<nettime> Net Community Hacks Cultural Funding System

[Hans Bernhard <play@ubermorgen.com>]

Net Community Hacks Cultural Funding System

Vienna, 2 May 2006

Our much-discussed, game-theory-oriented approach to cultural funding represents a
clear rejection of all the Austrian cultural industry's hegemonic tendencies,"
states MANA coordinator Stefan Lutschinger: "This hack of the outmoded jury and
committee system opposes every rationalistic funding cut with pure difference,
contingency coping and the fruitful development of paradox."

Software-based Funding Distribution

Last week, a participatory cultural support budget of 125,000 euros was
distributed to artists and cultural producers in Vienna using the MANA Community
Game -- an innovative software-supported selection process. The decision regarding
the distribution of funding was not made by curators, juries or committees, but by
the submitters themselves. Twelve people will receive project grants between 5,000
and 15,000 euros, whereby 42% of the recipients are women.

"Old" Concepts and "New Thinking"

The Community Game is one of the most innovative distribution systems for cultural
funding worldwide. It is based on "old" concepts of the avant-garde =96
auto-curating and self-organization =96 and the "new thinking" of second-order
cybernetics. MANA's great advantage is its capacity for self-correction and
adaptation to intelligent system environments: errors and irregularities can be
recognized and corrected immediately by the net community, which emerges
strengthened from this process. Here 120 submitters agreed to a complex set of
rules.

A Self-managed Cultural Funding Budget

Since the autumn of 2004, the open net community "netznetz.net" has grown out of
the numerous digital cultural initiatives that have developed in Vienna in recent
years. In order to do justice to these diverse cultural and artistic modes of
expression, an application has been made to the City of Vienna's Department of
Cultural Affairs (Net Culture Unit) for a self-managed cultural funding budget to
support this very active scene with around 500,000 euros yearly. The heart of this
funding model is the software-based selection process MANA.  After a two-month
evaluation phase in early summer, the net community will decide on its specific
adaptation and further development.


Inquiries:

Stefan Lutschinger, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Hans Bernhard
Email: s.lutschinger@digitaldrafts.at
+43 660 6538616

http://mana.netznetz.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netznetz
http://www.parliaments-of-art.net





--
Hans Bernhard
UBERMORGEN.COM / etoy.holding

Skype Hans_Bernhard
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