From: Rick Prelinger (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Aug 20 2008 - 06:49:31 PDT
Access to tools.
Every story is different, but many media arts centers like FAF came into existence because makers needed access to expensive tools.
Most of them date back to the 1970s, a few earlier or later. That's when Steenbecks cost $40,000. Now people give them away on Craigslist.
Most production shifted to video, then digital video. Tools got really cheap. The shrinking number of filmmakers were mostly too busy working (and trying to survive) to form organizations of their own geared towards keeping film tools, film services available and film cultures alive. Funders saw that ordinary, mostly formally untrained people had loaded over 120 million videos on YouTube, and figured that was where the action is. Institutional models of making work (in which makers found services, tools and advice from media orgs) were mostly replaced by individual models (in which makers work, live and die in isolation).
I remember people lining up outside PFA to make sure they could get into the premiere of "Text of Light.". I remember crowds showing up to see Gunvor Nelson's work. Everything came together around film -- art, politics, experience, community. Now people do it at Burning Man.
What I take away from this is that where organizations still exist, they really need our support, whether you use them or not. Help keep the Echo Parks and Squeaky Wheels alive.
And no slag on secretaries, but archivists aren't secretaries. Like secretaries, though, we don't get much respect until someone needs footage.
Rick
Rick Prelinger
Prelinger Library & Archives, San Francisco
Board President, Internet Archive
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Carlile <email suppressed>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:53:27
To: <email suppressed>
Subject: Re: FAF/SFFS
In a message dated 8/19/2008 9:25:54 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
email suppressed writes:
The question now remains: What sort of new model for arts funding and
education can we, as a community create that will sustain us long into the future?
p.s.--
how about a model that is based around working, rather than organizing, or
meeting, or creating an archive, or all the other secretarial tasks that many
people seem to prefer to the real thing.
**************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel
deal here.
(http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.