attempt of a disposition – netznetz 2004-2006

A documentative online installment

concept | editing alexandra reill
production kanonmedia | vienna 2006 / 2007
on the basis of the email correspondence in the framework of the mailing lists 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

attempt of a disposition – 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 was perceived as 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 Vienna – 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.

attempt of a disposition – 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 was founded by those directly cooperating with the department of culture of the city of vienna in the early year of 2006 – 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 data mining 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. the model was called mana.

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 and media theory.

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, too. 

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.

Unfortunately, kanonmedia did not have the capacities to translate the netznetz-discussion from German to English.

The mailing list is still active today – with no postings at all since soon after the last voting round in the framework of netznetz.

VERSUCH EINER ANORDNUNG – NETZNETZ 2004-2006 installed at

— sonance network server / vie / a / 06-09

Versuch einer Anordnung – netznetz 2004-2006 was hosted by the sonance network server which closed down its services. unfortunately, a migration of the project data base was not possible then.

VERSUCH EINER ANORDNUNG – NETZNETZ 2004-2006 collection entries

— rhizome artbase selection / nyc / us / 07

VERSUCH EINER ANORDNUNG – NETZNETZ 2004-2006 featured by

— yasni / frankfurt / d / 08
— file electronic language international festival / brazil / 07
— friday arts net / int / 07
— txtnews / vie / a / 07
— interdisciplinarian art department of the estonian art academy / estonia / 07
— classic.rhizome / nyc / us / 07
— rhizome artbase / nyc / us / 07
— txtnews / int / 07

Links on the theme

— http://netznetz.net
— http://mana.manila.at
— http://mond.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/netznetz-mana-discuss
— http://www.wien.gv.at/amtshelfer/kultur/kulturabteilung/foerderungen/neuemedien.html

Features of the theme

— ambiente techno / a / 06 
— context :: / es / 06 
— berliner pool / d / 06
— ejournal / a / 06
— midiatatica.org / es / 06
— vo_news-l@lists.nodel.org list / uk / 06
— joenoname.com / a / 06
— slobodnakultura.org / hr / 06
— kunstlabor / a / 06
— wienweb.at / a / 06
— ig kultur wien / a / 06
— ig kultur österreich / a / 06
— österreichische hochschülerschaft / a / 06
— oekolux mailing list / d / 06
— transmitter-x / a / 06
— der standard / a / 06
— der falter / a / 06
— futurezone orf / a / 06
— malmoe / a / 06
— radio orange / a / 06
— cultural broadcasting archive / a / 06
— http://netznetz.freeflux.net/blog / a / 06
— hvg.hu / hu / 06
— glocalist / a / 06
— alton.at / a / 06
— basis wien / a / 06
— sonance network / a / 06
— radio netwacher / a / 06
— altendorf.enemy.org/ a / 06
— goldfisch.at / a / 06
— www.no-racism.net / a / 05
— ubermorgen.com / a / 05
— post.thing.net / us / 05
— www.spoe.at / a / 05
— www.magwien.gv.at / a / 05
— quartier21 – muqua / a / 05
— esel.at / a / 05
— or-om / option democrator / a / 05
— mur / ncc05 / a /05
— overcrowded / f / 05
— repeatwhiletrue / int / 05
— rhizome / us / 05
— subscribe.ru / ru / 05
— nettime mailing list / us / 05
— grüne wien / a / 05
— freie-medien.at / a / 05
— volker voin prittwitz / d / 05
— kingdom of piracy / int / 05
— heller / a / 05
— wikipedia / int / 04
— wiener lloyd / a / 04
— metroblogging vienna / a / 04
— widerstand / a / 04
— dada.at/ a / 04
— soho in ottakring / a / 04
— pub://des / int / 04
— donau universität krems / a / 04
— cc-at@lists.ibiblio.org mailing list / a / 04
— letslink uk / uk / 04
— etc.