{"id":14839,"date":"2024-04-23T10:47:33","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T08:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/?p=14839"},"modified":"2024-05-15T14:27:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T12:27:35","slug":"spring-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/en\/spring-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"The Walloon spring will be digital"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nSince the beginning of 2024, KIKK has been steering wake!, the Walloon creative-digital community label. On tour around the four corners of Wallonia and Brussels, wake! stopped off in the capital last March 22 to take in the Digital Spring. A moment to swap ideas, inspire one another and co-build the sector\u2019s future.\r\n<\/p>\n\n\n

It is for a double Brussels event coordinated by wake! that a small community of digital creativity operators and entrepreneurs has gathered. It has just gone 09.30 outside the iMAL<\/a>, one of the rare spaces entirely dedicated to the digital arts, ensconced along the edge of the Brussels canal. The piping-hot coffee rouses still drowsy minds. Vital, as the day begins with a flourish. Without further ado, AC Coopens is straightaway asking the question, \u2018Digital Arts as a business, but how<\/em>?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acting as the moderator of this opening session dedicated to the presentation of the findings of a far-reaching study<\/a> carried out by the DI\/S<\/a> (Digital Inter\/Section) consortium, AC Coopens is also speaking as the founder of The Catalysts<\/a>. This boutique consultancy firm based in Berlin stimulates the development of innovative actors in the domains of digital technology, the arts, the media, cinema, music and design, and also spearheaded the pan-European research survey being discussed this morning. \u2018Transversally, this study aims to analyse how cultural organisations active in the digital arts diversify their revenue streams, looking at the issue through an economic but also social and environmental prism,\u2019 AC explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organisations of every type are represented in the survey: public institutions, private arts centres, with a high level of participation by non-profit associations (over 68% of the sample group). From October 2022 to June 23, these respondents from four continents \u2013 including 60 European institutions representing 18 of the EU\u2019s countries \u2013 thus enabled the completion of a rock-solid academic research study into a sector which is rarely studied from an economic point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The sinews of war<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Anna Desponds, also a member of The Catalysts, a curator, a researcher, her sociologist\u2019s hat somewhere nearby, takes the microphone to get down to the nitty-gritty. \u2018When they were questioned about their primary monetization channels, over 50% [Editor\u2019s note: 55.8%] responded that they are involved in no selling or marketing whatsoever, and that they rely solely on public funding.\u2019 Let us add another figure here: for a quarter of the organisations questioned, public subsidies amount to 75% or more of their financial resources. \u2018Thinking about monetisation within the arts sector is a real taboo, since art is considered a public cultural good,\u2019 adds the researcher. The study for that matter quotes an extract from an interview with Kristina Leipold, Commercial Director at the LAS Art Foundation, established in the German capital. A pretty revealing passage: \u2018Our tickets are not being calculated in a way that they compensate for the costs we have [\u2026] we don\u2019t want to sell tickets at \u20ac35 apiece because we want to remain accessible.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On reading the title of the research study \u2013 \u2018The business of digital art: economic models and insights into the future\u2019 \u2013 several faces in the audience do indeed pout. \u2018We have to start talking about money within the digital arts sector,\u2019 insists Anna Desponds. \u2018In many cases a proper business model could be beneficial for an institution and it\u2019s essential to see business models as strategic tools to secure the sustainability of our cultural institutions.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the presentation continues by suggesting several action plans regarding the sub-themes addressed by the study: the hybridity of the models to be privileged, yes to the Metaverse, whilst taking care that it remains inclusive, a big yes to cooperation as a means of creating new constellations within and without the digital arts ecosystem\u2026 up until the point when a guest very familiar on the Namur digital scene takes his seat amongst the keynote speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Half of our work time is dedicated to looking for money, in particular public money. The other half, we have to devote to justifying the distribution of this public money.<\/p>\nGilles Bazelaire, president of KIKK<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As the President of KIKK, a partner of the DI\/S consortium, Gilles Bazelaire has come along to share with the audience the experience of his organisation, based in the Walloon capital. \u2018How are we facing up to the current economic challenges?\u2019 he reads on the slide projected behind him. \u2018It is really difficult for us to achieve financial stability and I imagine the same goes for the other institutions quizzed in the survey. Half of our work time is dedicated to looking for money, in particular public money. The other half, we have to devote to justifying the distribution of this public money. The public sector is not responsible, but politicians, they are. I don\u2019t know when we work on our exhibitions, in reality, at the weekends, definitely. What is certain, is that to ensure the durability of our projects, we will need long-term policies in the digital arts sector.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AC Coopens, who is still steering the meeting, then asks the following toughie: \u2018What alternative monetisation channels have you already experimented with at KIKK?\u2019 On the slide, numerous inspiring examples developed by other organisations are displayed: working hand-in-hand with private companies to acquire new spaces, implementing a Video On Demand (VOD) offer, organising an augmented reality (AR) festival, initiating marketing campaigns, etc. \u2018I first of all have to confide that we started KIKK in the worst of ways, completely for free,\u2019 remembers Gilles Bazelaire. \u2018I was proud of it, but I came to understand that it was absolutely not sustainable. Today we have a permanent exhibition site, the Pavillon<\/a>, which allows us, to a certain extent, to amortise the costs of organising our annual festival, but above all to reach out to new audiences such as the schools and a more local public in comparison with KIKK\u2019s international reach. With my colleague Marie du Chastel, KIKK\u2019s curator and artistic director, we are also committed to launching a sister organisation geared towards expertise and advice, inspired by our Marseille confreres at Chroniques<\/a>. One branch of KIKK will without a doubt be business oriented. But what is complicated is that my co-workers are there for the art, not to find new business models. I don\u2019t have any sales and marketing profiles on my team.\u2019 On that point, for that matter, whilst the institutions taking part in the survey across the board consider themselves connoisseurs of the arts, only a small dozen replied in the affirmative to the question: \u2018Do you consider that your teams have solid business expertise?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shining a light on the invisibles<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After the theory of the digital arts, down to the practice. A well-deserved lunchbreak later, the small troop led by wake! makes its way to Tour et Taxis, where the fourth edition of Digital Spring is taking place. Organised by paradigm.brussels<\/a>, a public body operating in the Brussels-Capital Region, the exhibition aspires to be an educational showcase through which any citizen may get to grips with the digital services around them. But it is to attend another festival held under the Digital Spring umbrella that we stop off at the heart of this former industrial site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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