[ELECTRON] Fwd: Open Letter on the Development of Digital Culture in the UK

Thu Apr 21 13:47:50 UTC 2011

Thanks Simon.
it's going through my network too.

M

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:22 PM, Simon Yuill <simon at lipparosa.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Although this relates to arts funding in England, I would strongly
> recommend people who wish to see a future for digital arts and community
> practice in the UK to read and support this letter - see below.
>
> Digital arts organisations have been especially hit by the cuts in funding
> with many groups who are internationally recognised as important pioneers
> having 100% cuts. This includes Access Space in Sheffield, the longest
> running hacklab space in the UK who have done more than anyone here to
> encourage the use of Free and Open Source Software and recycled
> technologies amongst the arts and community media. They helped Electron
> Club out when we started along with a few other projects in Scotland (such
> as Radius who did the Glasgow Green Map project).
>
> A copy of the letter is below, if you would like to add your name please
> do so here: http://www.coda2coda.net
>
>
> best wishes
> Si
>
>
>
> *** START ***
>
> Letter to Arts Council England
>
> Open Letter on the Development of Digital Culture in the UK
>
> This letter, jointly drafted by a constituency of organisations, artists
> and practitioners who have been engaged in digital arts development in
> England, concerns digital culture and its importance to the wider UK arts
> ecology and economy. We the undersigned believe that clear national
> policies need to be developed to ensure that the UK can remain at the
> forefront of digital culture, globally, and that these must take account
> of the key role creative practices play in driving digital innovation.
>
> Whilst we appreciate that digital technologies have created exciting
> opportunities to engage with audiences, and to disseminate and distribute
> arts programmes in new ways, it is critical that funders and policy-makers
> understand that this is not the extent of digital culture. If we are to
> make the most of the digital opportunity, it needs to be recognised at a
> national policy level that digital culture is about more than extending
> the reach of existing arts practices. It is about entirely new forms of
> production, expression, practice and critical reflection that digital
> technologies have made possible.
>
> We are concerned about the place of art, creative practice, criticality
> and risk-taking in current and future funding policies. We are writing to
> you with two clear and immediate motivations:
>
> 1. We wish to engage policy-makers, and funders, such as Arts Council
> England, in a positive debate around future investment in digital culture.
> We understand from recent initiatives, such as the collaboration between
> Arts Council England and the BBC to build digital capacity in the arts,
> that a wide spectrum of stakeholders, investors and funders see
> development of this area as a priority. Arts Council England’s planned
> launch of the Digital Innovation Fund demonstrates further commitment. In
> this context of investment, which extends to the economy as a whole via
> bodies such as the Technology Strategy Board, we wish to present some
> thinking from the front-line of creative arts practice, ensuring that this
> remains at the centre of considerations; in a symbiotic not subordinate
> position to operations and distribution.
>
> 2. We seek to draw attention to the gap in digital provision that the
> transition from Arts Council England’s Regularly Funded Organisations
> (RFO) programme to the National Portfolio of Organisations (NPO) has
> brought about. The undersigned represent a broad range of organisations,
> and individuals, who have met with varying degrees of success in the new
> structure. We are however united in our shock at the loss of funding to so
> many organisations with long track records of fostering digitally engaged
> artistic practices, provision and support. These organisations,
> particularly those completely cut, including Access Space, ArtSway,
> DanceDigital, Folly, Four Corners Film, Isis Arts, Lovebytes, Lumen, Media
> Art Bath, Moti Roti, Mute, Onedotzero, Performing Arts Labs, Picture This,
> Proboscis, PVA MediaLab, The Culture Company and Vivid (as well as many
> others who received drastically reduced funding or were not included in
> the new portfolio) speak to a critical, self-reflexive approach to digital
> media technologies, which has been instrumental to their vitality and
> overall development. Whilst there will continue to be many organisations
> across art-forms experimenting successfully within the digital landscape,
> we wish to sound a note of deep concern around this disinvestment, which
> impacts us all.
>
> As arts organisations and practitioners, we believe that art helps us make
> sense of the world we live in. We know, too, that digital technology is
> transforming our lives. Social networking, data visualisation, digital
> fabrication, geolocation and crowdsourcing, among many other phenomena,
> present us with new environments, languages, and capabilities, which we
> must engage actively and critically. If we are to become a digitally
> literate society, the public need a sound grasp of the contradictory
> nature of these forces, which create both opportunities and threats.
>
> Digital culture is an expansive set of artistic practices and forms of
> enquiry that helps us to understand key social drivers. Its products – be
> they art works, exhibitions, performances, games, applications,
> publications, music or films – contribute to digital literacy across the
> board. We understand digital culture to be networked, hybrid, innovative,
> improvised, tactical, distributed, de-centralised, local, creative and
> skilled; and to cut across art-forms. It is not a small artistic niche of
> activity – rather a rapidly expanding, international, popular set of
> creative practices, which are swiftly becoming the cultural mainstream.
> The UK is at the forefront of digital culture internationally and we have
> much to be proud of. The global success of practitioners, such as Blast
> Theory, semiconductor, and Furtherfield, and the programmes of work
> commissioned and supported by AV Festival, FACT, and Animate, to name but
> a small handful, is testament to the international influence of UK
> practitioners.
>
> Over a period of many years, these success stories were invested in, and
> fostered, by a group of small, innovative digital culture agencies who,
> together, created a distinct ecology – marked in very positive ways by the
> variety of its approaches, the diversity of its organisational models. And
> yet a large number of these were disinvested into in the recent funding
> round. As such, we are concerned about the ongoing vibrancy of the
> national digital culture ecology, and seek clarification from
> policy-makers and funders about how this vital form of contemporary
> creative practice is going to be invested in, going forward.
>
> In light of current planning for future investment projects, such as the
> Digital Innovation Fund, and partnerships, such as those with BBC and
> NESTA, we have two key questions:
>
> i) What is the Arts Council’s policy on digital culture?
> Specifically, what is Arts Council England’s understanding of where
> artistic practice and critical culture reside in terms of investment in
> digital innovation?
>
> ii) How much of the Digital Innovation Fund will be focused on artistic
> practice?
>
> We ask these questions specifically of Arts Council England, as we applaud
> the progressive and outward looking agenda that it adopted by placing
> digital, innovation and risk-taking at the heart of Achieving Great Art
> For Everyone. We share Arts Council England’s conviction that these are
> essential to artistic development, connecting with audiences and ensuring
> the wider relevance of the arts. We are a group of organisations who pride
> ourselves on setting trends, breaking new ground and engaging with groups
> such as technologists, scientists and the creative industries. As pioneers
> recognised internationally in these areas, we believe there is a great
> opportunity for national policy makers to go further in defining ‘digital
> innovation’ and ‘risk taking’, by placing creative practice at the very
> heart of these definitions, and thus enabling the UK to continue to lead
> the field internationally. We hope that you will be able to assure us that
> the Digital Innovation Fund will be a step in this direction.
>
> Finally, we would also appreciate further clarification from Arts Council
> England regarding the recent NPO funding decisions and their impact on the
> digital culture ecology in the UK, and its ability to remain at the
> international cutting-edge. We would appreciate a statement on the new
> portfolio, which explains who led the process of national balancing, who
> led in relation to digital culture, and an explanation on what the role of
> peer review was in the process.
>
> As a broad constituency of people we would like to express our desire to
> work with national policy-makers and funders on positive outcomes from the
> present circumstances. We look forward to your response to this letter,
> and look forward to establishing dialogue about the future of digital
> culture in the UK.
>
> Yours faithfully
>
> Undersigned
>
>
> Add your support here: http://www.coda2coda.net/
>
> *** END ***
>
>
>
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-- 
Marco Donnarumma
Independent New Media and Sonic Arts Professional, Performer, Instructor
ACE, Sound Design MSc by Research (ongoing)
The University of Edinburgh, UK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Portfolio: http://marcodonnarumma.com
Lab: http://www.thesaddj.com | http://cntrl.sourceforge.net |
http://www.flxer.net
Event: http://www.liveperformersmeeting.net
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