What is the most urgent need that you have?
Self-determination.
What is the best/ interesting case or project on new media arts that you have just recently experienced?
The success and failure of the “WebSining Digital Art Contest” project ( 2006-2008 ) with the (Philippine) National Commission for Culture and the Arts -National Committee for Visual Arts presented a number of critical issues in the dynamics between (1) government administrative structures, policy and funding for culture and the arts, (2) the creative context, the way people within the national committees think about the shape of creative practices, its past, present and future, (3) the role of non-art-related civil society organizations in the national arts agenda, and (4) the participation (or lack thereof) of the public in new and innovative arts development programs.
In your opinion, is there a potential for change on and change through a policy level, i.e. has the status of policy as an accelerator/ a meaningful factor for practice changed?
National government policy for culture and arts has changed in recent years to accommodate the entry of “new media” as anchor for national economic progress and global competitiveness. This impacts on existing structures that have addressed the needs of pre-national and national creative practices in the past 3-5 decades following the emergence of many Southeast Asian nations from colonial domination. Policy shifts include the focus from tourism to outsourcing in the commodification of cultural forms through information and communications technologies or ICT, and the highlighting of the arts in intellectual property legislation and enforcement in compliance with international trade. In the appreciation of policy advocacy and policy change, the relationship between cultural policy and cultural context within the national sphere must be seen within the top-down process of globalization being determined, more often than not, by the politics and economics of the US and the EU. It is thus within this top-down hierarchy that the status of policy as factor for practice has emerged in many countries. To achieve genuine policy reform, one must also reform not only the creative context but also the policy hierarchy.
