Mute Magazine protest letter against arts cuts
Article published: Monday, April 11th 2011
The Manchester MULE editorial collective have signed a letter written by Mute Magazine to the Guardian in response to huge cuts across the UK in arts funding. Mute was one of many which just lost all its core funding from Arts Council England. The full letter is copied below.
To: The Editor, Guardian
cc: Alan Davey, Chief Executive, Arts Council England; Dame Liz Forgan, Chair, Arts Council England
April 8th, 2011
We are writing to express our dismay at the savagery of the cuts to the culture sector reported last week (Guardian, 30 March) and to draw attention to some of the less obvious collateral damage. As contributors to, and readers of, one of the many organizations defunded last week that went unmentioned, we are in a position to appreciate the important role of Mute Publishing since the mid-90s, a beacon in the digital-culture landscape and a vital international forum for intellectual debate and exchange in the field of art and culture.
Looking in from outside the UK, it seems to us that Arts Council England (ACE) has disastrously miscalculated the value of many such ‘marginal’ cultural producers now feeling the axe, even those that do not have, uniquely in our experience, Mute’s range and depth and commitment to engage across barriers and borders. All the more valuable, indeed, at a time of brutal encroachment upon what is left of the public sphere and enclosure of the cultural commons, compounded by the neoliberalization of universities and the bonfire of the humanities.
At such moments, outfits like Mute provide a vital space where open-ended, non-determined discussions are fostered, discussions that may take years – literally – to make any significant appearance in the ‘mainstream media’. These conversations are the life-blood for writers, thinkers and artists; they offer an irresistible attraction precisely because they are not tethered to institutional, strategic and commercial interests that drive more ‘visible’ forums. Belying its financial precarity, Mute has engaged a veritable bank of issues ahead of other far better resourced producers, publishing germinal texts on education, the knowledge economy, regeneration, intellectual property, web 2.0, immaterial labour, music, film and urbanism.
It is therefore with real sadness that we learn of the blow it has been dealt, which affects us all, but are not surprised that the Mute crew is meeting it with the strident optimism and independence their recent public statements demonstrate. The Chair of the Arts Council recently vouchsafed that ‘Our artists, musicians, actors, directors, sculptors, acrobats, writers, dreamers and inventors are as precious a resource as North Sea oil or the coalfields, and they are a lot more renewable and enduring’. Even judged by this grisly instrumental calculus, ACE has cut off its nose to spite its face. Nevertheless Dame Liz Forgan is right about one thing: the critical community and the valuable work Mute has occasioned will endure after the North Sea oil has run dry.
Yours sincerely,
Anustup Basu, Amita Baviskar, Iain Boal, Peter Linebaugh, Geert Lovink, Angela Mitropoulos, Richard Pithouse, Tiziana Terranova
David Harvie, Dave Beech, Jonathan Kemp, Matthew Fuller, Marina Vishmidt, Soenke Zehle, Timothy Murray, Paul Caplan, Ken Turner, Nick Thoburn, Yaiza Hernández Velázquez, Melissa Bliss, Elysa Lozano, Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, Rodrigo Nunes, John Cayley, Peter Conlin, David Gunn, Martin Howse, Rachel Withers, Josephine Bosma, Benedict Seymour, John Douglas Millar, Kirsten Forkert, Anja Kirschner, Alastair Kemp, Mark Jackson, Jane Cheadle, Anthony Davies, Emily Bick, Chris Carlsson, Evan Calder Williams,Paul Helliwell, Suzanne Treister, John Cunningham, Amy Balkin, Adam Walker, Pat Naldi, Irina Aristarkhova, Geoff Cox, Hari Kunzru, Mira Mattar, Graham Harwood, Matsuko Yokokoji, John Russell, Kate Rich, Ian Willey, Gregor Claude, Steve Wright, Jon Bywater, Owen Hatherley, Lee Worden, Tom Moore, Omar Kholeif, Agnese Trocchi, David Garcia, Manchester Mule editorial collective (Andy Lockhart, Richard Goulding, Tom Fox, Michael Pooler, Tim Hunt, Andy Bowman), Maija Timonen, Ben Pritchett, Alan W. Moore, Brett Neilson, Nat Muller, Benjamin Noys, Michael Corris, Kristian Byskov, George Caffentzis, Sissu Tarka, Isidro López-Aparicio, Susan Hiller, Stephan Dillemuth, Michael Reid, Shift Editorial Group, David Kilburn, Anthony Iles, Monika Vykoukal, Hestia Peppe, Mattin, Caroline Bassett, Dex Wright, Søren Pold, Irene Montero Sabin, David Rogerson, Dave Mandl
The original of the letter – with more names being added all the time – can be found here. Mute is an online and print magazine exploring culture and politics after the net. Their website is here.
More: Blog
Comments
No comments found
The comments are closed.
