culture - though historically it represented an important part of the
> cultural field in the late 60ties and 70ties (both  locally and
> internationally), and as of
> late 90ties took up again an active role in the international networks and
> co-productions mostly through a number of non-governmental organizations
> (such as Multimedia Institute), networks (CLUBTURE) and individuals.
> 
> In 2001 the Council for Media Culture was appointed by the Ministry of
> Culture in order to deal with cross-field or new media programs, with numerous
> programs
> from the urban/youth culture and so called "alternative" culture (mostly
> non-institutional and marginalized cultural and art practices from various
> fields that were
> never included into the mainstream cultural institutions). In recent years a
> great number
> of activities in these marginalized fields succeeded to establish themselves
> both
> locally and internationally, while developing an independent
> infrastructure and networks for sustainable growth.
> 
> All of these activities and organizations will now be in stressful
> situation to depend exclusively on local authorities and councils that are
> mostly focused on
> traditional art forms.
> 
> Though the work of Council for Media Culture was at times problematic
> (particularily as concerns its focus and its efficiency) - something that
> Mr Biskupic uses in his argument -, rather than dealing with the specific
> issues of independent culture, he wants to terminate its representation
> and its presence altogether and claim his authority over the distribution
> of funding for culture.
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------
> press quote : http://www.vecernji-list.hr/2004/03/19/Pages/KUL-NAJ.html
> 
> Government is cutting down on the number of cultural councils and the
> number of seats in them
> 
> *Minister [of culture] Biskupic is no longer obliged to listen to
> councils*
> 
> Council for Urban Planning and Architecture and Councul for Media
> Culture are being terminated
> 
> ZAGREB - Cultural councils will no longer decide on where the state
> money for culture goes! Biskupic's reform of [former minister] Vujic's
> concept of governing the culture has passed the first hurdle - the
> Government. Now the draft of Cultural Councils Legislation can go into
> the first reading in the Croatian Parliament. Biskupic wants to
> terminate the Council for Urban Planning and Architecture and Councul
> for Media Culture, and he is introducing a Council for International
> Cultural Cooperation and European Integrations.
> 
> Number of seats in a council is being cut down from seven to five.
> Councils will no longer be appointed by the Government, but rather by
> the Minister himself. And most importantly, so far councils were giving
> their opinion on the program of public needs in the culture for the year
> and on the financial support the Ministry would allocate to programs.
> The Minister was obliged to take into consideration these opinions, and
> in case of disregarding them, he had to give a written explanation of
> the reasons for doing so. Now the Councils should be in charge of
> proposing cultural policies and measures for their implementation, and
> making strategic decisions by helping decide how money should be
> allocated. However, if he decides to disregard councils' proposals and
> expertise, he's no longer obliged to provide an explanation to anyone.
> Councils will be also established for individual counties, the city of
> Zagreb and all townships with population over 40,000.
> 
> Minister decides when the National Council for Culture as an advisory
> entity should convene. In the elaboration of the proposal of Cultural
> Councils Legislation it is stated that Vujic's [Cultural Councils]
> Legislation during two years of its implementation demonstrated
> deficiencies and inconsistencies. It is also stated that the mechanism
> of appointing council members was too demanding, that the Council for
> Media Culture failed to profile its activity, and that the National
> Council for Culture failed to pass a national cultural program, and
> convened no more than once.
> 
> The new legislation also means that mandates of all current council
> members appointed by Antun Vujic to two or four years are being revoked.
> 
> Denis Derk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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