Has the Internet Inadvertently Demonstrated the Feasibility of a Private NEA Model?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

For the non-Americans: The National Endowment for the Arts is a budget item for the government to fund various arts initiatives with tax dollars. They're responsible for all sorts of things, both uncontroversial (The Big Read), controversial (Piss Christ), and everything in between.

For the less tech-savvy: Kickstarter is a crowdsourcing site designed to, in their words, "fund projects from the creative fields of Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater."

I love crowdfunding, and I love Kickstarter. If I had more disposable income, I'd likely have funded and continue to fund more than the three projects I have so far (those three include two music albums and a project to recover out of print/circulation sci-fi publications). It's doing wonders for those little ideas, both for-profit and for-preservation in nature, that would otherwise float under the radar or die on the vine due to lack of publicity or interest. Even better, it's not just a popularity contest - for every Double Fine Adventure (a Kickstarter-funded video game by a well-known, popular game producer, you get an indie band trying to make it on their own. It's great!

So the news recently is that Kickstarter is on pace to distribute more money to arts projects in 2012 than the NEA is. While, truly, private enterprise has been doing an amazing job of funding the arts for generations now, this is a new model that more closely aligns with the goals of the NEA as opposed to goals for profit or for the arts of a specific patron.

I definitely align with the conservative/libertarian viewpoint that the NEA should be abolished. Constitutional issues aside, the need for a government patron for the arts is unnecessary in this day and age, and the age of the internet has opened up an entirely new avenue for patronage of the arts, with the added benefit of arts that truly matter being funded. It's a significant democratization of the process that encourages the arts of all levels and all types. Have we reached the point where the NEA can be abandoned now that a working replacement model has been established?

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

It depends on how long-term Kickstarter works out. We'll see. There's a big explosion of video games exploiting Kickstarter right now. I wonder if eventually it will eventually run dry, so to speak.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Both have a place in society.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Why?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

No.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ditto that.

And I point wholeheartedly to the sucess of El Sistema in Venezula: positive social change through music performance and education. I know I drone on and on about the subject, but it's worth it. Several cities here in the United States are trying to bring the program to schools, and I know Gustavo Dudamel, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic is head of a project now in L.A. I also think Chicago has a simliar program. Most school music programs if they do exist are typically related to high school athletic programs (i.e. marching bands for football games). I'll take that over a zero, but we could do so much more. I think the Venezulan program is funded for a mere 80 million dollars a year (used for purchasing instruments and music materials). And many of the instructors are volunteers too.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Why?

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

I actually agree with this post. Then again, it's Friday so I could be mildly trolling you. I'll leave it to your imagination to decide which.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

If you were trolling me, you'd be using that icon. :)

[vnsplshr.livejournal.com]

I love the idea.

Why filter arts funding through the sticky government sieve, if you don't have to?

[usekh.livejournal.com]

Because look at the music and movie scenes to see what the 'free market' does to art.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

I love Kickstarter as a substitute for certain kinds of corporate funding; it had not occurred to me as a substitute for government funding.

How about we make the test case not the NEA but the United States Navy?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Mainly because defense is actually a role of government.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

For one, the public does not and cannot partake of our national defense the way we partake of the arts. This is one significant way I separate myself from the anarcho-libertarians.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Popular art can be funded by it's fans, like Rock'nroll has traditionally done through record sales and touring. Your video games fall in this category.

Some art is less popular but has enough wealthy fans to support it even though they have fewer fans. For example opera, ballet, and symphonies have a small (and dying) fanbase but those who support it are fairly affluent and willing/able to pay more for it.

Much art has direct support through commissions. Ink me a tattoo, write me a jingle, film me a commercial.

Most art has no financial support what-so-ever. If I paint a picture it all comes out of my pocket and is for my personal enjoyment. Graffiti isn't for profit.

So the role of government arts funding isn't at all necessary for there to be art. There will always be some form of art being creating regardless. Government's role is to foster this art and direct which ones will seee proliferation. The Georgia film commission is there to make films made in the Peach state (financially and otherwise) attractive for film makers. But this doesn't help Georgian tattoo artists pay the rent.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Government's role is to foster this art and direct which ones will seee proliferation.

And why is the government a good steward of this?

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

De-funding the NEA will definitely solve several important problems. I'm just not sure what those problems might be.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

that critical one day of airconditioning in Afghanistan.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

All the Internet has done in this regard is illustrate that a new medium opens up new possibilities. It shows absolutely nothing of what it is that you say here.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

No. Just as many artists (graphic arts, theater, music and literary) were helped during the Great Depression, there remains a need for our government to help creative people add to the richness of American society. I would like our government to have a historical role in something besides wars, politics, and business. The NEA is such a tiny blip in the budget; there is no reason to get rid of it.

[msretro.livejournal.com]

The NEA does not just give funds to individual working artists. It also funds youth art programs throughout the country.

I consider both art education and extracurricular activities necessary for raising well-rounded kids.

While Kickstarter could pick up the slack for some of these programs, I do not think it will cover what is currently supplied by the NEA. (You can read more about that funding here: http://www.nea.gov/grants/apply/artsed.html)

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The NEA does not just give funds to individual working artists. It also funds youth art programs throughout the country.

Yes.

I consider both art education and extracurricular activities necessary for raising well-rounded kids.

Should we not be pushing that in the schools?

[usekh.livejournal.com]

Just think what every American could do with the nearly 50 cents they would get if the NEA was defunded.

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

They could buy a gun and make their own art instead.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, okay, so how does Kickstarter support an orchestra? A museum?

I don't deny that Kickstarter might have a role to play for independent artists trying to make a name for themselves. As long as it's trendy, anyway. But it's not an adequate free-market replacement for organized public subsidies, which are meager to begin with (so the comparison you draw between the two isn't exactly, shall we say, fair).

I mean, I suppose you're free to forget western civilization. People like me will try to keep it going a bit longer. But we can't make you want to listen to Palestrina. Your loss. Well, our loss.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. Kickstarter is good for creating art, not so much for maintaining it. Until private industry replaces that function of government arts programs, it's nowhere near time to shut it down.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

Vision: A Nation in which the arts enrich the lives of all Americans and enhance the livability of communities.

Mission: To advance artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities.

Goals

1) The creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence.
2) To engage the public with diverse and excellent art.
3) To promote public knowledge and understanding about the contributions of the arts.
4) To enable the NEA mission through organizational excellence.

(from www.nea.gov/about/Budget/NEAStrategicPlan2012-2016.pdf)

You mentioned the goals of the NEA. The actual goals are above. I don't think Kickstarter accomplishes those. Leaving 4 aside, Kickstarter doesn't have standards of excellence it promotes. Anything goes. The only check or balance is what the crowd thinks based on the promo page made by the artist. Kickstarter doesn't necessarily give us diverse art - it reflects the tastes of the consumers supporting them. There would be no challenging art that wouldn't have mass appeal. It does not do number 3. Crowd members would come to the site with the knowledge they already have, and pick projects based on that.

The NEA also does follow up on the projects it supports. Individual contributors would know the results of a project, but there is no Kickstarter follow up. An untalented person who is great at marketing could fund one project, deliver a bad result, and then put up a new project with great marketing and pull in some new contributors.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Kickstarter does not explicitly do number 3, no. Do they not, however, implicitly do number 3 by providing a platform for the types of arts that want funding to demonstrate their need, thus promoting said knowledge and understandings on the contributions?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Of course, the market doing better is circularly being defined as whatever the market does.

Constitutional issues aside, the need for a government patron for the arts is unnecessary in this day and age, and the age of the internet has opened up an entirely new avenue for patronage of the arts, with the added benefit of arts that truly matter being funded.

Is that why funding projects in the arts in public schools have been disappearing and nobody has stepped up to replace it? There is a decline for the funding of the arts in public school, so where is this crowdsource solution? Obviously people want it, so there should be a substitute. Where is it?

I mean we should totally just give The Smithsonian to some private enterprise because they totally won't sell the Constitution to China.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Is that why funding projects in the arts in public schools have been disappearing and nobody has stepped up to replace it? There is a decline for the funding of the arts in public school, so where is this crowdsource solution? Obviously people want it, so there should be a substitute. Where is it?

That's more of an issue with education, not with arts funding. The problem when you seek test-based results is the cutting of programs that do not help raise test score in an obvious way.

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

Sorry to get to the game so late, but Kickstarter will not have distributed $150M to the arts; that's the total of its distributions. Some goes to art, some goes to that iPhone dock, some go to the Coffee Joulies we got my sister-in-law for Christmas, etc.

This model simply does not replace the NEA, for all sorts of reasons. The NEA provides some funds for sustaining things that are ongoing, like orchestras or education funding; Kickstarter only provides initial funds. The NEA provides larger grants; Kickstarter provides relatively small amounts to lots and lots of projects. The biggest difference is that the NEA is a minimum level from tax dollars, which we collectively provide and take ownership of. Kickstarter is a nice addition, but it could go under at any time - and having absolutely no buy-in from people who don't donate further segregates large segments of the population from the arts. The NEA is baseload power; Kickstarter is for peak demand.