[spectre] Re: the media art center of 21C

[rene beekman]

now that everyone seems to be re-surfacing after ars electronica ( <nag 
 >who's going to post a recap of the meeting there? </nag>), this 
discussion seems to have come back to life. great!
a few quick responses from the bar at NoD (prague) before the start of 
the concert of Yuko Nexus6 and Mariko Tajiri 
<http://www02.so-net.ne.jp/~nexus6/yukomariko.html>
so please excuse the beer stains...

From: Annick Bureaud
> We tend to think that there is one single kind of institution that 
> could
> fullfill the needs and goals in media art, so to speak one kind of
> "media center". This is the model of the 90s (AEC, ZKM, V2, ICC, etc.)
> where creation (experimental), lectures (conferences) and exhibition 
> and
> sometimes collection go into the same building.
From: Simon Biggs
> ... it could be argued that there cannot be an ideal media arts centre 
> for
> the 21st Century, only diverse organisations founded on various models 
> of
> more or less appropriate form to their function.

there are numerous reasons why one single monolithical model can not be 
copy-pasted all over the world - local differences in cultures, 
traditions, available resources etc being the first thing that pops to 
mind. the list is much longer.

however, in my previous email i tried asking a more fundamental 
question.
that question boils down to this;
in the past 30 years media-art centres have reinvented themselves and 
have redefined their formats and their reasons for being a number of 
times for various reasons. part of those reasons were funding-driven.
since this discussion started with the announcement of the (possible) 
ending of funding of the icc in tokyo and an expression of fear of the 
effect this would have on funding for others, my simply question was; 
who is chasing who in this case?
are we redefining media-art centres because we fear the end of funding 
that has supported us in recent years? or do we sincerely believe that 
the dominant definition of media arts and media arts centres has 
eol'ed?
personally i believe in the latter and have therefor called this 
discussion "long overdue". it seems to me that discussions as mentioned 
by both eric and andreas at their respective organisations would 
support such a position.
it is in this context that, as far as i am concerned, we should read 
attempts to redefine a "media art centre of the the 21 century".

if we are discussing a new definition of media arts centres, we should 
also be willing to discuss a new model of funding for those centres - 
whether that is government, industry or otherwise.
if we are unable or unwilling to question funding models, then that 
puts severe restrictions on the possible available modes and models for 
this media art centre that we're trying to redefine and i fear that 
whatever the outcome of this discussion is, it will just be another way 
of saying more or less the same thing with the sole purpose of securing 
our funding for yet another few years.
until the next ntt or whoever it may be at that point of time triggers 
this discussion all over again...


having said that, there's a few point in simon biggs' email that i'd 
like to comment on;

From: Simon Biggs
> Different instutitional roles need to be fulfilled by different types 
> of
> institutions.

i don't think anyone is contesting the end of the "go-for-it-alone" era 
of media art centres, at least not anyone who's been paying attention 
in the past 10 years or so.

From: Simon Biggs
> Research and development has commonly been undertaken within academic
> structures and thus these are often appropriate for that.

true, academics has traditionally undertaken research and development 
but - being the devil's advocate - i would strongly contest that most 
research and development is undertaken by academia or even that it is 
the most appropriate place for research and development per se.
certain kinds of research and developments could never place within 
academia while others would find it hard to find fertile ground 
elsewhere. so here we would have to define what kind of research and 
development we're interested in to see if academia would be an 
appropriate place for it or whether we should try to find new or other 
places for this research to happen.

From: Simon Biggs
> Funding and promotion have their tradiitonal systems, depending on how 
> art, money and patronage fit together in specific cultures (both the 
> State and private
> enterprise have their roles here).

could you define these roles in more specific terms and how they would 
be applicable to media art centres?
how could we come up with new systems for funding and promotion that 
would enable media art centres to operate in a different way?


concert is about to start - have to leave it at this for now
more over the next few days

rene