iliyana nedkova on Fri, 17 Jul 1998 13:00:22 +0100 |
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Syndicate: re: isea98 criticism |
dear syndicalists, i hope the statement below will bring some new light in the thread of isea98 discussions going on. i do share the heated arguments raised by andreas and lately by kathy, aileen, elisabeth and the rest from the faces list about giving authority to the 'fringe' events off the main programme. ironically, i am committed to curating & organising such parasite events [like leaf97, crossingover97/98 & virtual revolutions98] but i have recently got involved with the isea98 research unit, too. just trying hard to reconcile these contradictions. cheers, iliyana_______________ To: SYNDICATE 15 July 1998 Re: THE PRICE OF ISEA98 There is criticism of the level of fees payable for attending ISEA98. Some of this criticism is ill-informed. This statement aims to contribute to future criticism being better-informed, accurate and constructive. ACADEMICS ISEA98 is an academic conference as previous ISEA symposia have been. Universities pay their academic staff to produce research. When this research is published the University is paid, in turn, by its funding authority. Research can be "published" by way of exhibition, publication in various media and presentation at conference. Thus Universities pay for their academics to attend and present at conferences as an effective means of recouping expenditure on previous research and advance funding new research. A number of academics wishing to present at ISEA98 have been refused funds from their own universities to do so. This may be because these universities have pre-allocated their research monies to other projects, it may be the academic has already received significant research subsidies this year and to receive more would not be equitable, other reasons, etc.,etc.,. A smaller number of academics to whom their own institutions have refused support have requested subsidy from Liverpool Art School. The School's prime task, like any other university, is to maximise the excellence of its teaching to its students. To this end it has a limited research programme for its academic staff, to be used as described above. To suggest these resources should be used to subsidise proposals rejected by their originator's own institutions is unfortunate. ARTISTS It is gratifying that artists wish to attend an academic conference. At ISEA98 they do. (A) Registration fees have been waived for the sixty invited artists participating in the FACT / ISEA98 programme. This is extra to any fees and expenses payable to them directly via FACT. Alongside the exhibition programme, Liverpool Art School has commissioned and curated an evening programme of electronic music performances. Obviously, participating artists are not paying to attend, additional fees and expenses are being paid in many cases. (B) Shockingly, sometimes artists and academics can be one and the same thing. Liverpool Art School is not exceptional in that the majority of its teaching staff are practising artists. A significant number of artists will attend at ISEA98 at the expense of universities and academies world-wide. (C) A number of artists, without institutional funding and not participating in the FACT/ISEA98 exhibition programme, wish to attend at ISEA98 but maintain their fees should be waived and their expenses met. This is debatable. Attending ISEA98 is not an obligation, it is an option like buying food from a supermarket or a ticket for a music concert. Perhaps some artists believe all these things should be free to them simply because they are artists. If this were granted, would everyone seek these benefits by becoming an artist? N.B. a status not conferred (by institution or qualification) but (self) declared by the individual. THE FEES Registration fees represent the income needed, without profit, to cover the real expenses of hosting ISEA98. Like for like, they equate with, and in some cases are less expensive than, comparable events including ISEA97 at Chicago. Since ISEA98 registration fees were fixed, the Pacific currency crisis has worsened thus increasing real expense values for delegates attending from effected regions. Two observations: ISEA98 is not responsible for this and costs to the institutions hosting ISEA98 in the UK remain the same. DIVERSITY It is obvious (?) that waiving registration fees and other charges for attenders at ISEA98 does not 'disappear' the real cost to the host of such non fee-paying attenders actually being there. If this were the case then the hosts would waive fees for everybody cleverly reducing their costs to nothing. In other words if you are not paying to be at ISEA someone else is paying for you. The actual attendance of diverse and traditionally excluded people at ISEA98, as opposed to those expert in describing them, is and remains axiomatic. Having limited resources - no central university subsidy to the actual school hosting the symposium (unlike Chicago), no major private sector or corporate sponsor and the absence of any Inter-Society resources for the purpose, the partners hosting ISEA98 have had to be imaginative, precise and consistent in formulating and implementing a support initiative. This, I believe ,has been acheived and a fascinating, challenging programme as a result. As illustration enclosed below is the standard text used to decline grant of subsidy. it serves to spell out our criteria and use of it. "Dear XX XXXXX @ 15 July 1998 Regarding: ISEA98 Diversity Assistance Status To date Liverpool Art School has invited 153 artists, academics, inventors and commentators to participate in the Revolution Symposium programme at Liverpool as part of ISEA98 (the Ninth International Symposium on Electronic Art). Together with the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts and Manchester Metropolitan University, Liverpool Art School has granted Diversity Assistance Status (DAS) to twenty-five of these invited presenters. They will not pay fees to attend at both Liverpool and Manchester. The Universities will pay their accomodation expenses whilst at ISEA98 and any associated travel costs within the U.K. In a number of cases we are paying for trans-continential travel and additional expenses. In terms of real costs and waived income this represents significant expenditure. To help defray these costs the Inter-Society requested the Universities to redirect the fees payable to itself (for the right to host the symposia) to supporting the DAS initiative. In principal, Liverpool Art School's approach has been to maximise benefits to the most excluded. The majority of those granted DAS are from under-achieving economies with minimal IT infrastructure access to which is restricted or difficult. In practise this has resulted in minimal subsidy to North America and Western Europe. These criteria, like all others, are subject to challenge. North America and Western Europe are not without poverty and exclusion. However, the resources Liverpool Art School have to deploy are limited, as I am certain they are in every other university including your own. Under such circumstances criteria have to be defined and applied. Liverpool Art School is currently unable to waive registration fees on your behalf. Best wishes, John Brady ISEA98 Research Co-ordinator Liverpool Revolution Symposium" Incidently, the majority of those asking for fees to be waived and, in some cases, for expenses to be met have access to telephone, fax and computer, have an email account and in many cases a personal web-site or two. By definition they are part of that 10% of the global population having more wealth than the remaining 90% combined. In an ideal, fully sponsored world everybody would attend at ISEA free and even be paid a large fee. (Would this devalue ISEA? ). In the actual, virtual world , in addition to the above, the ISEA98 partners are committing resources to a webcast / jam aiming to make acceessible as much as possible to those not physically at the symposium / exhibition sites. John Brady ISEA98 Research Co-ordinator Liverpool Revolution Symposium LIVERPOOL ART SCHOOL * 42 HOPE STREET * LIVERPOOL L1 9 HW * UK * T++44 (0)151 709 3420 F++44 (0)151 231 5096 * isea98@livjm.ac.uk * http://www.isea98.org