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15 May 2004 REACTION WORLD WIDE VIDEO FESTIVAL TO THE ARTS COUNCIL’S ADVICE |
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Dear Mrs. Van der Laan,
The WWVF totally disagrees with the argumentation upon which the Council bases its advice to stop the structural funding. The advice as formulated by the Council is completely at odds with advices about us that we received recently and over the past years from other committees and sharply contrasts with the reactions of the public, the press and professionals to recent editions of the festival. WWVF cannot but wonder what lies behind this negative advice, as apparently the quality of the festival programme is not disputed. WWVF therefore has the impression that the establishing of other priorities plays a role in this and that this has resulted in a certain bias. The WWVF is being compared by the Council with much larger and much more heavily subsidized events such as the Documenta and international art biennales. Flattering though this may be, these events abroad do not cater for the same needs as the WWVF. What makes the WWVF unique is precisely the combination of an exhibition, video screenings, live performances, interviews with artists and lectures: a formula not found elsewhere within regular art events.
In its appraisal, the Council has included four considerations: the WWVF’s importance in terms of content and innovation, the audiences it reaches, the status of its collection and archive and the potential of the ‘brand’ WWVF. The Council fails to appreciate the importance of the WWVF and the size of the audiences we are reaching. The status of the collection is weighed far too heavily by the Council and what is said about the brand name is self-contradictory. We will discuss these four points in more detail now.
According to the Council video and new media have been incorporated within the regular presentations of museums, institutes and in the public space. Video is one of the most important art forms of the moment and increasingly plays a role in other art disciplines. Still, the WWVF’s importance is downplayed by the Council. The Council mentions the notion that technological developments have made ‘world wide exchange’ much easier. This would, in the Council’s opinion, make the role of the WWVF as a ‘scout’ less relevant. It is not clear to WWVF to which exchange the Council is referring. Furthermore, it is incorrect to assume that both audiences and professionals would nowadays be quite capable of spotting the new developments in video art all by themselves. This is exactly where WWVF plays an important role and where the uniqueness of the festival expresses itself. The WWVF was one of the first platforms to recognize the importance of digital (communications) technology for the development of media art – a quality now covered by the general term e-Culture – and this is reflected in the attention this aspect gets in the programming. WWVF is, however, primarily concerned with the impact of these technological developments on content and aesthetics and not with the technical production aspects of media art.
Also, the WWVF’s policy plan nowhere states the ambition to purely be a ‘scout’. WWVF calls this ‘reporting of new tendencies' one of its core activities, meaning the thematical programming and the analysis of current international developments, both definitely recognizable in the festival’s programme. We feel it is crucial to do research, especially now that media art is emerging in other places as well, especially in those regions barely catered for by traditional art institutes. WWVF systematically shows the latest developments in media art in the Second and Third World (South America, Africa, China) and places them on the cultural agenda. These presentations in the Netherlands are the direct result of our own research at these locations, an important function of WWVF that is not as such recognized by the Council. This ‘world wide exchange’ of ideas most definitely does occur, at the level of personal contacts between artists, critics and audiences during the festival itself, and in the ensuing publications (website, catalogues). WWVF also wishes to emphasize that the evolution of media art is not a process that is now taking place only on a virtual level. Media art in the (physical) public space has an important function. Contrary to what the Council states, WWVF has in the recent past, and more so than ever before, paid attention to the analysis of current developments within international media art and to explaining the content of the festival programme. This analysis of the artistic developments and reflection takes place via:
The Council feels that not enough attention is being paid within the WWVF programme to hybrid forms and interdisciplinarity. First of all WWVF wonders what the basis for this statement is. After all, interdisciplinary collaboration between the visual arts and other fields is an important principle to WWVF and as such this is apparent from the programming, in spite of the Council’s advice of 2000. In reaction to WWVF’s policy plan for 2001-2004 which mentions the attention for interdisciplinary productions (with an emphasis on media art performances) as an element of extra priorities in order to renew the festival programme, the Council felt that 'these extra priorities (…) are not opportune'. If WWVF can be reproached for anything, it would be the fact that we did pay attention to interdisciplinarity in spite of the Council’s remarks. A few examples: the ambitious 3-day programme section RGB on the cross-over between media art, club culture and electronic music, the interdisciplinary production ‘The Wake’ in 2000, and ‘Hamlet Machine’ in 2003. Interdisciplinary projects of any importance are quite costly, but we have managed to realize and finance them nevertheless thanks to contributions by various sponsors.
The visitor figures of WWVF are seen in the wrong perspective. The latest edition attracted capacity crowds for the video presentations: 12.000 visitors in 2003, high figures for a relative complex art form. Many visitors spent many hours in the screening rooms and exhibition spaces, as well as in the Media Lounge, but they counted as only one visitor to the entire exhibition, and not per screening/performance as is customary with, for instance, film festivals. Also, the Council hasn’t taken into account changes in circumstances such as the fact that the Stedelijk Museum was no longer available as a festival location. The attractive combination of the Stedelijk and WWVF made for temporary very high numbers of visitors, which was caused in part by the much longer exhibition period that was possible only because the festival took place inside a museum. We have informed the Council of this in great detail during the ‘monitoring visit’ but apparently to no avail.
The idea that WWVF would not deliver on its role of mediator, is patently wrong. To give but a few examples: the team of Documenta XI, including curator Mark Nash, has made extensive inquiries with the festival organization and has visited several editions of the festival. The festival’s spin-off is evident from the fact that it is a springboard for the (inter)national career of many artists. The fact alone that over half of the selected artists pay for their own plane ticket in order to attend the festival is an indication of the festival’s importance to artists. Many of the works premiered at the festival are later shown elsewhere. The festival‘s spin-off is evident on a global scale. Recently, programme sections were presented in South Africa, Brazil, Peru, South Korea, and several European countries. In the Netherlands as well, our activities do not go unnoticed: Note the recent solo exhibition by Korean-American artist Seoungho Cho at the Netherlands Media Art Institute. Cho’s work was first shown at the WWVF in 1994 and in almost every year since. Sebastián Díaz Morales had a solo exhibition on the 2003 festival and subsequently exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam.
WWVF feels that the Council has weighed the status of the ‘collection’ too heavily in its assessment. In the first place the ‘collection’ wasn’t a priority as WWVF concentrated on its core activity, the organization of a media art festival. Secondly we wish to point out, again, the complexity of this collection/archive. It consists mainly of work that is ‘left behind’ by artists and is intended for internal use, not for exploitation. For reasons of copyrights the archive/collection cannot be transferred or made public, let alone be exploited. There are some ways in which the archive/collection can be ‘activated’ but these cost time and money. Ending the subsidy will definitely not solve this problem. Point 4: the brand name WWVF The fourth and last point is a reaction to the Council’s position with regard to the value of the reputation of WWVF. The Council separates the name ‘World Wide Video Festival’ from the ‘product’ World Wide Video Festival. But if the ‘product’ WWVF would not haven been attractive or valuable over the years the ‘name’ WWVF would not have any value now either. The accumulated value and success of WWVF as a brand name is a direct result of the organization’s vision and functioning. Conclusion The Council’s advice shows a certain bias. The WWVF is of the opinion that the Council’s arguments are not founded in the reality of the situation. The Netherlands deserve an independently operating, international media art festival that doesn’t confine itself to following the developments in media art in the western world. If the advice is followed by the Minister the World Wide Video Festival will lose its main funding and this will trigger a chain reaction. The initially positive advice by the Amsterdam Arts Council to the City of Amsterdam has been changed to a negative one on the basis of the Council’s advice, on the grounds that without national funding the WWVF has no hope of surviving. The WWVF has proven itself to be capable of raising substantial sums with national and international sponsors and private funds. This fund raising will be made impossible when the festival’s financial foundation – the contributions by the national government and by the City of Amsterdam – is taken away. Ending the national funding would mean that the 21st edition of the World Wide Video Festival, opening on 10 June 2004, will also be the last edition. On the basis of the arguments above WWVF urgently requests the State Secretary to ignore the Council’s advice and to continue to structurally fund the WWVF at the requested level. Op basis van de hierboven genoemde argumenten doet WWVF een dringend verzoek aan de staatssecretaris om het advies te negeren en de structurele subsidie aan WWVF te continueren op het gevraagde niveau. With kind regards,
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