It is the end of the second week into my masters. A lot of important things have been happening this week both related to work and in the wider world, which I kind of feel I need to report and reflect on because they are really interesting subjects for me, and hopefully if you are reading this, then it is of interest to you!
I don't think we could get away from it this week as it was just about everywhere: The Comprehensive Spending review by the CON-DEM coalition government. This was billed as George Osbourne's superman effort to safe Britain from the bring of collapse and economic meltdown. I could never hope to try and explain the overall picture of the cuts, because I am not an economist but I what I can do is try and reflect on the cuts to the DCMS (Department for Media, Culture and Sport) and ACE (Arts Council England.
In factual terms this is the result for Culture in the UK:
15% cut in funding to national museums, but free entry will be reserved.
The total budget for DCMS is £1.1bn (a decrease of 24%)
30% in Arts Council funding overall, but only 15% will be passed on to 'front line services' a.k.a. Regularly funded Organisations of which there are 880.
The Arts Council will have to cut its Admin costs by 50%.
Now in headline these numbers look dreadful, however these were forecasted, with the exeception of the UK Film Council which was a terrible shock, the arts community has been preparing for these cuts for many months. It is terrible that people will loose their jobs and less funding will be available, and it is so sad that it is presented with such ease by the Government, but unfortunately these cuts are across every Government department and so we as members of the arts community cannot feel that is us just being picked on.
These cuts come at an interesting time, mainly because we are going through big social changes in our society anyway. The advent of Twitter and social networking has made communications, PR, Networking, marketing, making contacts easier than ever and ultimately we are able to stay in touch the sector that we love easier and more effectively than we ever have done before. How we talk about and report on the sector is changing, it is no longer static it is bubbling with creativity and responses to the world. With bigger investment in the last 15 years than ever before the sector has thrived and enchanted audiences in every artistic discipline. The arts are thriving and we as members of the artistic community should not be disheartened by the cuts, because for the simple fact although we want to make money from the arts, we do it for the passion and love we have for making the arts accessible to everyone, and as long we have that passion, we will still make the best art we can. Even though it will be tougher to get funding, it will force us to make the best possible response to the Government to show that we can respond to the economic times and still make the best art we can.
My view is this: The cuts won't stop me wanting to be an artist, I do it for my passion for the arts. My artistic practice has never been defined by money and it will never be. I am making work for everyone to involved with, I respond to the world and part of that includes realising that the world is going through tough times and art can reflect that, by entertaining, by inspiring, by allowing people to reflect.
Just to divert of the cuts (I am sure you are as bored of it as I am!). This week I have been trying out a real life excerise based on something really interesting I've been researching. Taking inspiration from an exercise from Proto-Type Theater's summer school 2 years ago called 'Remapping Lancaster'. The exercise itself is quite a simple one and can produce very interesting results!. In essence you are given a series of questions in this case it was 16 (not because I am specific with numbers but due to the fact I didn't charge my camera enough I ended up with 16 rather than the 20 I planned for!). I set myself these questions with the simple aim of only using my imagination to come up with the photographic representations.
Now you maybe wondering like I was, what on earth is the point of some guy wondering around the streets of Lancaster taking photos of things which don't seem to have point to them. Well I when I was planning and actually taking the photos, I always kept the audience in mind, the huge fan base for comics globally gives a demonstration to the fact that people like to pay money to be taken away from their natural surroundings of their real life and like to be entertained. Its something that film companies also employ, why do they use real cities and real locations to make movies? To take us away from the real world, to use the world we are based in and use it in another way. We as people want to be entertained, see the world differently. Not to sound like know exactly what people want, I only can really say that personally I love being entertained and taken away from the real world.
Anyway here's the exercise in full:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=244771&id=524662090
Have a look, see what you think!, I will hopefully be doing this exercise again soon!
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