Last autumn BEK, Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts, was running the risk of having to close down due to lack of future fundings. To prevent this we launched a massive lobbying campaign towards the Ministry of Culture, The Norwegian Parliament, The Municipality of Bergen, etc. We also called for artists and others concerned to express their support for BEK at our website. Almost 600 persons responded to this call for support. Concidering that BEK is a small and young organization, that was very impressive. The support statements were forwarded to all relevant politicians and bureaucrats:
Shortly before christmas the Parliament decided to grant support for BEK for the future. In the beginning of January The Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs and the Ministry of Culture desided to provide additional funding for BEK. BEK now has a long-term security concerning fundings that we have never experienced before.
On behalf of everyone involved with BEK (staff, artists, users, etc.) I want to express our gratitude towards all of you that supported us.
Sincerely, Gisle Frøysland
On 12-10-03 20:36, "Trond Lossius" lossius@bek.no wrote:
BEK - Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts might be forced to close down early next year due to lack of governmental support. For this reason we call for your support. If you believe that BEK should continue to exist, please express your support at our web page:
or by sending a mail to demo@bek.no.
HISTORY
BEK - Bergen Centre of Electronic Arts, was found while Bergen, Norway, was one of 9 cultural cities of Europe 2000. The founding of BEK was part of a national strategy initiated by The Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs to better working conditions for artists working within the field of new media arts in Norway. BEK is part of the Norwegian Production Network for Electronic Arts (www.pnek.no). So far The Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs has provided most of the financial support for BEK. The Norwegian Council for Cultural Affairs is not permitted to support organizations for extended periods, and will not be able to support BEK in the future. For this reason, we've applied for Governmental support from 2004. The proposed National Budget does not include future support for BEK. For this reason we now fear that we will be forced to close down early next year. If so, we believe that one of the strongest current Norwegian voices on the international art scene will be silenced, causing a severe setback to artistic exchange between the art community in Norway and abroad.
ACTIVITY AND INTERNATIONAL PROFILE
BEK hosted the first international workshop dealing with Nato.0+55 in the summer of 2000, and has been profiled as a valuable resource for artists in Norway and abroad using live technologies such as Max, MSP, Nato.0+55, streaming technology, Keystroke/Keyworx, etc. The mailing list /55\ was established when Netochka Nezvanova was thrown of the Max-MSP mailing list. HC Gilje and Kurt Ralske of 242.pilots first met during the workshop at BEK. 242.pilots has toured the world as pioneers of real time based video performance, and the received the Image Award at Transmediale.03 International Media Art Festival in Berlin, February 2003.
The development of "MøB", Linux GNU software for real-time video processing (mob.bek.no) has been a major project for the last two years. In November 2003 BEK will host an international conference and festival, Piksel, of artists/developers working with real-time video on Linux (www.piksel.no). Piksel will be a valuable opportunity to coordinate current development of real time video software for Linux around the world. The workshop was overbooked before we got the opportunity to do a call for participation.
BEK has been an important part of the Bergen electronic music and electronica community. Torbjørn Brundtland of Röyksopp was doing civil service at BEK when Röyksopp hit the British pop charts in 2001. Underground artists such as Kaptein Kaliber, Jazzkammer, Alog and Phonophani have been collaborating with BEK at a number of projects. Pilota.fm started out as a net radio focusing on electronic and contemporary music. The Trollofon concerts on a vintage trolley bus has hosted artists such as Phonophani, Oval, Alog, Pita, Kim Hiortøy, Tujiko Noriko, Maja Ratkje, Massimo and Fennesz. The concerts are available for download as mp3 at Pilota.fm. The Pilota project also caused the Municipality of Bergen to continue supporting the use of trolley buses in Bergen two years ago. BEK also hosts another net radio focusing on the local music scene (www.radiofetthode.no) and the mailing list CsoundTekno.
BEK has been affiliated with the most important Norwegian contemporary theatre companies, such as BAK-truppen (www.baktruppen.org) and Verdensteatret (www.verdensteatret.com). BEK has been involved in the production of a number of short movies. The short movie "Love is the Law" was presented as part of Semaine Internationale de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival 2003 and received "Prix Canal + du Meilleur court métrage" and " Prix de la (Toute) Jeune Critique".
This year BEK is hosting 6 artists and students from abroad, participating in the NIFCA Media Artist in Residence, Fulbright program, Leonardo da Vinci EU training programme and other exchange programmes.
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