Marcus Westbury, of This is Not Art and Not Quite Art fame, received a late call up to attend the 2020 summit. In this post, cross-posted at his own blog, he reflects on the issues confronting the “Towards a Creative Australia” stream.
What is the difference between a 1920s and a 2020 summit?
It’s not a joke. It’s the question that I have been mulling over since my last minute call up to the “Towards a creative Australia” stream of the 2020 summit next weekend. The seeming disparity between the stated goals and the mix of people that are being asked to discuss them inspired it.
Culturally, the difference between the 1920s and now are stark. The sheer diversity of cultural platforms and networks and the scale, speed and scope with which cultural activities take place has changed dramatically. Australian culture comes less from a small number of large institutions and more from a massive number of large and small scale companies, individuals, production houses, collectives, web sites, networks and initiators both here and around the world.
It is a cultural landscape made up less of fixed structures and more of fluid and dynamic forces. The key question is how to channel those forces so they flourish?
The answer to that question is easily sidetracked by the unrelated (but often legitimate) issues and ambitions of our professional companies and major cultural institutions. Half a century on from the Whitlam era few Australians would be convinced that a 2020 cultural vision focusing on innovation and initiative will be found in shovelling bigger buckets of money at conservative major institutions. Expecting it to trickle down through the layers of management to actual risk taking artists is naive at best.
Many of the comments posted here over the last few days either explicitly or implicitly acknowledge this. While many argue directly for a more diverse, competitive and dynamic funding environment the aim is less for grand, centralised and expensive top down public programs than for attention to the impediments and practical barriers that make it hard for creators to create, to find audiences, to take risks and to innovate.
Attention to those details is a key missing ingredient from our cultural policy mix. While tackling them is ambitious in scope and imagination it need not be costly in anything other than political will. The will necessary to identify the elements that hinder people from creating things and put in place the local, state and federal government strategies that facilitate them.
For fear of sounding decidedly un-arty, the program is essentially one of cultural microeconomic reform: a systematic approach to identifying the opportunities and barriers, the efficiencies and inefficiencies, the incentives and impediments that thwart or encourage cultural innovation and production.
The significance of this is to be found in the unique properties of creativity. Creative industries aren’t like most other industries. They aren’t really industries in the traditional sense at all. They’re rarely driven first and foremost by profitability – they’re driven by passion, enthusiasm, imagination and ambitions greater than simply making a buck. One of the consequences of this is that in their embryonic stages they’re often extremely limited in the capital that they have available.
(As an aside: I’ve long speculated that the incredibly limited access to capital in this environment is the key reason why the whims of philanthropists and doctors wives are such significant factors in the art world.)
Most innovative creative endeavours whether they are bands, exhibitions, theatre companies, gallery spaces, short films, websites, festivals, conferences, performance spaces, animations and installations begin life with pooled funds, sweat equity and comparatively little cash. They aren’t good investments because they mostly fail and they mostly expect to ultimately fail in economic terms. As a result, the ratio of things that creators can provide in kind (primarily labour, skill, sweat and enthusiasm) to the fixed costs that they cannot avoid is probably the single largest factor that propels or thwarts cultural initiative.
An understanding of that process is vital if the aim is to foster culture of creativity, initiative and innovation.
The ratio of compliance costs to capital is more stark than in the creative industries than anywhere else is society. The entanglement of public liability insurance, risk assessments, liquor licensing, legal costs, copyright compliance, licensing fees, noise regulations, place of public entertainment licensing and the myriad of other issues involved in creating anything is massive and growing. Not to mention that artists are subject to all the general issues involved in running any kind of small business. It is becoming increasingly difficult to make, show, or sell anything without a massive investment up front to clear these hurdles.
I’d confidently estimate that most of Australia’s professional arts companies spend more on these costs than they do on artists or artworks. Any not-yet-professional group will be killed off more quickly by these costs than by ridiculing reviews – indeed companies with great reviews, audiences and potential with shallow pockets often fall over while those with deeper pockets and less talent persist. The web of consultants, fees and the threats of heavy fines have thwarted a lot of cultural activity before it ever started.
Debates about cultural initiative almost always get bogged down in questions of funding. Everyone – including me – has plenty of ideas for more funding, better funding, smarter funding and we all have our own pet initiatives but in reality funding is often a solution of last resort to these kinds of practical problems.
These issues are urgent and legitimate ones. The focus on professionalism in arts funding has led to a focus on a handful of large scale major companies and a consequence is that the entire system is caught in a bad feedback loop that isn’t about innovation at all. The issues and ambitions of our professional companies and major cultural institutions are mistaken for those of the creative community as a whole.
A 2 day summit may not be the place to develop answers to these questions but hopefully it will help put them on the agenda.
With respect to copyright compliance, the current copyright system was effectively locked in stone by the FTA we signed with the Yanks.
So the chances of any sensible (IMO) reforms there – shortening terms, opt-in copyright protection through a registration process, even perhaps exploring the idea of more compulsory licensing – are Buckley’s until the pendulum starts to swing in the United States.
I think at least some funding bodies have begun to address that by building formal provision for smaller and more adventurous projects into their programs, but an even more counterproductive result of the professionalisation that you mention is that artists are putting more and more time and effort into administration — not least the now very demanding and time-consuming process of, erm, applying for grants, but also record-keeping, publicity and so on — to the point that either their own creative work is diminished or they are constantly on the verge of going broke because they’ve employed someone to do the administrative work for them. Here in SA at least, this problem is beginning to be addressed, but I don’t think anyone has made any major attempts to work through it yet.
@Robert: I don’t quite accept that it is all stuck in stone. Andrew Frost (presenter of The Art Life on ABC TV and the man behind the blog of the same name) made some interesting comments about this on my blog. http://www.marcuswestbury.net/2008/04/11/2020-summit-call-up-any-ideas/#comment-68
He actually argues that the Australian end is MORE restrictive than the US end and should adopt a much more liberal interpretaiton of Fair Use in the American tradition. More generally, i refuse to be a FTA fatalist. Like any legal document i am sure there are plenty of smart ways around it if the will is there. Also, i think it is possible in many ways to simplify the system without necessarily overturning – effort invested in making copyright clearance a lot easier would reap dividends in and of itself.
@ Pavlov. I do agree that attempts are being made to redress this but i would argue that their effectiveness is debatable. I certainly agree that turning every artist into an administrator is an undesirable consequence. Most resourcing in the arts is spent on administration and not production.
Unfortunately we have created an army of middle managers with funded positions in the arts – i can say that with the self knowledge that i have spent a fair chunk of my professional life as one of them – and we’ve lost sight of the larger goal of facilitating production. When governments consult with the arts sector, more often than not they consult with this layer of middle managers who describe the difficulties they encounter in their jobs which often feed into the policy processes. I think it might be a good time to look outside that loop for policy priorities.
Here’s a radical idea. How about abolishing *all* government funding for the arts? I bet that will be the one idea that will never be discussed.
Yes, traditionally, Australia’s “fair dealing” provisions are more restrictive than “fair use” ones. For instance, our ability to use copyright material for the purposes of satirising or parodying it is considerably more restricted.
On your broader point, it seems like the issues facing the grassroots sector are, broadly, similar to the ones that both the small business and volunteer sectors complain about – that is, over-regulation without consideration of the downsides. This is something that Labor talked about a fair bit during the election campaign in the small business context, but whether they’ll actually follow through is another question.
Yes, don’t people love the idea of abolishing all funding for the arts. It’s suggested with monotonous regularity. I’m all for it, as long as simultaneously we’re prepared to abolish the billions of dollars of funding for private industry as well, etc etc. Fair’s fair.
What pisses me off about this attitude is that it demonstrates a unique ignorance of (a) how much the arts economy – even in its most commercial aspects – depends on the unpaid labour of artists themselves, a factor that seldom or never gets taken into account and which funding – theoretically – addresses and (b) how much the arts contribute to the economy, both directly and indirectly. And this is aside from the non-economical factors that culture contributes to public life – imho the most important aspect of its existence. A handy summation here.
I agree that artists get the rough end of the stick in the arts dollar. We need healthy institutions and means of distribution, but sometimes it’s forgotten that they have no reason to exist without artists. And it’s still too common to think that, while ushers, administrators, cleaners, box office staff, editors and so on MUST be paid, artists can work for nothing. Out of the “love of their art”. Unfortunately, artists will do that, and precisely for that reason, but it doesn’t make it fair when others are making their living off their backs.
… well and also when others (ie the PM) are basking in the sun with the embodied symbols of a “Creative Australia”.
Alison – I would be more than happy to see industry subsidies abolished as well. As to the rest of your comments I’m always reminded of Lennons (John) famous saying:
Australian films are a perfect example of this.
For so called ‘progressives’ you guys really are dreadfully conservative.
Allison: if I may play Devil’s Advocate for a moment…
Leaving aside the ABC, doesn’t most of the federal government’s arts funding go to the flagship performing arts companies?
Those companies play, in the main, to an audience of middle-aged upper-middle-class women. One might argue that the same applies to most of the government-funded films.
Most Australians never see Opera Australia, the STC, the Australian Ballet, the symphony orchestras. They’re much more likely to be watching Underbelly, listening to Powerderfinger, and the only dance they’re likely to see is on So You Think You Can Dance?
So what’s the argument for subsidising the entertainment of ladies who lunch, any more than there’s a justification for subsidising the entertainment of outer-suburban men by throwing tens of millions of dollars at the Formula One Grand Prix every year?
To take to the broader “contribution to culture” argument, might I suggest that our largely unsubsidised popular musicians, and, for that matter, Underbelly, probably have at least as much to say about that than another production of Swan Lake, Carmen, or for that matter Romeo and Juliet by the STC.
Peter, you need to to realise that all film industries, (with the exception of Bollywood) are supported by government in the forms of direct subsidy or indirect subsidy via the tax system.
Without that there’s no film industry. If you don’t want one; that’s valid. There’s no reason why we have to have one. But don’t get issues confused.
Fine – I’m not confused. Your assertion that we ( or anyone else but the yanks) wouldn’t have a film industry without subsidy is unprovable at best. Besides, what exactly is the point of a film industry if it produces mainly crap? If you ask me it actually has negative value in that government money tends to suck the creativity out of everything that it touches by bureaucratization. This isn’t progressive – it’s profoundly conservative.
Robert, get off my hobby horse!
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Robert Merkel said:
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Exactly, and (due to the funding line) you earn a much better living as a rank and file junior player in an orchestra than you would as a significant popular music artist in Australia. We are more interested in propping up European heritage than in the development of relevant, contemporary Australian voices. When this glaring inequity is addressed, we will have commenced the process of growing up.
Peter, I pointed out that every film industry, except Bollywood, not Hollywood, has government subsidy. Hollywood does business via large tax breaks. Make of it what you will. You’re the only one making an assertion. Whether that’s progressive or conservative, I don’t care. It’s fact. If you can come up with an economic model that shows how a film industry can survive without funding, then you’ll be paid huge amounts of money by every film producer from Seoul to Beunos Aires, and every compass point in between.
Robert, I think you’d find that Underbelly was subsidised during development by government funding. You may also find, although I’m not sure because I’d have to look it up, the production company had benefited from significant amounts of government subsidy over time.
I’m more interested in people’s opinions on the points Marcus made in the post than those directed at Peter. Just sayin…
Remember that we generally like threads to address the post primarily, before getting detoured.
I know Mark. I just get pissed off with the knee jerk reaction of ‘just get rid of the funding’, without any suggestions of an economic model that would work without funding. If only life were that easy.
My short answer to Marcus’ opinion is greater direct subsidy to artists and artist run spaces. Less paperwork so that artists don’t turn into administrators and money is wasted in endless KPI forms. More funding for infrastructure so major work can be developed over time. Time is what costs money and time is everything.
But you also can’t get around the idea that there just needs to be a lot more money about to do any of these things. The dollars are just spread too thinly.
And to play Devil’s Advocate to Robert Merkel. Perhaps the answer is to greatly increase funding to the flagship opera and theatre companies so that their tix are cheap enough for anyone to see them. That’s what happens in Europe. You’d also greatly increase the standard of their work by allowing them much more time for development and rehearsal.
Look at the graphs that accompany the ‘Creative Australia’ workin papers. Europe funds arts to a much greater degree than Australia does. You get what you pay for.
Fine said:
This assumes the ticket price is the barrier to increased attendance. I’d suggest that perceived relevance might be a wee factor? Marcus’ post argues for greater attention to the independent artist, who are never discussed in arts policy, but constitute the overwhelming majority of sector (by numbers). They have no unified line to government, like an Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG) and no dedicated funding board, like the Major Performing Art Board. The amount of funding made available to them is tiny. In many states they can’t even apply for funding from the state.
More investment is needed into infrastructure which assists independent artists to carry out their work…. Its a simple message.
A number of major arts centres – QPAC among them – trialled reduced tix as part of an outreach program to selected demographics and found it was no silver bullet, to put it mildy. The people who actually have to drum up business for the opera and mainstream theatre companies and symphonies etc. are well aware that they face very severe challenges in attracting new audiences, and that the need to attract new audiences is more and more compelling. That’s what their market research is telling them. Despite the money poured in, many are just staying afloat as it is.
I’m with david.
And I’m with you on that, fine! A lot of the disputes within the sector – which have all sorts of overtones of taste, culture, etc – come down to that fact. But it still doesn’t absolve us of doing some hard thinking about where best to direct a (hopefully) bigger pie and on what principles.
Au contraire, Nicholas Hytner at the Royal National Theatre in London has had a huge coup with subsidised cheap tickets (sponsored by Travelex) which has attracted a new and younger audience to the theatre. And the major companies are in fact ill-subsidised by government – the MTC gets less than 15 per cent of its budget from funding (compared with 40 per cent for the National, 80 per cent for the Comedie Francaise, other national flagship companies). Also, the Malthouse’s programming is attracting in droves an entirely different demographic with its imaginative programming. Younger, for a start. There are plenty of grounds for cautious optimism here, if we handle things well.
As for film – remember when Australians made good movies, and Australians went in droves? Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli, Breaker Morant, My Brilliant Career, etc etc? What made that possible was the Whitlam Government’s very generous tax breaks. It’s not my area, but I don’t think the problem in film is that of being subsidised: subsidies are what makes it possible in the first place. What’s wrong is that nobody seems to know how to write a film script or to know the difference between good writing and bad. (“Film,” a writer friend of mine was once told by a film bureaucrat, “is a series of images” – tell that to Bergman). That’s to do with a certain kind of bureaucratisation, with what’s encouraged and what isn’t.
Hi david. I did say I was playing devil’s advocate. You’ll notice I also said; “greater direct subsidy to artists and artist run spaces. Less paperwork so that artists don’t turn into administrators and money is wasted in endless KPI forms. More funding for infrastructure so major work can be developed over time.” So, I agree with you.
The point of the my other post is that I think the discussion starts off on the wrong foot when it becomes a matter of saying, let’s cut funding to this.
Allison: fair enough, though you’re pointing to theatre (which regularly presents contemporary as well as classic works), rather than ballet and opera – which largely don’t.
And, no, I don’t count a Barrie Kosky “reinterpretation” as a contemporary work…
First, thank you Marcus for one of the most succinct and truthful summations of the current situation in the arts. Finally wise words after years of corporate feelgood gobbledygook from the mouth of arts administrators.
Robert has a great point @5 that the problems facing arts (though I see the point in the term ‘arts industry’ – I feel that a strong definer of what the arts is is that it is not industry) are similar to other sectors. Problems in the arts appear to be almost a magnification of the greater society, namely the rise of the middle manager and corporatisation (not necessarily corporations but the system favouring larger organisations).
Many arts admins I have met seem to have the same attitude that public transport companies have towards passengers – the damn thing would be so much easier without those annoying artists. Responsibility also lies with the artists too – in such a competitive field it pays to be nice to those who wield the chequebooks and to not question the structures that keep middle management employed.
There needs to be a deemphasis on project based funding and smaller grants with a higher turnaround, Arts Queensland used to have an excellent grant program of $5k grants open every month. Smaller grants that can be got within months of applying allow for much greater experimentation and respect for necessary failure.
Infrastructure, in terms of year round venues for showing work and housing for artists is critical. Here in Melbtown there is an epidemic of festivals – each artfrom gets its festival where hundreds of artists duke it out for seats+bums and kudos in a couple of weeks, then for the rest of the year … tumbleweeds …
Culling of middlemanagement is essential – but probably very difficult to achieve. New management models need to be constructed – for the artists. There is hope in the next few years that project management software and content management systems will be sophisticated enough that with ease and no cost much middlemanagement can be replaced. A small company could be self managed and have no paid admin staff with the appropriate software solutions. (easing up on govment redtape would go a loooong way).
There should never ever be more paid arts administrators than paid artists in an organisation.
Artist wages need to be addressed – either an artist is not making anything and paying through the nose for materials etc whilst on the dole (well not any more after Howard had his way with the ’social security’) or in part time work, or the artist is in a funded project with a high wage – all expenses of the work paid for.
If I was a dictator all artists would receive say $350/week, document they are actually doing something, have no other paid work and just let them be/do. If you can’t hack the low wage then you’re in the wrong line.
Most of all — think of the kids — yes, expose kids to a vast amount of art experiences. Not just the ‘issue based’ or ‘empowering’ pap that often gets into schools but art for arts sake. Artists are to be encouraged that there is a massive captive audience to create work for, creating a generation who sees art as normal behaviour for a homo sapien. Only then, when the arts becomes an ordinary respected facet of human existence will there be this country have true respect for its practitioners.
(apologies for length and repeating what Marcus said but not as well
T.Brainspace – are you really S.Blackburn?
If so, love your work.
Anyone got a view on which of these areas is currently in most need of more public funding?
We can certainly exclude websites and conferences from the list can’t we?
Unfortunately no, fan of Tim and Debbie though. I am only yet another Tim on the interweb in search of a definer.
BANDS BANDS BANDS!!!
Music of the non-classical variety needs venues, and everywhere except Melbourne has lost most of them. It’s not that great here either. Very little money could go a very long way, without “picking any winners” as far as individual artists go, if spent on creating and improving performance spaces for contemporary music. Grants for new ones where needed (also all-ages ones), and rebates for soundproofing or otherwise improving existing ones.
Chump change in the scheme of things, which doesn’t really answer the question of what to do with the rest of the Arts budget. I dunno… piss it up against the wall on wanky “reimaginings” of Shakespeare? A new swathe of shitty, overdirected, overwritten films?
Y’know, music is something we actually do really well. Makes you think, dunnit?
I like that a lot. Individuals will then get to choose whether or not to be an artist. The funding decision is taken away from arts administrators.
Compliance could be done on a points system. You have to score 100 points every three years.
Published book with print run > 1000 = 100 points.
Commercial solo gallery exhibition = 50 points.
Published song = 10 points.
Website = 0 points.
Installation = -20 points.
T – “Unfortunately no”
Aw, I’m sure you’re a perfectly serviceable human in your own right!
wbb said
The web is one of the most important sites for the documentation and dissemination of contemporary work. It’s also an important site for arts practice itself. I’d argue that more funding is needed in this area. Several critical projects are attempting to secure funding at present. If you don’t get the value of the web to the arts, check out something like Ubu Web .
Lets set up art clubs like footy clubs. Suburb based, with memberships n funky scarfs n stuff. Bring the battler on board, and the corporate sponsor.
Think of the merchandising potential. The scope of the collectors cards alone!
We could hit the schools and sign up the kiddies for art clinics.
Carn, why not?
What’s an example of that sort of performance space, FDB? Would these spaces need liquor licences?
Existing venues, if prepared to commit to a minimum weekly quota of original music performance, would be eligible for improvement money whatever kind of place they are.
New ones, as I alluded to, could be all-ages, cabaret-style with food and cocktails, pub style, club style, concert style, or complexes with some combination thereof. The important thing is tying the funding to a demonstrated commitment to showcase new original music. Of any stripe.
“What’s an example of that sort of performance space, FDB? Would these spaces need liquor licences?”
Tarn tootin’. And a decent house PA and a bandroom that doesn’t double as keg storage space.
By the way FDB, I’d like to seek your advice on case modding. How best can I email you?
David, that is not a good example for your argument. According to that website:
It’s basically a group blog aggregating stolen content. All good fun – but hardly requiring govt funding.
wbb – I’m talking quasi-PPPs here, just to clarify. Much the same financial and regulatory structure as funding currently going to theatre/ballet/opera companies and venues, only WAY cheaper and WAY more relevant to the young ‘uns – in whose number I still flatter myself I belong.
Nabs – I’m sure some kind passing LP admin will pass on my email with my blessing.
FDB – what’s wrong with just going to the Evelyn or the Tote? You want new carpet or something?
Maybe The Arthouse in Nth Melbourne is more your style.
Funny you should mention the Tote – it’s been bought by the same c*%#s who have already rooted the Punter’s Club and the Duke of Windsor. Their MO is to buy original music venues and turn them into cheap pizza and handbag house joints (Bimbo Deluxe and The Lucky Coq respectively).
If I want a little class with my music, it’s the Toff in Town at the mo, though.
Again though, I think Melbourne needs my idea less than other cities.
Given the cost of housing these days, couldn’t the $350 per week be added onto by part-time work? Rather like a PhD scholarship? Otherwise, you’re probably skewing it too much toward the already wealthy and/or those with with a prosperously employed partner.
A generalism. Korea? Hong Kong? There’s even an underground film industry in Nigeria or someplace they sell DVDs out the back of their cars.
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You will correctly point out that these places aren’t entirely free of some sort of government funding or subsidy. However I will retort that these places make films so that people will watch them. Here no-one talks about audiences. They talk about funding. Naturally you will retort that I don’t know what I’m talking about and that last year at some conference there was a seminar on funding blah blah blah. The one thing Oz Culture Industries are very good at is exclusing common sense from their discursive circus.
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The fact remains that the malaise of Australiam culture is that its largely encumbered by the attitude of its agents. That is: you won’t succeed and don’t expect to try. Result: we subsidize people to write books no-one reads, to make films no-one watches etc etc.
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There’s a lot of truth here:
In other words Arts funding does not fund artists so much as bureaucracies. And the following sentence belies the problem:
Yes by all means let’s put it on the agenda: Item 3.9.1 part c. Innovation. ‘Cause, like, that how you innovate, y’know, you put an item on an agenda. I mean: Hey! Don’t just do it, talk about it.
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Bollocks.
I’m not going to get into the same old argument with you Adrien, as it just hi-jacks the thread and your rudeness is tiresome. I’ll simply point out to you that Korea and Hong Kong both have heavily subsidised film industries. Korea has a quota system in which every cinema has to show a certain number of Korean films within a certain amount of time. Since the quota has been introduced 24% of their box office has gone to local films. The two things may not be unrelated.
You don’t know about the artists who are succeeding because you very seldom read about their successes in the media. Funded or unfunded. Australian fantasy authors (Lian Hearn, Garth Nix, Trudi Canavan, Juliette Marrillier and many others) are causing waves in the US and Europe, selling well in highly competitive markets. I know because I’m one of them. Unless you’re a reader of fantasy you probably won’t have heard of them, and even if you have you might not be aware that they’re Australian. I doubt you’ll read about these successes in the newspapers, even though they must be among our biggest literary exports. If you spend any time in Britain, you find that practically the whole arts industry there seems to be run by Australians. Our companies tour and get rave reviews, some have bigger audiences outside Australia than at home (Chunky Move, Elision Music Ensemble, etc). The Malthouse moves onto Broadway. Our directors work in the biggest companies in Europe (Benedict Andrews, Barrie Kosky, a raft of others). Daniel Keene is the most produced contemporary playwright in France and produced all over Europe. There are lots more examples. Wherefore this alleged “lack of success”? Just because you don’t hear about something doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
If anyone is interested: we will be talking 2020 summit and the future directions of Australian art and cultural policy type stuff on Radio National’s Australia Talks tonight at 6pm (EST). I’ll apparently be joined by Robyn Archer, and Trevor Green from the MSO. If people want to be part of the discussion, the talkback number for listener input into the conversation is 1300 22 55 76.
Fine – now that you have convinced us all that without government funding most of the worlds film industry would be a wasteland, could you you tell me if these films are any good, or have we just replaced a (free) wasteland with an expensive rubbish dump?
Also, I reckon tis you who is the rude one. To you, any challenge to the status quo is a knee jerk reaction and should be dismissed out of hand. And please don’t say you and your fellow progressives aren’t trying to maintain the status quo because you are. The majority of suggestions here are along the same old lines – subsidies for this, rebates for that, more funding, quotas, added points for one thing and deducted points for another, less bureaucracy (yeah right), pocket money for ‘artists’. And so on, ad nauseam. This is the standard ‘progressive’ response to everything.
BTW – are you seriously suggesting that a film ‘quota’ may be a good thing??
the Australia 2020 summit is the ultimate community advisory panel. In our PR democracy you can safely replace ‘company’ with ‘Commonwealth Government’. National government is NOT by, for, and from the people its an efficient business enterprise.
Marcus (and anyone else with a real reform agenda) has to sacrifice friend-making for assertive advocacy.
From Bill Burton as PR Watch
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q1/caps.html
CAPs are a way of “handing over some control or feeling of power to the community because if you do that the community gives it back to you in spades.” More importantly for the company, effective CAPs help protect a company’s “license to operate.”
“CAP members,” Sandman says, “tend to learn more about company perspective’s and problems than about critics’ views.” Participation in CAPs also generates a social pressure on all participants to conform. “The experience of breaking bread with company representatives, chatting with them before and after meetings . . . encourages many CAP members to feel that harsh criticism would be somehow rude. CAP members who don’t respond this way are likely to feel some social pressure from their fellow members to conform or quit.”
Marcus Westbury: “I’ll apparently be joined by Robyn Archer, and Trevor Green from the MSO.”
Well if there’s any culture in Australia at all, you’ll all have sent along a couple dozen pricey floral bouquets to Mme. Archer, attention of the radio station.
Failing that minimum civilizational cue, what’s all this guff about ‘cultural debates’ outta youse mooks anyway?
RA, any chance of singing the ‘Benares Song’ just one more time?
Here’s my guff about cultural debates!
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/04/17/towards-a-creative-australia-or-stuck-on-rewind/
Love Australian culture. Like it? –No!! Love it. See but here’s the thing, babies, my only thing about it is… the cowbell.
Guys. I just gotta have more cowbell.
Peter, I’ve pointed out that most of the world film industries have government subsidy and asked you to supply an economic model that works without government subsidy, which you haven’t done.
I’ve also pointed out that Korea supports its industry through a quota system. I haven’t suggested that that’s what Australia should do.
It’s really up to you to work whether you think the output of the world’s film is any good, or not. It certainly isn’t my role to tell you.
I think part of the problem is that you seem to assume that a ‘model’ is required at all. Did say, rock music require a ‘model’ foisted from above to be successful? There is such a thing as spontaneous order you know.
Another thing worth pondering is that a subsidy etc. may be disguising the fact that film as an art form has perhaps run its course and isn’t worth subsidizing. I’m not saying it has but plenty of other art forms seem to have. Subsidizing film could well be seen as elitist much like opera is today.
In summary, I would much rather the resources consumed by the tax funded arts industry be returned to the community so that individuals can choose for themselves what they wish to see and hear.