netznetz

netznetz is a social platform for individuals and groups associated with net art and net culture in Vienna, Austria. The platform was dissolved around 2011 because of internal problems and loss of funding from the Viennese city.

Under the title netznetz.net a congregation of initiatives and individuals in the "greater electronic area" of Vienna is growing with the goal to enhance and also visualize connectivity between themselves and the public.

In a 3-day convention at the Künstlerhaus in October 2004 netznetz.net activists sounded out the practices, collaborations and futures of digital Vienna. The motto "bring your own devices" was a call beyond the individual scenes to both past and future participants, and offered access to new techniques and strategies in horizontal working situations.

Funding model

Netznetz (formerly: Netznetz Mana) is a system for the distribution of municipal grants developed and run by netznetz in which the participants distribute their own funding according to certain democratically agreed-upon rules and aided by custom software. It is run largely independent of the city government which provides the funds.

The system strives for guaranteed and dispersed distribution of funding in the sector while the parameters of the distribution are meant to remain flexible, providing a dynamic scope. The aim is to encourage project-based collaborations by distributing various smaller grants. Therefore, everybody who is involved in the sector is subject to the principle of permanent reconfiguration of the system and the network. The modular funding structure – developed in a drawn-out process of discourse and with the contribution of more than 30 groups – was boldly presented by the community and accepted by the municipal Commissioner For The Arts.

Netznetz.net gathering at Künstlerhaus, Vienna (October 2004)

According to the new plan, 50% of the funding (250,000 euro, roughly US$300,000) is reserved for infrastructure (backbone projects), newbies (microgrants), and common representation (annual convention) and is to be distributed by the administration together with the community during the course of an open space conference. The other half of the funding is to be self-distributed among the community in the form of network grants, facilitating the everyday work of contributors, which is usually not supported at all in conventional arts endowment systems.

The process to come up with an ideal system of self-governance amongst the artists has been marked by disagreements and skepticism. Critics fear that the system could lead to increased competition and hostilities between participants, favor well-marketed projects over substantiated ones or that too much trust is placed in as-of-yet unproven software. Proponents of the idea cite its independent, democratic, open and non-bureaucratic tendencies as advantages, and state that it is designed to reward collaboration.

In spring 2009 the City of Vienna started an external evaluation process that decided the future of the self-governed funding model. As a result parts of the direct community voting mechanisms were replaced by a jury, which is being elected by the community.

Coordinators

• January 2006-July 2006: Stefan Lutschinger
• July 2006-September 2006: Johannes Grenzfurthner
• September 2006-October 2006: Paul Böhm
• November 2006-September 2007: Andreas Trawöger
• September 2007-December 2007: Valie Göschl and Charlotte Zott
• December 2007-December 2008: 4-headed coordination team (among others Andreas Leo Findeisen and Michael Zeltner)

See also

• Consensus decision-making
• Game theory

Participating artists and collectives with Wikipedia articles

• 0rf.at
• MACHFELD
• Monochrom
• Quintessenz
• Ubermorgen
• Esel
• PhpWiki
• Metalab
• sonance

Note: This is an incomplete listing which should not be taken to represent the netznetz community as a whole.

External links

• NetzNetz Wiki
• Option Democr@tor - Overview over currently discussed issues, decisions and structures in German
• Diskussion 2004 bis 200x - Overview over currently discussed issues, decisions and structures in German