Lisa Haskel on Thu, 29 Jan 1998 20:57:50 +0100 (MET) |
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<nettime> "Independent Media" in the UK |
This is a slightly expanded version of a talk written for the "Interstanding 2" conference in Tallinn, Estonia that took place in October 1997. The theme of the event was "Freedom" and it was curated by Eric Kluitenberg. The full conference proceedings and exhibition catalogue will be published by SCCA Estonia later this year. Details from Helme@skkke.ee This text cross-posted from Syndicate. Comments welcome. Lisa Haskel Relative Freedoms: Some Retrospections on "Independent Media" Production in the UK. This talk is specifically about the notion of politically and socially engaged so-called "independent" media practice in the UK and how this has changed and developed over the past twenty years or so. What I liked about the programme for "Interstanding 2", with this theme of "Freedom", was the attention the programme has paid to taking a retrospective view of artists' use of media, and how this, to some extent provides a context for the emerging practices with new media. Therefore I wish to mirror this, and offer a short, condensed and admittedly highly subjective and partial narrative about so-called "Independent" film and video practice in the UK. This category been characterised by an aspiration to use media as, if not exactly a site of "free" expression, then certainly one that runs counter to dominant forms, representations and production processes of "mainstream" media. At the end I will try to draw out some questions that seem to me to be relevant to new developments in media art practice with new technologies. I'll concentrate in particular on the relationship of theory to practice, and the structures that have supported the practice. I mainly want to highlight the ways in which media production activity which is expressly politically "oppositional" to government, and which is related to political movements for social change, has taken place within a system of public support for production and media institutions, and to ask what the possibilities and limitations are for this necessarily ambiguous notion. As an introduction I will show three short extracts of recent video productions. As explorations of issues related to race, gender, sexuality and disability - issues of identity related to the body - they show different treatments of concerns that have dominated independent media practice. However, as you will see, they also use a number of different styles and approaches and have different levels of "production values". I use them therefore as examples, that are in no way representative of the broader field, except in their very diversity. 1. Keith Piper - "Trade Winds" (1992) 56" extract from tapes for a 9 monitor installation. 2. Mike Stubbs - "Man Act" (1996): 2' extract from 4' 30" tape for the Arts Council of England / BBC 2 Television series "Dance for the Camera". 3. Ruth Lingford - "What She Wants" (1996): 1' 30" extract from 4' 30" Arts Council of England / Channel 4 Television "Animate" scheme. 4. Jo Pearson - "Freak-Fucking Basics" (1996): 2'18" extract from 13' film. Funded by Arts Council of England artists' Film and Video production awards. The clips I've chosen deal in different ways with issues of race, sexuality gender, and - indirectly - social class. (I'll say more on this later). This gives a pretty full picture of social and political discourses that underly most debates and arguments in the UK, be they about crime, healthcare, education, immigration, housing or employment. The Conservative government of the 1980's and 90's refused to acknowlege DIFFERENCE within British society, promoting a view of the UK, and tailoring its policies towards an idea of the country as a unified nation of white, middle-class (or aspiring to be so), heterosexual, "able-bodied", nuclear families. Clearly in a post-colonial, post-1960's, and continuously class-divided society, this view of a homogeneous nation is was and remains a fiction. Overt government censorship was not usually the issue at stake, except in the media coverage of the conflict in Northern Ireland and for the short duration of the "Falklands War" in 1982 (both of which require more complex analysis than I can deal with here). However the questions of who is representing whom, to whom and in whose interest was a major cause for concern in exploring the social and political effects of a mass media system that represented itself as impartial. Of course, issues of race, class, gender and sexuality are very much about the construction of identities, and how such identities aquire meaning for the individual subject and are played out in the social field. Representation is fundamental to the construction of our subjectivity, our understanding of "others", and the relationships in between. During the late 1970's and 1980's, the UK produced a body of cultural theory that provided critiques of the role of the mass media in constructing identities, and described their role in reinforcing dominant ideologies. Examples of major figures were: Stuart Hall, who wrote primarily on the subject of the representation of race within the mass media, The Glasgow Media Group who researched the representation of social class within television news with specific reference to industrial disputes and Trade Unions, and Angela McRobbie who wrote about magazines for teenage girls. These cultural theorists worked by looking at how media is produced, and how it produces meanings in a number of different ways: by looking at patterns of ownership of media insitutions (eg. James Curran), by studying processes of media production and editorial decision-making (eg. John Schlessinger), by analysing individual texts and mainstream media forms using (mainly) linguistic based semiotic theories (many!), by researching audience responses (eg. David Morley), and by considering the effect of the context of reception of media, especially the domestic setting of the television set (eg. Colin McArthur). So those were the critiques. Not surprisingly, the conditions that produced these critiques also created a desire among some media practitioners and political activists to create an "alternative" practice, working within "alternative" structures, to produce "alternative" images. And so the notion of "independence" evolved: meaning "independence" from mass media institutions (whether in public or private ownership), and the forms of representation that these institutions create to serve dominant ideological purposes. Independent production, therefore, was interested in re-configuring two key sets of relationships: between aesthetics, process and politics, and between maker, subject-matter and viewer. "Conventional" documentary form, therefore, was a particular focus of critique and makers wished to make much greater emphasis on self-expression and self-representation by individuals or communities of interest who wished to comment upon, or take a position in relation to, matters of political concern. Throughout the late 70's and early 80's therefore, there were a number of experiments with processes of production which aimed to break down the division between maker and subject and in so doing tell "different" stories, differently. Among many examples are the work of Steel Bank, Amber and Open Eye Film Workshops, Albany Video, WITCH - Womens Independent Cinema House, and Black Audio Film Collective. "Empowerment" of individuals and communities, the airing of "marginal voices" and enabling "self-representation" were key concepts. It is here that "alternative" media practice found its overlap with particular areas of art practice; especially the work of film and increasingly video makers working loosely within the traditions of the avant-garde, who were interested in formal experimentation with the conventions of both art and mass media. Examples would range from "Video Art" pioneer David Hall to the anti-copyright "Scratch Video" of the mid- 1980's by artists such as George Barber and Gorilla Tapes. There were convergences also with visual artists, especially feminist artists, whose political projects involved taking apart and re-building systems of representation, and performers for whom the presence of the body was indicative of a direct and subjective approach to communication (for example work by Kate Elwes, Stuart Marshall, Jayne Parker). A coalition of cultural practices began to form that stretched across visual art, media production using film, video and to an extent print media and radio, performance, community work and agit-prop. Increasingly, video became the common technology and the most easily identified unifying factor within this very diverse and very often uneasy alliance. A small number of journals, festivals, critics, academics and exhibition programmes unified this "sector". This late 1970's and early 1980's period coincided with the availability of public subsidy for media culture through some local authorities, and in particular, the governing bodies for the major metropolitan areas, such as so-called Greater London with its "Greater London Council" (GLC). Many local authorities and all of the metropolitan councils were controlled by Labour Party politicians whose own policies concurred with the aims and objectives of media practice that sought to promote greater public understanding of social issues - especially those concerning "minority" groups - and sought to involve communities in a wider range of cultural practices. A number of "independent" production facilities were set up, often in collaboration with government money distributed by the Arts Council of Great Britain the British Film Institute and its regional equivalents. These, though having a more ambivalent relationship to government, had some autonomy and a remit to both encourage experimentation in the arts, and broaden public "access" to culture in all its forms. Distribution and exhibition were less well supported, but nevertheless, for a moment at least, independent media production flourished amid dreams of a parallel media system of production, distribution and exhibition: enabled by state funding but autonomous from state institutions, with affordable video systems as the underpinning technology. Television, with its mass audiences, was the big brother, rejected but nevertheless regarded with jealousy. The halcyon days drew to a close in 1985 with the abolition by the Conservative Government of Metropolitan councils in the UK, predated by the mixed blessing of the launch of Channel Four television in 1982. Channel Four television shifted the notion and definition of independence lastingly and profoundly. It set out to be a new kind of broadcasting institution that would operate as a commissioner and scheduler of programmes only. All its content would be produced by seperate production companies, largely with the aim of increasing the diversity of programmes and voices represented on television. This principle raised tremendous expectation, and initially some important support for community based and politically engaged media production. Indeed, the independent media scene was a vocal advocate for Channel Four at its inception, and what was seen as an victory was won with the ACTT (broadcasting trade union) "Workshop Declaration" which aimed to allow community-based production for broadcast to take place without eroding professional livlihoods. However, very quickly, the imperitive for productions to reach "professional" technical standards, and for broadcasters to reach a target percentage of the national television audience (partly to sell advertising, partly to maintain government favour) meant that, by the late 1980's and early 1990's, Channel Four's support for the subsidised, community, locality or politically based production resources had all but dried up. Arts funding was becoming a dwindling resource within the Conservative political regime that preferred to make tax cuts and rely on private sector finance than to support any area of public service. The funding of local councils, especially those which remained controlled by Labour. In the meantime, every small scale, professional television production company became an "independent" - whatever their output or political position. Meanwhile, during the '90's, the use of video within contemporary art practice in the UK has moved into the fashionable, mainstream artworld a way that could never have been predicted by the old "Independent Video Sector". Tapes by artists such as Gillian Wearing and Douglas Gordon are winning contemporary art prizes and their work is being bought at a high price by public and private collections visual art collections. The work tends to be narrative based, or relient on a single irony or conceit. Usually it is simple, single screen or single projection work. For this group, video is just another addition to the artists' palette of media. Their work is a long way from either the content-heavy, critical and socially engaged practice of "alternative" media, or from media art within the modernist, avant-garde tradition of reflexivity on form, material and context. In the 1990's, the "independent" media scene has been faced with a series of choices and each organisation has been faced with the necessity to re-invent and re-position themselves within a new insitutional, funding and cultural context. With reduced funding for infrastructure and on-going running costs, a number of organisations have closed, or scaled down to work on a project-by-project basis. Alliances between practitioners became less formalised and organisation-based, with more film-makers working as individuals and in looser groups convening over particular projects, and having to adopt highly pragmatic approaches to funding and institutional support. Some organisations are becoming more closely indentified with the fashionable contemporary visual art, world, and others are taking a more technology led approach: focussing their cultural programmes on new media and new technologies. The idea of the label "video artist" or an indentifible "video sector" - however fragmentary these notions have always been - are now completely obsolete and untenable. Some organisations have managed to maintain an area of their programme that maintains links with their local communities and enables collaborative projects between community or issue- based groups and professional artists. Examples are the Collaboration Programme run by FACT as part of the Video Positive programme and some of the work of the artist-run group, Hull Time Based Arts. While the objectives of these programmes are generally considered worthy, their outcomes fight to be valued by critics and curators and exhibited on a equal footing with work by established artists. The response of the funding system has also been to become more pragmatic. The relationship with television is still key, but the emphasis is now on collaboration rather than on creating alternative structures. Public support for film and video now operates within a "mixed-economy" of collaborative schemes with broadcasting companies, production schemes that are not tied to broadcast (but may be sold), plus funding for installation works that may be either site-specific or gallery based. So, the clips I have just shown are a kind of current manifestation of this short history. They can be seen as working within the tradition of this kind of "independence", but in a contemporary context They illustrate a variety of approaches in their representational and communicative strategies. The first, from Keith Piper, is tapes from an installation shown within an art gallery context. The second two examples were made under the auspices of collaborative schemes between the Arts Council of England and the national broadcasters: BBC 2 and Channel Four. The last clip: from Jo Pearson's "Freak-Fucking Basics" was funded through an Arts Council Production award. Although its funding was not dependent on a television broadcast it was, in fact, shown on the BBC, very late at night, re-titled but largely un-cut. These extracts are indicative of an important an laudable opportunity for artists; to access significant resources to make work that is innovative in form and content, and to reach, potentially, a mass audience through television. Of course absences and limitations are less easy to illustrate and are necessarily in the realm of speculation, but all funding and collaboration comes with invisible strings attached. Seen in a retrospective context, in recent funded productions, one can't help noticing the scarcity of work that deals directly and challengingly with social class, or that is engaged with indicative local issues, or politics beyond exploring identity and subjectivity. Meanwhile, television engages in "looks" and even "forms" that are reminicent of the avant-garde. It has been argued - most vociferously by John Wyver in his argument for "doing away with video art" - that television has benefitted more than artists use of the medium than vice versa, even to the point where television now innovates more effectively. (I agree with the first part of the argument, but certainly not the second!). Artists' practice with new media is emerging into a rapidly transforming media and technological context, but also into a changing social and cultural climate in the UK. Politically, after 17 years of Conservatism we have a "labour" government which, finding its choice to occupy centre ground and uneasy one, seems if anything, to be more wary of political margins and dissonances than its predecessors. What constitutes "the political" is increasingly fragmented, and is played out in multiple sites of communication and social organisation. While media delivery technologies are in the process of convergence, services are becoming increasingly diversified. The notion of the BBC as a unifying instrument for national indentity is gone forever. In the meantime, the notion of indentifiable "commumities" and "interest groups" is losing ground with more attention to the diversity, rather than the commonality of groups that were formally accepted as "women", "the black community", "the gay community" or "working class people". Artists, or even media artists, as a "community" with any kind of homogeneity is an equally untenable notion. I, for one, welcome the breaking down of categories that serve to fix indentity in totalising and universalising ways, and have the inevitable outcomes of inclusion and exclusion. Nevertheless, there is a danger that this loss of fixity, the challenge of this fragmentation, paralyses politically engaged practice, leaving nowhere to go but the subjective and the personal within a discourse of individual rights and freedoms. On the other hand, while the categories between "art", "commercial" and "popular" culture are increasingly difficult to sustain, the current government seems unaware of these even as problematics. "Art" is seen at best as a cradle from which to feed commercial culture with new blood, and cultural funding seems set to be adjusted accordingly. The challenge is to embrace the new while learning the lessons of the old. It would be too easy to either dismiss the independent media project as failed experiment, or to wallow in nostalgia for the certainties of the past and attempt to build a new media practice and infrastructure as its mirror image. My suggestion is that the diversity and inter- connectedness of the independent media practice, that seemed to be its downfall was also its great strength. As a politically engaged project, its value lay in the attempt - admittedly often far from successful - to integrate critical approaches into media practice, and in so doing devise working methodologies for collaboration and communication with care and attention to the details of social context and history. Specific media technologies were seen and used within a wide cultural scene. Innovation and experimentation not restricted to the world of art, but "independence" maintained an indentity through its processes and its objectives. Diversity only became a weakness in a scenario of scarce resources and political pressure, which, instead of encouraging clarity of vision about distinctiveness and the relative strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, fostered competition and conglomeration. Use of the net may, temporarily at least, be addressing the question of "freedom from" and "freedom to", but the question of "freedom for" - in the sense of for what and for whom - remains just as important, as much as matter for public policy and just as politically vulnerable. In practice, I suggest that this is an extension of the project to take a simultaneously critical, experimental and pro-active approach to the twin issues of access and representation. Politically engaged practice demands addressing the complex interweaving of the two, and also, critically, the relationships of media with eachother and with everyday experience. Selected Sources Cubitt, S, "Timeshift - On Video Culture" Routledge, London, 1991 Curtis, D (Ed), "A Directory of British Film and Video Artists", John Libby Media, Luton, 1996 Knight, J (Ed), "Diverse Practices - A Critical Reader on British Video Art", University of Luton Press, Luton, 1996 O'Pray, M (Ed) "British Avant-Garde Film - A Reader", University of Luton Press, Luton, 1996 Wollen, P, "Arrows of Desire - The Second ICA Biennial of Independent Film and Video" (Introductory essay), ICA, London 1993 Wyver, J, "What You See is What You Get - The Third ICA Biennial of Independent Film and Video" (Introductory essay), ICA, London 1995 Back issues of "Independent Media" magazine, circa. 1985 - 1989 Catalogues from "Video Positive" festivals in 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997 -- Lisa Haskel --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de