My comments and observations are given as a digital media practitioner, lecturer in Media production and whose practice and experience emerges from the position of being British born with a Caribbean heritage, living and working in Britain.

Writing in a reflexive and discursive way, I would like to comment on the globalised economy of ‘culturally diverse’ practice as funded and practiced by Western¹  cultural institutions and individuals such as ISEA.

Let us be clear, adopting a ‘culturally diverse’ practice in electronic arts through arts institutions such as ISEA is a western phenomenon. It emerges from an attempt by individuals, citizens and agencies in European and North American countries, to be more inclusive towards the arts, artists and audiences of minority populations that form part of their societies. It is also a concern to recognise a more international and global form of electronic arts practice that spans the various continents including Asia and Africa, South America and Australia. I do believe it comes from a genuine, liberal and well-intentioned form of reaching out to include a wider global audience, to have knowledge of and support different international forms of practice.

While such generous, albeit anxious gestures continue to be made about the globe under the guise of diversity, I would contend that the issue remains highly problematic and continues to be ineffective. It fundamentally can be seen as a project that continues to sustain an economy in which the west and its majority populations benefit.

‘Culturally diverse’ economy² of electronic arts practice

Electronic Arts practice operates in a globalised information and knowledge economy in which the west continues to dominate (for the moment). In England, our government sees the strengthening of an information and computer-based economy (particularly the notion of the culture industries), as a future stabilising economic force for the European Community.

We also know the economic gap between rich and poor has reached an all time high based on what can only be described as a particularly brutal world economy that continues to sustain wealthy Western populations. This gap also appears amongst most populations of a single country, but crucially it is at its worst operating between European and North American countries, and the world populations in the southern countries of Africa, Central and Southern America, and majority populations of the Far East.

My concern is to call into question the way in which ‘cultural diversity’ as a project is being used as a way of sustaining the existing economy of electronic arts practice as we experience it in Europe and North American countries. That is to say – who exactly benefits from the project of culturally diverse arts practice? Who benefits in owning, acquiring and sustaining the skills, equipment, production, distribution, management of electronic arts services and provision while engaging with the notion of cultural diversity?

Beneficiaries are crucial to this concept.

I am not interested in giving specific examples or naming institutions and individuals. It is easy for us to reflect and refer to examples from our own specific experience as artists, curators, academics and technicians. The implementation of ‘culturally diverse’ practice of electronic arts I have experienced or seen funded in Europe and North America, can be categorised in two ways:

The first category involves ‘international’ artists and their work brought in from beyond its borders to be enjoyed by an audience in Europe and North America. A temporary arrangement is made in which the artist/s and audience encounter a culturally different experience of electronic artwork. This may be experienced as part of a festival, event, performance or exhibition. This is often a form of ‘importing’ cultural difference into European and North American borders. The artwork and artist/s are here for a while, enriching our cultural experience, it is enjoyed and remembered by many, and finally returns with the artists who have brought it. The immediate financial benefit for the artist/s is more than likely to form the smallest part of the budget, seen within the wider cost of hosting the event or performance. The real benefit remains within the recipient host European/North American country.

Of course, the international artist/s expertise and knowledge gained from the experience is expected to be highly significant and valued by the artist/s concerned. Needless to say, that the audience remembers and cherishes an unusual and unfamiliar experience. Yet this pales into insignificance when comparing the cumulative expertise and knowledge acquired and gained by the technicians, managers, curators, designers, engineers, etc. who facilitated the production and process in London, New York or Berlin. This form of ‘culturally diverse practice’ cannot be described as an exchange (let alone an equitable one) of knowledge, experience or mutual financial benefit. Further still, in art forms such as music and video work, intellectual copyright based on a performance in Western countries additionally disadvantages the artist from outside of Europe and North America. Long-term financial gain is made from the media product merchandise (DVD’s, Audio CD’s for example) of the performance or event. Unless a radically different economy is set up, the normal beneficiaries of the experience, the knowledge and the financial economy of this venture remains the same.

The second common example is where culturally diverse practice of electronic arts is often ‘naively’ translated into art projects for the minority populations and communities living in European and North American countries. This model includes the encouragement and active engagement of artist/s whose background/s may be from the minority populations targeted. In this instance, electronic art practice is seen as being a project about ‘socially inclusivity’ that often includes workshops and taster sessions, discussion groups or commissions in public spaces (see ISEA 2006). They are often seen as integral projects to festival seasons and tourist income generation summer activities in Europe and North America.

The notion of ‘the communities’ and the artist of a minority population benefiting in real terms is at best spurious. Rarely have I seen the commission or workshop conceptualised in a way that sets in place a transformative process for knowledge, expertise and financial gain from one group of people who devised the venture to the ‘community’ and artist that it has been chosen to involve. Sure, it may be that twenty young women from refugee communities may have had hands on experience (for a limited period) of digital video, Internet skills or making videos using mobile phone technology. Sure, the artist may benefit through financial gain and European artistic recognition. But certainly in Britain, we are well aware of the pitfalls and dangers associated with the notion of ‘access’, minority artist/s and ‘community based arts practice’.
There continues to be very few arts agencies or institutions run and managed by people from minority populations who control and manage significant national events, arts institutions and cultural artistic budgets. The full range of expertise for fundraising, curating, producing, accounting for, managing, running and creating electronic arts practice is hardly ever devolved to individuals of minority populations or organising bodies of their communities.

Culturally diverse arts practice therefore remains an exercise of a small and rather insignificant gesture and gift of a cultural artistic experience, without the intention of handing over control. There seems to be little intention to put in place systems in which ‘communities’ and individuals are left with the expertise to run their own show and contribute to the wider intellectual and creative debates and developments of electronic arts. As artists descendant of minority populations, we create and make interventions despite this.
 
My contention is that in anxiously reaching out to embrace the project of cultural diversity, institutions and its population of individuals such as ISEA are failing to recognise the power base they are operating from and working within. An arts institution that operates a policy of diversity is more than likely merely reproducing an economy of knowledge creation and production that is involved in sustaining itself. The failure to recognise the power and control of living and practicing within a European/North American framework makes a mockery of the original good gesture behind the cultural diversity project. A genuine intention of culturally diverse practice involves giving way and taking a step back. Individually and collectively, cultural diverse practice means demonstrating a commitment to allowing other individuals and institutions that emerge from minority populations within and increasingly outside of the European and North American borders so they may produce, manage and organise their own practice. Rather than individually stepping in and taking up the funding, expertise and knowledge on offer, there has to be a readiness to give away and devolve responsibility. If individually we are not willing to give way and show such generosity, it means the economy, energy and funding continues to sustain us as academics, artists and practitioners to create things and debate ideas that stay within a wealthy Western experience.

Very rarely does an economy include a long-term commitment to devolve responsibility, knowledge and ownership to disenfranchised communities let alone populations beyond its borders. And yet there are some important and (long overdue) gestures being made around global economies of debt relief and fair trade, which are based on corrective measures to compensate for an inherently unbalanced financial and administrative system that has always favoured the rich over the disenfranchised. The electronic arts economy is no different. ISEA could only benefit from having a position on cultural diversity that wants to devolve and transform electronic arts practice as it currently exists – that is with an intention to stop mimicking and sustaining an information/knowledge economy about digital technology in which only the rich and privileged minority continue to creatively silence a majority.  

© Roshini Kempadoo

This article was originally published in the ISEA Newsletter #101 - ISSN 1488-3635 #100, June - August 2005

Notes:

^1. I use the term western here rather crudely in this text since ISEA is predominantly sustained within a westernised aesthetic, sensibility and funding system. It is also important to acknowledge that Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and other surrounding Eastern economies have also played an important part in contributing to different types of electronic artistic endeavours and approaches and who have highly significant economies driven by technological development. They seem less engaged with the notion of cultural diversity and how this might be inscribed into an association and practice and will not be referred to in this commentary.

^2. In this commentary, I use the term economy to refer to the notion of ownership, exchange and acquisition of skills and knowledge of electronic arts production and the product/processes/financial economy of electronic arts practice.