[spectre] // The State of Art //

[Julian Oliver]

..on Mon, Aug 08, 2011 at 03:24:39PM +0200, hello | florian kuhlmann wrote:
> dear julian, dear all,
> 
> Am 08.08.2011 um 14:36 schrieb Julian Oliver:
> 
> > The vulnerability here in Europe is the lack of reserve (or companion)
> > strategies and experience for sustaining development in a climate of shifty
> > political actors and economic austerity. 
> 
> i am not sure if there is really a lack of strategies.
> couldn't it be possible that these strategies are already there and in practice, but not visible?
> or better to say, perhaps these strategies are just hidden by the existing 
> art-infrastructure which is obviously very well developed in euroland?
> 
> my current hometown düsseldorf for example has more than 30 self-organized 
> off-spaces, which are run with no or very small support by the city.
> (for those who understand german: http://www.vierwaende-off.de/ and http://www.vierwaendekunst.de/ )
> hamburg and berlin have very energetic off-scenes too and switzerland got the http://www.offoff.ch/
> of course there are always interferences and links between the 'on'- and 
> the 'off'-scene, so it doesnt really make sense to deepen any trenches.
> and this is not my intention.
> 
> but to be honest i know some quite good boys and girls who do really awesome 
> work without any or at least with very very small support from institutions.
> and not all of them are 'loosers'. ;-)
> most of them are experimenting with this form of autonomous selforganization 
> because they want it. to be honest, especially when you dont care to much 
> on a vitae or a portfolio, these whole institutional world is even 
> as difficult as the artmarket.
>  
> please dont misundertand me, i really do not want to glorify the lack of 
> institutional support. to have it, makes everything much easier.
> but i am not sure if i really would agree with your theses there would 
> be a lack of strategies.

What you say makes sense. 

Certainly in many parts of Europe countless artists get along just fine. In
Spain (where I've lived for some years) and in Italy people get by on very
little (or no) arts funding (or institutional support in other forms) largely
by leveraging local resources within their own community. The software art
community has low resource overheads, for instance. 

Here in Berlin, a poor capital really, we do a lot with little. I'm at home in
this regard as I come from New Zealand, where the D.I.Y culture is also strong.

Danja Vasiliev and I have a project called Newstweek
(http://newstweek.com/overview) and it's been very successful. I doubt we've
invested more than a couple of hundred Euro in the project. Regardless of such
low costs, I would rather have spent my own money on it than chase arts
funding, go through the aquittal process and balance legal issues in relation
to that funding due to its controversial nature.

However it's not really this scale I'm talking about. 

There is a limit to the scale of what one can do without funding and/or
institutional support.  It's a tangible issue and represents a glass ceiling in
development and production.

Labs like Steim, V2_, Mediamatic, Madrid MediaLab Prado, R&D programs, PhD
fine-art programs, festivals are facing trouble as they don't have alternative
strategies at their disposal when enduring infrastructural cuts.

Cheers,

-- 
Julian Oliver
http://julianoliver.com