Symposium 2017: Funding the Arts vs. Funding the Creative Economy – A (Late) Attempt at Mediation

Program

This event is held mostly in German.

9:30 am Admission

10:00 am Greeting by the LAFT board

10:15 am
Presentation by Dr. Alexandra Manske (Universität Hamburg)
"Outrage in the Culture Sector - or Why Insisting on an Artistic Self Does Not Constitute a Policy of Anti-Subjugation"
This presentation deals with the question of how the relationship of artists and creatives can be described from a sociological perspective. Finding an answer for this becomes all the more urgent as artists have described themselves up to now as "creative" and as "independent contractors". At the same time, the self-designation as a creative or contractor stands in a charged relationship to a dispute currently taking place within the independent culture community which defends itself against being made into the stardust of a culturally decorated economy. How can the social relationship of artists and creatives be described? According to this thesis, there is a contradictory blurring of the definition of artist where aesthetic, political and financial concepts are combined in the societal function of artists. The problem will be discussed from a variety of perspectives, including a socio-historical perspective that accents the term artists as a bourgeoisie project surface as well as from a socio-structural perspective to illuminate status cases from project-based work.
Biography

11:00 am
Presentation by Julian Knoth (singer and bassist of the band Die Nerven)
"How I Accidentally Became a Musician"
As a young person who had the feeling that they somehow had to express something artistically, I just did it. And then I find myself in a role that I simply had to accept for the time being: I had become a musician. From conflict with the music business and the happiness of having gone done exactly this path. Now this sounds like the blurb in a pretty bad advice book, I’m not going to apologize for that.
Biography

11:15 am
Presentation by Melanie Seifart (Berliner Beratungszentrums für Kulturförderung und Kreativwirtschaft)

11:30 am
Three parallel workshops:
 

• Andreas Lübbers
  Since 2009, following the report of the Enquete Commission of the German Bundestag and the definition of the creative economy sector according to Södermann adopted there, the creative economy has been perceived as the third-strongest market segment in the GDP. Since then, funding for business development has been controversially discussed in relation to funding for culture.   The conversation regarding the distinction between financial orientation and artist production beyond an economization is far from over. 
  A cultural policy workshop intended to clarify the question:
  what type of business development funding do we actually want?
  What needs for business development funding for the members of the independent performing arts community can we recognize and which funding instruments could be useful for meeting these needs?
  Biography
   
• Lukas Franke
  Criticism is Part of Our Brand
  Can culture makers still somehow escape the neoliberal embrace?
  The promise of artistic and creative work is individual freedom and self-actualization and the reality is almost always self-exploitation and self-optimization for a merciless market. Are independent artists, culture makers and creatives aware of their ambivalent role as archetypal workers of a borderless and uninhibited economy? And what can they do to evade the grasp of capitalistic logic of exploitation and an existence of artistic precariousness?
  Biography
   
• Peter Kessel and Melanie Seifart
  Practical workshop: Development of a Business Plan Groups, companies and individual artists within the independent performing arts community who would like to develop a business plan can learn the most important foundations for creating an individual business plan according to the lean canvas model in this compact workshop.
   

12:30 pm
Shared lunch

1:30 pm
Continuation of the three workshops

2:30 pm
Closing presentation by Lisa Basten (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung)
"Creative Enterprise vs. Arts as a Vocation. On New Differences and Old Structures in Our Labor World"
The presentation starts at the point at which a theater or dance project is created, in which time is invested. For the financial remuneration for the work conducted, it does not make any difference where the funding comes from. Money from an artistic source of funding does not buy more bread than money from a funding source interested in financial exploitation.
The meaningful difference for the individual artist involved in a project that is part of the independent performing arts community is not the origin of the money; the meaningful difference is the amount.
Biography