A few months ago, when I was doing research interviews in Brussels, I thought about doing a post on EU official art. Nearly every corridor in every building of the Commission, Council and Parliament has two or three examples along its walls - spectacularly bland and uninteresting prints and photographs, always with the twelve stars on a blue flag in there somewhere. The art is contentless and affectless because any strong statement, or even conveyed sense of geographic location, would probably offend somebody in one or another of the member states. There’s something about the EU that seems completely inimical to lively cultural expression.
Not for much longer perhaps. Bruce Sterling, gonzo science fiction provocateur and joint father of cyberpunk, is getting excited by the unlikely subject of the EU’s acquis communautaire.
What if there were two global systems of governance, and they weren’t based on control of the landscape? Suppose they interpenetrated and competed everywhere, sort of like Tory and Labour, or Coke and Pepsi. I’m kind of liking this European ‘Acquis’ model where there is scarcely any visible ‘governing’ going on, and everything is accomplished on the levels of invisible infrastructure, like highway regulations and currency reform.
This sounds like an unlikely subject for sf, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s Sterling. At least two-thirds of his Distraction is one of the wildest and funniest sf novels about politics ever written (the final section peters out pretty badly). If anyone can make regulatory international bureaucracy sound exciting, it’s going to be Sterling. And he’s onto something - there’s something deeply weird about the EU. It isn’t (and will probably never be) a fully featured state, and instead is, as Sterling says, for the most part a vast body of transnational semi-visible regulation. It’s incredibly boring on the face of it (partly because most of the regulation concerns dull matters like phytosanitary standards), but there’s something quirky and strange about the fact that it exists at all, and that it operates in the way that it does. I’m going to be interested to see whether Sterling manages to get anywhere with this.
There was a guy in the 80s putting forward a similar concept. I can’t think of his name right now - Berkstein or Berkshire maybe? - anyway, he was an Aussie and I think a Jesuit with a professorship somewhere. He had some radical notions about non-geographic governance. He wanted to see government activities divided up on a function-driven basis. He also had this notion about running government through oversight committees drawn randomly from the constituency.
I ought to write a post on it. I’ve got his book at home.
Ah, I meant John Burnheim. At least I knew it began with a “B”.
Boring is the new interesting!
But could anything possibly be more gripping than EU-mediated disputes over protected designations of varieties of cheese (and other foodstuffs, but especially cheese)?
“There’s something about the EU that seems completely inimical to lively cultural expression.”
When has cultural expression ever lived on the walls of corridors of parliaments and burocratic centres?
The EU has been funding a huge amount of art and culture projects, exhibitons, institutes, films, schools, scolarships, etc. It’s one of the good things the EU actually does, let’s acknoweldge it at least.
“It’s incredibly boring on the face of it (partly because most of the regulation concerns dull matters like phytosanitary standards), but there’s something quirky and strange about the fact that it exists at all, and that it operates in the way that it does. “
Forgive my cynicism, but isn’t that more or less the thoughtful view of the Sun, the Daily Mail, and UKIP? :)
When I think of states using the Arts to “propagate/sell” their message, I think of the Nazi’s and Soviets.
Which is why I’m a bit worried that EU that wants to use arts to sell its self.
Sure alot of what it wants to do is “boring” but so is most of government so that no excuse.
Rather I think that this illustrates that things are just not quite right about the EU - If it now thinks that its just a brand than god help us.
The last brand war between two identical products with different labels was in 1941-45
- any wasnt much fun for anyone (expcept perhaps artists).
Ah yeah, the nazis and soviets, famous above all for their sponsorship and funding of independent art…
Millions of people today are exactly in the same situation in that respect, they have been so brainwashed that when, at the end of a film they liked, they see a mention of the Irish Film Board, British Film council, European Commission, the French or Dutch or whatever equivalent, or a combination of any of those, they immediately think “we will now worship and obey without questions the genocidal dictatorial regime that enslaved these filmmakers and actors to produce such triumphant celebration of our great fearless leaders!”, even if it’s just Bridget Jones!
To think that Hugh Grant and Colin Firth are responsible for selling government propaganda, it’s sad, really, sad…
since when has government funding/subsidies carried any editorial control mona?
Henry’s post points out that the EU seems to want to be seen everywhere so people know about it.
By contrast most people know who their state government is and hence the, say British government has no incentive to publish its ubiquity (infact it has alot of incentive to publish its smallness).
And the “Acquis Communautaire” isnt a brand - its 80,000 pages, some of which presumably mean something to someone.
Forgive my cynicism, but isn’t that more or less the thoughtful view of the Sun, the Daily Mail, and UKIP? :)
Hardly, I would have thought. Their attitude seems to me to be more that the EU is a wicked plot to destroy nation states. And I should note that my own “thoughtful view” is informed by having worked in various capacities for the Commission over the years, as well as having devoted a substantial chunk of my adult life to studying and writing on the EU. I’m quite happy to argue that the EU is a Good Thing overall, but it is dull, trust me - try teaching the Common Agricultural Policy to a class of undergraduates, and you’ll see what I mean.
Giles - is there a state in the world that doesn’t and hasn’t tried to produce official art of some sort or another? And indeed, some of the output has been quite remarkably good - say Florence and the Papal States in the Renaissance. All of this was quite political in its intent and effects. The fact that the EU tries to sponsor ‘European’ art is not in itself a bad thing - it’s just that (for a variety of reasons) it tends not to be good art (under any reasonable definition of ‘good’). And in fairness, in addition to the junk that I criticize, the EU does help fund some good local stuff on the sly. Mind you, I’m sure that thirty years down the line the naff paintings lining the corridors of power will be highly collectible for its kitsch value - now’s the time to stock up if you ask me.
“is there a state in the world that doesn’t and hasn’t tried to produce official art of some sort or another?”
Probably not – but it is a question of extremes; the british government funds films but is pretty liberal in its prescriptions because the objective is clear(ish) maintain the industry and promote the “local culture”.
The pathology of the EU system is that, as you mention, it is somehow constrained from standing for anything too particular which is why it just pays for star circles to be plastered everywhere – so it looks a bit like a plain brand.
The problem is that if its not rooted any particular value, the Art may make the EU take on a personality of its own – that where the Reich analogies come in – I’m speculating here but I’m sure a large part of the Nazi’s support came from people who had never even read a précis of Mein Kampf but rather associated the Nazi’s with the powerful images they’d been feed. And the power of art to imprint a personality on a instution then instills a certain blind loyalty.
So once you start treating the Acquis Communautaire as a brand as opposed to a set of values/laws etc I think it becomes hard to know where you’re going to end up.
even conveyed sense of geographic location, would probably offend somebody in one or another of the member states.
The iconography and corporate colour scheme of Kakania is expressly designed to be void of regional or national iconography. When you enter the Berlaymont building, you leave your national sympathies with the barman. The possibility of the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben ever appearing in any EU brochure or picture would represent a failure of the bureaucracy as catastrophic as full scale war.
more gripping than EU-mediated disputes over protected designations of varieties of cheese (and other foodstuffs, but especially cheese)?
Ah! The feta wars! Still gives me goosebumps.
“There’s something about the EU that seems completely inimical to lively cultural expression.”
Yet they chose ‘Ode to Joy’ as an anthem.
henry: believe me, I believe you :) I’ve dealt with EU institutions too, for work, even if not as directly as you. I have no argument at all with the description of the EU as dull, as a burocratic institution, but the EU as the whole of its nation members is another thing, and the EU as institution funding and supporting projects including those of an artistic or cultural nature, yet another…
I couldn’t say whether the EU is a Good or Bad thing as a whole, it so depends on what we mean by it. I was arguing with the idea that the EU is inimical to art, it’s not, if you actually consider the funding aspect for independent projects, and not just what the EU commissions as official art to represent the institution. I’ve never seen that official art, I don’t expect it to be anything impressive, but I’ve come across a lot of instances of EU funding for unequivocally good things (if you’re not the kind of person who objects to public funding of arts in the first place, of course), like art and design institutes and independent projects in a lot of artistic fields.
I was being a bit sarcastic about the comparison with the UKIP views, of course, didn’t mean it literally. But you know, for many people, the way the debate is so taken to extremes especially in the tabloids and the like, the distrust for the EU often starts simply from the idea that it’s this weird thing whose reason for existence is incomprehensible and unjustified, and from there it’s rather easy to exploit that distrust to make it into full blown paranoia, like UKIP and the like do. I’m not a Europhile, I really don’t have one single opinion on the EU as such, I just got bored by stuff like the tabloids mocking of European regulations, as if there was no point at all to regulating industries, or as if it was a peculiar EU invention (these people must have never dealt with the FDA!), or as if there was something really that weird about the idea of harmonising pre-existing national regulations once there is a common market (a little detail the tabloids tend to forget about).
So I’m just a bit skeptical of the usual discourse about the EU as this mindboggingly kafkian thing, because that view is so often exploited by demagogues.
giles - I don’t quite get your last points, but you did say: When I think of states using the Arts to “propagate/sell” their message, I think of the Nazi’s and Soviets. Which is why I’m a bit worried that EU that wants to use arts to sell its self.. Well, giles, the nazis and soviets directly commissioned art for regime propaganda, hence there was surely a lot of “editorial control”!
I was objecting to your comparing dictatorial propaganda with government funding/subsidies for the arts, it’s totally ludicrous. It’s ludicrous to even think of the Nazi and Soviet regimes in the same breath as the EU, no matter how many votes the UKIP got by doing just that.
Most European nations already have their own arts councils, boards, film councils, ministries or departments of culture, etc. the EU just pumps even more money into the same kind of stuff that’s been government-funded like that for years, together with funding from the private sector. What’s so worrying about it to warrant such a parallel with genocidal regimes?
Boring Schmoring, I don’t care.
If Bush wins here in the States in November, I am signing up.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review