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Subject: Re: <nettime> Leading Art Site Suspended
From: beweil@adaweb.com (Benjamin Weil)
Date: 4 Mar 1998 22:00:48 +0100

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Paul Garrin wrote:

--->This is just another example of "disappearance"
>that I wrote about in 1995.
>
>Guess it takes a cruel dose of reality before
>people get a clue that autonomy is necessity,
>corporate sponsorship is ultimately censorship,
>and subsidies from the government are short lived
>at best.
[...]
Next time you get caught off guard and lose your
"free" net resources or your sponsorship....

Don't be surprised! There is no free lunch. everything has it's price.

<---

this kind of commentary astounds me in that it demonstrates a remarkably
simplistic approach to the economy of the arts and culture in general. it
reminds me of those people who keep on saying that artists have to starve
in order to produce good work. it is at best romantic, at worst idiotic.

art has *always* been supported by wealth, may it be individual patrons,
corporations, of the state (in modern times). there is no doubt that
there is a price to pay, that there is no "free lunch". nobody - except
maybe romantics or idiots - ever assumed that receiving funding from any
corpus was "free of charge". old masters, as we refer to them, had to
service the freed and power of individuals or families, and it did not
prevent them from being "free". their freedom was defined by the
constraints they had to accept in order to make their work. the notion of
the artist having "no obligation" to anyone except to her/his art is
something that only pushes this area of culture in a very marginal
position. any transaction implies the agreement between both parties that
there is something in it for each. the fact digital city, inc. has decided
to stop supporting adaweb only proves that this corporate entity does not
see its interest in supporting such venture any longer. but being able to
state that "corporate sponsorship is ultimately censorship" basically
ignores the nature of *any* transaction. it really does not help foster
any constructive conversation on the future of funding for culture, which
is necessary. it is basically a knee-jerk and ill-thought statement.

public space on the net will only disappear if we decide so. just like the
notion of public space in the city disappears if it is not occupied. it is
a decision, not an occurence.

i would find it more constructive and interesting to take this as a
departure point to discuss the nature of the relationship between art and
its potential sponsors, so as to eventually come up with means to convince
the holders of wealth that they have an interest in supporting activities
that are not "profitable" in a purely capitalistic understanding of the
term. so far, most of that support was informed by a valuation of culture
that relied upon the notion of prestige, or status. there must be other
ways, more creative ones, to approach the possibility of establishing
satisfactory relationships with corporate patrons. However, this kind of
thoughts can only be discussed with the postulate that the corporate world
is no worse that the state, who in turn is no worse that the private
individual. again, the nature of such relationship *cannot* be envisioned
outside of the notion of mutual interest.

on a final note, i also have to say that the whole notion of a disinterested
state that is so much better than the corporate world, in that it
supposedly does not have any agenda is again one of the most worn out and
preposterous statement that can be made at this point. wake up and smell
the coffee: its the 90's, not the 60's!

Benjamin Weil
executed curator, ada 'web | http://adaweb.com | 212 620-7288 ext. 104

new on adaweb:
"blindspot", by darcey steinke, at http://adaweb.com/project/blindspot/


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