Versuch einer Anordnung
netznetz 2004-2006

a disposition
netznetz 2004-2006

a documentative online installment

concept
Alexandra Reill
produced by kanonmedia
on the basis of the email correspondence
in the framework of the mailing list
liste@netznetz.net hosted on http://netznetz.net
and netznetz-mana-discuss@mond.at
hosted on
http://mond.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/netznetz-mana-discuss

vienna, 2006/2007

Versuch einer Anordnung - netznetz 2004-2006 is an online installation based on a documentative disposition of email correspondence in chronological order and structured by subthemes of a long and complicated process to develop a public-private funding system to distribute means to media artists and cultural workers active in the media field. the structure of the online installment might give a good basis for the analysis and evaluation of this process as arguments from all sides representing key information or such arguments transporting the debate further are listed in their order of appearance during the process.

netznetz - by those directly cooperating with the department of culture of the city of vienna called and entitled mana in the early year of 2006 - was mainly initiated and transported by a small group of media workers around monochrom, team teichenberg and esel to see themselves soon joined by pooool. starting from a paper suggesting datamining amongst media artists and initiatives in vienna which was presented to the funding authorities as a concept paper in 2003/2004, a whole development process was initiated aiming at the implementation of an online collaborative voting system in the framework of which persons applying for funding should vote each other, thus defining who would get how much funding.

from the very beginning, this process met a lot of conceptual barriers although it managed that about 130 people in 2005 and about 300 in 2006 joined the mailing list liste@netznetz.net. The persons participating actively and/or passively, in a promoting and/or critical way in the maling list, were representatives out of public authorities, journalism, media art, net activism, art & media theory. The mailing list has been active until today.

there were several rounds of voting - each time the voting system applied differed a bit. Starting with direct voting of each other, in december 2006 the last means budgeted for productions taking place in 2006 were distributed by a voting system which is a combination of voting each other and voting for trustees who - like members of a jury - could give major voting impact to projects. the later has been applied in 2007 also.

in the course of 2006 and before the voting round called community game another mailing list - netznetz-mana-discuss@mond.at - was installed where only people who had applied for getting subventions out of this voting round were admitted by a moderator as the public character of liste@netznetz.net was not perceived any more as an ideal setting for discussing massive structural problems of the voting system developed, i.e. bandbussing: one of the major discussion fields until today has been circling around the question whether it is recommended and wishable that people and initiatives applying for funding money with project applications should make friends, should go into financial alliances with others to be able to receive funding - or not. After the community game voting round this list was closed and the discussions were continued on liste@netznetz.net.

Versuch einer Anordnung

Versuch einer Anordnung - netznetz 2004-2006 is a chronological documentation of the process of restructuring a public department for funding new media art and culture by the city of vienna in collaboration with a few private initiatives strongly believing in the success of a social reputation system transformed into a voting system for public funding.

a strongly influencing factor of the dynamics of the process was exhilaration. Individuals and initiatives were complaining about the high and continuous effort needed for application. Amongst applicants, netznetz has always been a very controversial model development process. still, this system - apart from 72.000 euro available through direct application at the department of culture of the city of viennena - already in 2005 was installed as the sole and only funding method for new media and net culture by the city of vienna in 2006. thus, the go-ahead for a funding system in form of a public-private-partnership model was given.

to give a good overlook of the main argumentative issues of this development process this disposition is structured by its main fields of discussion, posted in their chronological appearance of theme. the number of posts might be an indicator of the impact of each theme.