[spectre] New Media Art Organisations in Netherlands lose funding

[Andreas Broeckmann]

dear alessandro, friends,

>And then what about joining forces with the UK affected 
>institutions, trying to make a shared court challenge, or two 
>simultaneously?
>
>I'm not an expert too, but it seems more and more urgent to plan 
>relevant actions.

i would not do this; while we can observe how these inter-national 
phenomena are interrelated, the decision-making is happening on a 
national level and, in my opinion, the politicians in Den Haag or 
London will be more impressed by targeted international support for 
their specific national institutions, than by a (blanket) 
international campaign for 'media art in general'.

my own guess is that the dutch 'threat' is a test to see how the 
different arts sectors will respond. if this is true, it does not 
change much in terms of the pressure on the institutions, but i 
believe that it can help to fine-tune the reaction and campaign.

in this case (and unlike the english situation), the dutch 
institutions are working in a strong and well-established network for 
over 10 years and i believe that even more important than 
international reminders of the special value of this e-cultural 
landscape to the minister, will be a dutch argumentation around the 
societal relevance of this field (far beyond "[supposedly] redundant 
publically funded art = leftist hobbies").

also, we need to keep in mind that while this looks like an attack on 
media art structures, it is really an onslaught against a decade-old 
national cultural infrastructure that affects many other cultural 
institutions even more than the e-culture field. (this in part also 
because, in this latter sector, there is a greater routine of 
additional fund-raising and of working with diverse funding sources.)

regards,
-a