pubblicato il 23 Agosto 2005 · 3,042 letture
Media Lab Europe al capolinea
di Stefano Minguzzi
Il Media Lab Europe di Dublino, la costola europea del MIT (Massachussets Institute of Technology) di Boston, ha annunciato la sua chiusura per mancanza di fondi. E’ la crisi di un modello o solo l’ultimo fallimento della neweconomy?
Il Board of Directors del Media Lab Europe ha annunciato il 14 gennaio 2005 che sta mettendo l’intero istituto in liquidazione. Il Media Lab chiude.
La decisione e’ stata presa perche’ i principali finanziatori, il governo irlandese e il MIT, non hanno raggiunto un’intesa sul sistema di finanziamento dell’ente.
L’anno scorso il Lab aveva avvisato che i livelli di autofinanziamento non erano sufficienti per garantire un futuro ai progetti di ricerca. Quindi, in maggio, ha presentato un piano strategico al Governo ed al MIT per cercare nuovi fondi.
Gran parte del personale che ha lavorato al Lab proveniva da tutta Europa e e dagli USA oltre che dall’Irlanda. Il fallimento del Media Lab europeo ad attrarre sponsor e’ stato una conseguenza sia della crisi della neweconomy post2000, che conseguenza di un modello poco chiaro e abbastanza atipico incapace di portare i potenziali sponsor ai diversi progetti di ricerca che il Lab in questi pochi anni ha condotto.
Il modello utilizzato, come sostiene Mark Stallman nella mailing list transeuropea Nettime, era obsoleto gia’ negli anni ‘90 quando il Lab venne creato. L’intenzione del MIT probabilmente e’ stata quella di espandere in aree geografiche piu’ arretrare rispetto agli USA modelli che nell’allora recente passato avevano funzionato. La bolla della neweconomy ha funzionato da motore, ma appena questa e’ venuta meno il modello non ha avuto chance.
Alla fine il Media Lab ha probabilmente perso la sua scommessa per non essere stato capace di dialogare ed integrare al suo interno le istituzioni locali piuttosto che per la qualita’ della sua ricerca.
Forse pero’ il modello di fund-raising adottato dalle multinazionali ha raggiunto un suo limite che al momento non e’ valicabile se non ripartendo da zero altrove. Allo stesso tempo restare piccoli ed indipendenti non garantisce di per se’ un modello vincente. Non c’e’ sostanziale differenza tra una societa’ co 200 persone e pochi milioni di euro di fondi ed una piccola realta’ di 2 persone e 20 euro.
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1 commento per il momento.
[on 13 june 05, Rob van Kranenburg asked on this list: 'what's
next?', quoting the 'restructuring' of IVREA and the closure of the
MIT Media Lab in Dublin; we have also recently seen the termination
of the Radiator Festival, Kopenhagen/DK, of CICV, Montbeliard/FR, of
the World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam/NL, as well as the scaling
down of Electrohype, Malmoe/SE, Public Netbase, Vienna/AT, and of
HTBA Hull Time Based Arts, Hull/UK; while each of these cases has its
particular local, national or even personal reasons, it is difficult
not to think that there is some sort of a pattern which, at least in
part, reverses the 1990s institutional expansion of media culture and
media art; and what do we make of these rumours from Tokyo? abroeck]
posted by permission of the author, Mr. OZAKI Tetsuya, of ART iT and
REALTOKYO - http://www.artit.jp/ - http://www.realtokyo.co.jp/ )
a PDF version in Japanese and English is at
http://www.realtokyo.co.jp/japanese/column/102-103_Behind_the_Scenes.pdf
Behind the Scenes #003
NTT InterCommunication Center
Reporting/text: Ozaki Tetsuya (ART iT editorial department)
Is the ICC closing?
Rumor has it that the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) will close
at the end of the 2005 financial year, i.e. in March 2006. So is this
pioneering facility so central to Japanese media art really about to
disappear? ART iT went in pursuit of the true story.
When asked to respond to questions on the rumored closing of ICC,
“regretfully declining” to meet in person to discuss the matter the
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation (NTT East) public
relations office stated, “Basically this is an issue we’re looking
into at present, while monitoring the operating environment. We need
to achieve greater efficiency in operations, and are investigating
closure as one option, but at this stage can’t comment further.”
However, the exhibition schedule for ICC only runs to
December 2005, while the library and cafe in the lobby were closed in
March this year. Insiders say that although they’ve been told an
official decision has yet to be made, exhibition plans from the end
of the year are under wraps, and they’ve been directed to “finish up
all paperwork” by March 2006. Several people involved with ICC have
testified that news of the closure policy came from above around the
end of 2004/start of 2005. ICC is run by NTT Learning Systems, part
of the NTT Group, and “above” refers to further up the chain, i.e.
NTT East itself.
Radical changes in operating structure over the years
The ICC project was launched in 1990 by NTT to mark a century of
telephone services in Japan, with pre-opening activities commencing
the following year once the basic concept was in place. These were
ambitious endeavors, and included The Museum Inside the Telephone
Network exhibition (1991) predating widespread use of the Internet,
and launch of the bulletin InterCommunication (1992). Opening in
April 1997 in Tokyo Opera City, ICC became an international base for
media art on a par with Ars Electronica Center, Linz and ZKM in
Karlsruhe. Closing temporarily in autumn 2000, it reopened the
following spring in far smaller premises with major cuts to staff and
budget.
During this period ICC underwent some radical changes in
operating structure. Initially the trio of Asada Akira (history of
social thought), Ito Toshiharu (art history) and Hikosaka Yutaka
(architect) were closely involved in drafting programs for the
facility as members of the ICC Committee, however 1996, the year
before opening, saw the appointment of art critic and former
researcher at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, Nakamura Keiji (who
passed away in March this year) as deputy director of ICC,
accompanied by frequent replenishment and additions to the curatorial
ranks. About two years after opening, the system changed to one of a
program committee including the trio above, while at the same time
meetings of a group of “elders” including the architect Isozaki Arata
continued to be convened. One thing very Japanese about the whole
setup was the way in which the museum director was appointed: the
first assigned by NTT head office knowing nothing about art as whole,
let alone media art.
Following the opening of the revamped ICC in 2001, incredibly
NTT decided not to appoint a director at all. Conversely though
perhaps this and the other substantial cuts to operations actually
did some good, as the museum’s programs seemed to roll out more
smoothly. In particular, since 2004 the ICC has acquired some
powerful assistance in the shape of Sumitomo Fumihiko (see ART iT
Vol. 2 No. 4 Curator Interview A.I.T.) of the Office for the 21st
Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa Construction, and
Shikata Yukiko (see ART iT Vol. 3 No. 1), producer of numerous media
art shows for the Canon Art Lab, Mori Art Museum and as an
independent, forming a three curator team with sound art expert
Hatanaka Minoru that has organized a series of interesting shows. The
museum attracts around 40 - 50,000 visitors annually. Average
admissions are around 10,000 for each show, with Maywa Denki’s The
Nonsense Machines drawing 23,000.
“NTT’s social responsibility”
However, closing the ICC would mean laying off Sumitomo and Shikata
not even two years after their appointment. In fact not just this
pair but the majority of the just under 20 staff, i.e. curatorial,
public relations, engineering and reception staff, are either
contract employees, temps or part-timers, so would suffer a similar
fate. And while the issue of their employment is important, there are
two other problems accompanying closure that also come immediately to
mind.
What will become of the collection?
ICC has a collection of 14 works by artists such as Iwai Toshio, Dumb
Type and Jeffrey Shaw, as well as video works by Bill Viola and Gary
Hill to name just two. What potential is there to donate these to a
similar facility, rather than returning them to the artists?
What will become of the ICC databases?
Apart from a program of database construction in place since ICC’s
opening, the facility is currently developing an archive dubbed HIVE.
At present the archive is limited to local use, i.e. within ICC,
however word has it that the system is being upgraded with the idea
of making it available generally on the Internet. Would this continue
as a Web project after closing?
There are numerous other issues surrounding closing of the ICC that I
won’t go into here, such as whether the 15 years of the facility’s
activities will be documented in any way, and what kind of facility
or institution will take over the international connections
cultivated over the years of ICC’s existence.
At ICC itself some are hoping management will pass to another
company in the NTT Group, however as far as one can tell from the
current situation, this seems unlikely. NTT (the holding company,
i.e. even further up the chain) posted a year-on-year decline in
operating income of 22.4% down to 1.2 trillion yen for FY2004, the
company’s first fall in profit since privatization. At an interview
with the author in 1998, the first director of ICC stated that “being
part of NTT’s policy of social responsibility, we won’t let this
project die.” But how much faith can we put in such assurances…?
The best outcome of course would be for ICC to continue its
activities. If this is not feasible, as the next best course of
action I hope those at the top, if they do decide to close the
facility, take sufficient time to complete the necessary mopping up
operations, including solving the aforementioned problems. Even just
finding a destination for the collection is not a task able to be
completed in a few months. The whole scenario is connected also with
the recent issue of problems with the operation of public art
museums, but whether public or private, museum operators need to
seriously consider what it means to be a facility for the community.