Public Funding

The Dutch government’s incentives policy for the sector and parallel to art education, for Culture and Economy and the Creative Industry, are fully in line with this. There is a wide social need for research into new forms of production, distribution, participation, consumption and documentation. And it is thought that art can set a good example for this. V2_, Steim, NiMK, Waag Society, Submarine, and Mediamatic have now become internationally operating ‘switchboards’ and have been designated ‘development institutions’ (to use the terminology of the Dutch subsidy system) within the basic infrastructure. They are subsidised to ‘operate from their own line of approach with multidisciplinary activities to contribute to the innovation and deepening of e-culture’.

In this way they exert great influence on cultural life in the Netherlands, if only by the constant influx of foreign artists and thinkers they invite. Besides this, the government has placed two other ‘development institutions’ within the e-culture domain. Digitaal Erfgoed Nederland (Digital Heritage Netherlands) was a response to the feeling that the haste of dynamic development meant that special attention should be paid to connecting the past and the ‘ordinary’ with our digital future. Stichting Worm was also accorded this status to ensure that a new élan would continue to flow from the ranks of passionate (young) ‘informed enthusiasts’. This is in line with the clear stimulus that the government wished to lend to a new phase in the development of the e-culture sector.