Guardian and ACE Protest Letter Against Arts Cuts

Retort member and Mute contributor, Iain Boal, has sent this letter to The Guardian. The letter also went to ACE Chief Executive, Alan Davey, and Chair, Dame Liz Forgan. In response to the many kind messages of support we've received from the UK and beyond, we'd encourage supporters of Mute to either countersign this letter by emailing mute@metamute.org (we will add you to the text field), or, should they have something longer to say, add their own comment or statement. Responses to our statement of last week demonstrate resoundingly that Mute's community is global, so we would also encourage anyone who wants to to state where they are based to do so. Finally, also in response to requests, we are placing a larger donate button right here. In this coming year of 'transition', during which we will be busily working on a new model for independent production, all support will go directly towards the publishing of Mute and Metamute which, coincidentally, are both about to be relaunched! Watch this space and thank you!

To: The Editor, Guardian cc: Alan Davey, Chief Executive, Arts Council England; Dame Liz Forgan, Chair, Arts Council England April 8th, 2011 We are writing to express our dismay at the savagery of the cuts to the culture sector reported last week (Guardian, 30 March) and to draw attention to some of the less obvious collateral damage. As contributors to, and readers of, one of the many organizations defunded last week that went unmentioned, we are in a position to appreciate the important role of Mute Publishing since the mid-90s, a beacon in the digital-culture landscape and a vital international forum for intellectual debate and exchange in the field of art and culture. Looking in from outside the UK, it seems to us that Arts Council England (ACE) has disastrously miscalculated the value of many such 'marginal' cultural producers now feeling the axe, even those that do not have, uniquely in our experience, Mute's range and depth and commitment to engage across barriers and borders. All the more valuable, indeed, at a time of brutal encroachment upon what is left of the public sphere and enclosure of the cultural commons, compounded by the neoliberalization of universities and the bonfire of the humanities. At such moments, outfits like Mute provide a vital space where open-ended, non-determined discussions are fostered, discussions that may take years – literally – to make any significant appearance in the 'mainstream media'. These conversations are the life-blood for writers, thinkers and artists; they offer an irresistible attraction precisely because they are not tethered to institutional, strategic and commercial interests that drive more 'visible' forums. Belying its financial precarity, Mute has engaged a veritable bank of issues ahead of other far better resourced producers, publishing germinal texts on education, the knowledge economy, regeneration, intellectual property, web 2.0, immaterial labour, music, film and urbanism. It is therefore with real sadness that we learn of the blow it has been dealt, which affects us all, but are not surprised that the Mute crew is meeting it with the strident optimism and independence their recent public statements demonstrate (http://www.metamute.org/en/mute_100_per_cent_cut_b...). The Chair of the Arts Council recently vouchsafed that 'Our artists, musicians, actors, directors, sculptors, acrobats, writers, dreamers and inventors are as precious a resource as North Sea oil or the coalfields, and they are a lot more renewable and enduring'. Even judged by this grisly instrumental calculus, ACE has cut off its nose to spite its face. Nevertheless Dame Liz Forgan is right about one thing: the critical community and the valuable work Mute has occasioned will endure after the North Sea oil has run dry.

Yours sincerely,

Anustup Basu

Amita Baviskar

Iain Boal

Peter Linebaugh

Geert Lovink

Angela Mitropoulos

Richard Pithouse

Tiziana Terranova

David Harvie

Dave Beech

Jonathan Kemp

Matthew Fuller

Marina Vishmidt

Soenke Zehle

Timothy Murray

Paul Caplan

Ken Turner

Nick Thoburn

Yaiza Hernández Velázquez

Melissa Bliss

Elysa Lozano

Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt

Rodrigo Nunes

John Cayley

Peter Conlin

David Gunn

Martin Howse

Rachel Withers

Josephine Bosma

Benedict Seymour

John Douglas Millar

Kirsten Forkert

Anja Kirschner

Alastair Kemp

Mark Jackson

Jane Cheadle

Anthony Davies

Emily Bick

Chris Carlsson

Evan Calder Williams

Paul Helliwell

Suzanne Treister

John Cunningham

Amy Balkin

Adam Walker

Pat Naldi

Irina Aristarkhova

Geoff Cox

Hari Kunzru

Mira Mattar

Graham Harwood

Matsuko Yokokoji

John Russell

Kate Rich

Ian Willey

Gregor Claude

Steve Wright

Jon Bywater

Owen Hatherley

Lee Worden

Tom Moore

Omar Kholeif

Agnese Trocchi

David Garcia

Manchester Mule editorial collective: Andy Lockhart; Richard Goulding; Tom Fox; Michael Pooler; Tim Hunt; Andy Bowman

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Ben Pritchett

Alan W. Moore

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Nat Muller

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Michael Corris

Kristian Byskov

George Caffentzis

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Susan Hiller

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Dave Mandl

Brian Ashton

Alberto Duman

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Sophie Carapetian

Joss Hands

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