There is a great article posted yesterday on Village Voice by Anthony Kaufman, “For a few dollars more,” about the failing media arts organizations. There has been lots of press about AIVF going under but there are others, and those that aren’t closing are stumbling. Having worked for the Center for Social Media, I know how difficult it is to manage operating funding with the kinds of projects that foundations are willing to support. This article is one of the best I’ve read on where the real issues lie. There was one aspect of the article that really struck me.

Indeed, the terrible irony of AIVF’s current crisis, says McKay, “is that there is a greater need in this country for the activist part of AIVF now more than ever.”

The article goes on to mention specific policy debates that are left without advocates. The reason this strikes a cord with me is because in the past few years that I’ve been working in the indie media community, I haven’t really seen the kind of organizing spirit that existed when advocates helped push the creation of ITVS, for instance. Indie filmmakers are by-and-large self-interested. There is a lot of money to be made in mainstream media, and most indies I know are trying to get into that realm. Where this is no financial support for voices that fall outside of that paradigm, there is a community of artists that by necessity must pursue commercial success.

Perhaps it is mere exhaustion that the indie community doesn’t push for more support from government, foundations and commercial entities, or become creative in putting together the kinds of nonprofit/commercial ventures Kaufman’s article discusses. But it’s becoming clear that whatever level of organization we had, in the form of media arts organizations, is disintegrating and the future for independent artists is even more uncertain as a result.