Re: <nettime> a free letter to cultural institutions

[morlockelloi@yahoo.com]

It seems that there is disconnection here: terms market, art, labour, 
culture, production, demand, reward are cherry-picked to prove this or 
that point, throwing them as needed in disjunct contexts.

From a purely 'market' PoV, there are:

(1) a limited (as in not infinite) cash-supported demand, and it's doing 
fine. This demand is adequately met by the production of some 0.1% of 
the 'artist' population, and the rest have lottery-class chances of 
getting in.

(2) far less limited 'cultural' demand, which is perhaps best defined as 
non-cash-supported, and can be loosely defined as superset of ideas, 
ideologies, individual inclinations, etc. regarding what 'society' 
needs/wants. Every single 'artist' can produce something for this 
market, as there are at least few people who will buy it, paying with 
flatter, emotional support, drinks, sex, tips, etc.

The confusion arises when (1) and (2) are mixed up. They are completely 
separate mechanisms. (1) influences feeble-minded and somewhat shapes 
(2). (2) migrates to (1) by the mentioned lottery system.

It is unlikely that any particular licensing mechanism (it's silly to 
talk about licensing where no real money is involved and participants 
can't afford real lawyers) will affect the lottery, so perhaps the best 
strategy is the shotgun approach - get your stuff everywhere and hope 
for the best. While operating in the market (2), licensing makes no 
difference anyway - nazis will use the stuff regardless of licensing. 
The whole licensing paradigm in this market looks more like a cargo 
cult: if I attach some 'free/community/fair' license to my stuff maybe 
the real money will land.

If the artist gets a winning ticket and enters (1), it will be very 
traditional licensing enforced by a very traditional system.

Contrary to the wishful thinking, there is no evidence of middle ground.




> First and foremost there is a confusion between the terms "art" and
> "culture", which is created already in Ozgur's open letter and oddly
> whipped up by Aymeric. Art production is quite different from cultural




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