VIVO (the media arts group formerly known as Video In) surprised everyone by refusing Cultural Olympiad funding – not because of who they are, but because just about everyone else who was there at the time did take funding. And no surprise. The Cultural Olympiad handed out more than $20 million to local cultural and arts groups. Saying no to money is hard enough, even harder if you’re a cash strapped arts organization, which they all are.
But look what’s happened now. Gordon Campbell’s Liberals have announced the largest cuts to cultural spending in the history of the province. According to the Tyee, the Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture, provincial funding for arts will fall a staggering 88 per cent over two years, from $19.5 million in 2008-’09 down to a vindictive $2.25 million in 2010-’11. Artists and arts organizations are understandably in shock, and the $20 million Olympic largess is starting to look not only like a cultural Trojan horse that will leave many arts groups facing questions of survivability, but also like a cynical plundering of the public purse for a two week party of Olympiads. There is a one helluva hangover coming, and British Columbia artists will be among the first to feel it.
Recognizing the complicated position that arts groups and artists participating in the Cultural Olympiad were in, VIVO has created a series of cultural events inviting the wider community to explore the dynamics of political dissent and public engagement in Vancouver and during the 2010 Olympics. One of them is [de]tour Vancouver 2010, a Google map of Vancouver’s history and present of civic engagement, artist groups and local progressive economies (see below), Another is Safe Assembly, two weeks of public conversation about resistance to and criticism of the Olympic machine.
In this report, I speak with Cheyanne Turions and Emilio Rojas from VIVO, two of the creators of the Safe Assembly programming at VIVO during the Winter games. They describe the creative thinking behind Safe Assembly, the programs and performances, collaboration with activists and artists in London (2012) and Sachi (2014) and what happened when Industry Canada representatives showed up at their studies wearing VANOC blazers to shut down their low-power radio broadcast of the news.
On Wednesday night, the Safe Assembly Newscast at VIVO, a local artist run media arts organization, was host to a tumultuous gathering of activists come to discuss the tactics of property damage used in last Saturday’s Heart Attack 2010 rally. The so-called “black block” vandalized newspaper boxes and smashed windows including the Hudson’s Bay. There were arrests, and the images of angry black-clad protesters breaking things and getting taken down by riot police whizzed around the world. Shortly after, David Eby, head of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), denounced the vandalism causing a furor within the anti-Olympic movement. Among other things, these events have caused a significant and deep rupture within the anti-Olympic movement itself.
About 100 or so local organizers and activists gathered in the VIVO studios. Many were from the Olympic Resistance Movement, but there was also a vocal contingent who supported the strategies of the ‘black block’. (And, it seems, there was a cop or two in attendance – a staffer told me that he served a beer to a guy who looked remarkably like the photo of one of the undercover cops recently outed at the Tent City protest in the Downtown East Side.) Even Libby Davies, Member of Parliament for Vancouver East, was there.
The mood in the room was tense. Before the newscast got underway, David Eby, BCCLA Executive Director, had a pie thrown in his face. The event set the tone for the evening.
This is the first in a series of video reports (video embedded at the end of the post) focusing on the independent media and cultural events of the Vancouver Olympic Games, where contributing Editor Michael Lithgow is on the scene.
It’s complicated and exciting here in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver, home of the critical conversation about the Olympic games and their human cost. What is making this conversation possible, diverse and accessible to people around the world is the rich diversity of social and citizens media groups and cultural events taking place – an unprecedented people’s media event that has grown in response to one of the world’s largest media spectacles: the Olympic Games.
On the ground there are a number of organizations involved in the independent media movement and events taking place. A quick bird’s eye view: W2 Culture and Media House, an social media resource center providing internet and work spaces for unaccreditied artists and journalists, editing facilities, a visual art gallery, and host to a month-long “subculture” arts festival. There is the Vancouver Media Coop, an offshoot of the Dominion Newspaper providing a quick, daily, on the ground coverage of what is happening in the streets, the protests, police actions and in general news central for the Anti-Olympic Resistance Movement — all through community participation. There is Fearless TV, a community television production outfit located in the Downtown East Side providing live streaming video of various press conferences and cultural events. There is VIVO, host to a series of newscasts and discussions called Safe Assembly bringing activists, artists and thinkers together to reflect on resistance, the Olympics, media and culture as it unfolds during the Olympic games. And there are the dozen or so art galleries in the DTES hosting a cultural festival Bright Light, bringing together a provocative collection of installations contributing to the critical conversation about the Olympics games.
In January, the makers of the P2P project formerly known as Pirate Bay launched ipredator, a pay-service that allows complete anonymity while sharing files through P2P networks.
As most of our readers will be all too familiar with, P2P networks have emerged as significant and alternative distribution channels for all kinds of cultural and artistic materials – films and documentaries, music, texts, etc. – a strategy that has pitted intellectual property merchants against advocates for a more expansive cultural commons. And while anonymity may be the new arms race in this battle of online wits, the real gamble is whether or not people will be willing to pay a price for the privilege of secrecy. Ipredator costs about 5 euros a month to join.
In a recent article on TorrentFreak, ipredator said that they will encrypt not only the connection between individual users and the ipredator network, but also all data leaving the network. The weak link in the identity chain will be the host of the network, and this is how ipredator wants to set itself apart in the market of virtual networks: ipredator will apparently not keep data logs or user details. If the servers are seized, there will be no records of how the network was used, by whom and for what.
It is a challenging parry in the ongoing dual between information freedom fighters and the intellectual property police. It raises many important questions about the balance of interests between privacy, lawfulness, the privatization of collective intellectual endeavor, and personal security.
The webite offers little information. If any of our readers sign up for the service, we’d love to hear about it – drop us a line and tell us about it.
When klezmer troubadour Geoff Berner sings that “the dead, dead children were worth it”, he does so with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Berner’s “Official Theme Song for the 2010 Vancouver Whistler Olympic Games” mockingly lauds the BC government for dismantling the Children’s Comission—a provincial body that investigated children’s deaths—in order to pay for the Olympics. And this is just one of many programs that have been scaled back or eliminated as the government makes cuts to compensate for a Olympic-sized deficit.
I caught up with Geoff in Saskatoon last week as he kicked off his latest tour, which will see his trio criss-cross the prairies before heading to Norway in early March. With the Vancouver Olympics just around the corner, I wanted to know how he felt about the long-term economic legacy of the games in BC, and how artists could get involved in speaking up against cuts to arts funding and social programs.
Today we’re kicking off a new weekly feature, our Friday Film Pick. Each week we’ll suggest a movie for your weekend viewing pleasure. And we’ll try to recommend films that you’ll be able to find with relative ease, whether at your local video store, cinema, or on the web.
This week’s pick falls into that final category. The NFB recently made the entirety of RiP: A Remix Manifesto available for online viewing. For free. In HD.
The film became a platform for discussion on copyright reform as it played to audiences worldwide, and sparked a pretty good debate on this blog last year. If this is the first you’ve heard of RiP, here’s the brief synopsis from the NFB.
Join filmmaker Brett Gaylor and mashup artist Girl Talk as they explore copyright and content creation in the digital age. In the process they dissect the media landscape of the 21st century and shatter the wall between users and producers. Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow also come along for the ride.
Enjoy the movie, and we’ll see you back here in a week’s time for our next Friday Film Pick!
Each year the CRTC sets aside over $100 million for local, independent and activist television. Canadians have until February 1, 2010 to tell the CRTC how well this money is being spent, and how to spend it better in the future.
If you didn’t know about this amazing amount of money, you’re not alone. Community channels have in been in slow decline as cable companies have increased their stranglehold on access and programming over the past 15 years. What was once a vibrant network of tens of thousands of volunteers, activists and artists has dwindled through lost opportunities and in many cases outright hostility by the cable companies to community participation.
It’s time for Canadians to take back their community media resources from the cable companies.
A key issue is what to do with community television in a digital future. One of the big ideas being put forward is to use the $100+ million annual funds to build a network of community media centers, like local libraries, but with the emphasis on access to digital media training, production, and distribution through online and low-power broadcast opportunities. It is an idea being put forward by CACTUS, a national community tv advocacy group.
Since their creation in the early 1970s, community channels have attracted well over $1 billion in mandated funding. This money has been spent on training, programming and the creation of a network of television production facilities across the country required to “provide and encourage citizen access” and give communities the “widest opportunity for self-expression”. Community channel resources are like a public trust, and it is time Canadians got the benefit of this trust rather than it’s being squandered on cable company self promotion.
If Canadians do not speak out now, these opportunities could be lost forever.
For more information go to the CACTUS website, or check out OpenMedia.ca.
You can submit a comment to the CRTC directly online.
To review the CRTC’s call for comments, check out Broadcasting Notice of Consultation 2009-661.
Each year the CRTC sets aside over $100 million for local, independent and activist television. Canadians have until February 1, 2010 to tell the CRTC how well this money is being spent, and how to spend it better in the future.
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