Future Bloom - A call to the realutopian meta community of innovative musicians

 

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1. Salutation and introduction

 

2. The Realutopia: The multiperspective meta festival (1)

2.1 A scenario!

2.2 Two successful scenarios from recent years: Voices from the scene.

2.3 Where do we currently stand – culturally, socially, and economically?

2.4 Political and ecological perspective?

2.5 Economic perspective?

2.6 Why queer-feminist, anti-racist, barrier-free, and anti-classist?

2.7 Why interdisciplinary and heterarchical?

 

3. How can meta community and meta festival be implemented?

3.1 Which existing projects motivate us?

3.2 Why 52 communities?

3.3 How does the meta community emerge?

3.4 What characteristics does the meta community have?

3.5 How does the meta community work?

3.6 What are the goals of the meta community?

 

4. The implementation of values / festival formats

4.1 Why an awareness team?

4.2 Why 0-100,000 Euro admission?

4.3 Why are there lectures, workshops, and flash mobs?

 

5. In which location could the festival take place?

 

6. Financing, funding landscape, and remuneration

6.1 How is the meta festival financed?

6.2 How is the current funding landscape structured nationwide?

6.3 How is cultural funding organized in a country like Berlin?

6.4 What interesting and current figures and voices are there?

6.5 In what relation would the meta festival stand with institutionally funded facilities?

6.6 What are further important aspects of cultural funding?

6.7 How high should the remuneration for the respective activities at the festivals be?

 

7. Potential and outlook

 

8. Thank you and call to action

 

9. Participation and contact

 

10. References

 

 

 

Dear musicians of fresh, future-oriented music,

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we are the Meta Community and are pleased about your interest and attention! We are a group of musicians, organizers, and members of various collectives (2), who believe in the power of solidarity and community because we have experienced it. This is a call to create a completely new and rethought Meta Festival! Inform yourselves here about our vision!

Currently, the Covid-19 crisis makes us aware of the already existing global grievances at all levels of social life, and it exacerbates them. It puts cultural life and creation to the test of survival. The politics do too little to preserve the diverse cultural landscape and to cushion the existential emergency of those working in the music business. Therefore, we need general structural changes in the financing, distribution of resources, and organizational structure of our cultural sector – even beyond the pandemic times. We want radical (3) and sustainable changes in our music industry and beyond. In order to bring something productive against the political devaluation of culture in the medium and long term, we present here a concrete, future-oriented, and emancipatory major project:

We want to establish a Meta Festival that has not existed in this form in Germany yet. A music festival with interdisciplinary exchange, which is embedded in an intersectional, queer-feminist, anti-racist, and common-good-oriented vision of the idea of a just post-Corona time, in which we can be different without fear. On the way to this goal, the major project festival aims to develop and build new structures that are value-oriented and participatory, as well as to create equality for the involved musicians, organizers, and for the music industry in general. The Meta Festival would allow us to play for and be there for each other. We do not see the festival only as an opportunity for us artists ourselves – we also see the potential to bring about far-reaching and profound societal improvements!

We want to connect all those who have been pursuing similar values for years and have put in a lot of effort, as well as those who have always been looking for exchange. Additionally, we want to encourage circles of friends who have been thinking about doing something comparable for a long time. Last but not least, we would like to invite people who have never had such an opportunity but dream of implementing a profound festival of this kind. Get to know our vision and let us unite!

 

2. The Real Utopia: The Multiperspective Meta Festival

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2.1 A Scenario!

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“I arrive from the elevator door on the third floor to the entrance door of the festival. In the entrance hall, a huge, sparkling, underwater creature hanging from the ceiling catches my eye. Then a friendly ensemble of hosts and the awareness team greets me with a small welcome drink. The team explains to me in brief and friendly words that no discrimination is tolerated at the festival in order to create a safe atmosphere for all participants. I can feel free to report anything uncomfortable at any time. This gives me a certain trust that here, at least, it will not simply be ignored if I or others are rudely approached, treated unpleasantly, or insulted.

There is a sign: “Admission: 0-100,000 €.” I am told that I can decide for myself how much I can and want to pay. I choose 20 €, as my income does not allow for more. Who pays more than that? And who pays nothing at all? The person next to me! And they receive three coupons for free drinks. At first, I am taken aback, but then I am happy that a nice evening can be made possible for everyone here, regardless of monetary means.

On the way to the main room, I see interactive installations as well as anti-racist and queer-feminist readings to take with me. Upon arrival, I look around and see a kind of green meadow made of strings and bottle caps hanging from the ceiling: Upcycling! Illuminated by colorful light effects and various visuals that bring the room to life. This also contributes to a pleasant atmosphere.

While a person with blue curls hands me my drink, I see Black, young, trans*, female, old, migrant, white people, fat, queer, middle-aged, seemingly wealthier people, people with disabilities, seemingly poorer, non-binary, people of color, made-up as well as unmade-up people, male, thin people in the festival crew, in the audience, and among the artists, who are animatedly chatting, soaking in the atmosphere, bustling from A to B organizing things, lounging, drinking, and laughing.

It begins: Funny and political welcome words from the hosts' community can be heard, also translated into sign language. Then the first concert starts. I am captivated by the magic and virtuosity of this musician. I have never heard the combination of synthetic and natural sounds like this before. I don’t know her yet and feel how the freshness of her music sweeps and inspires the people around me.

In the subsequent “Ayran Show,” my laughter muscles and I learn how the delicious drink is made with joy and fitting music. Of course, also in a vegan version. During the break, I briefly exchange thoughts with others about the exuberant yet attentive atmosphere at the festival. While washing my hands, my key falls out of my pocket, and a hand with a sparkling ring that looks very elegant picks it up for me. I suspect that some can indeed pay more admission than I can.

Then I see several posters. Aha! This afternoon, there were also various free workshops for disadvantaged people. And here it says: “We are not purely commercial, but a sustainably designed, democracy-promoting festival community. We work interdisciplinary, we think and act intersectionally. For our 52 nationwide linked communities, every day is like this. We have endless fun, come join us and check our website!”

On the way back, I get lost in the backstage area. The crew cook asks me in English if I could quickly rearrange a table. In the process, I notice how the different communities are obviously exchanging ideas about the festival events and celebrating together.

Next comes the highlight, a spectacular show by a post-contemporary jazz beat quartet that is collaborating tonight with a queer feminist freestyle rapper. They play in the middle of the room, and everyone gathers around them. Crazy, not exactly ordinary music, and that’s exactly why I and some others feel like dancing. This energy spreads throughout the room.

Barely over, I find myself in the middle of an activist flash mob, get an orange button pinned on me, a flyer pressed into my hand, and I scream with unknown people out the window: “Leave no one behind” at the top of my lungs. For a moment, it becomes quiet; a 20-member, transnational FLINTA* choir sings a moving song.

Pause. For five minutes, everyone is connected. And now? Focus on an interdisciplinary collaboration between a producer of electronic dance music, four string players, and four dancers. Here, musical boundaries are overcome. I feel this sheer openness of the artists and the merging of art forms.

Afterwards, I drink my last drink and wonder with my friends if we have ever experienced something like this before. We agree: Just a single concert with this unique atmosphere would have already given us an unforgettable memory, but all these performances here in concentrated power and their wonderful interplay in this place: Wow!!!

It’s Wednesday night, but I realize that the festival here is probably far from over. Unfortunately, I have to go. Luckily, the festival lasts the whole week. On the way home, I look back at the flyer, fulfilled, happy, and slightly overwhelmed. For me, one thing is clear: I would love to be part of this community, and somehow I already was today.

 

2.2 Two Successful Scenarios from Recent Years

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Voices from the Scene.

Jim Black (4) about the Kulturrabazzz Festival 2020 in Dresden (5): “A fantastic evening of sound, light, music, conversation, real connection. They are making a new type of contemporary folk music by the living one, one that addresses what’s happening now… It’s a beacon of inspiration. They not only dream of what’s possible, they actually turn these ideas and inspirations into tangible realities that we can all take part in… a completely immersive experience. I wish something like that would happen every week in my community.”

Nadin Deventer (6) about the Kulturrabazzz Festival 2018 in Dresden (7): “When I visited the Kulturrabazzz in Dresden, I immersed myself in a lovingly designed, sparkling universe full of creativity, hospitality, exciting music, and encounters; a place characterized by curiosity, openness, and exchange, where the community spirit was palpably present.”

 

2.3 Where do we currently stand – culturally, socially, and economically?

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A main structural problem within the non-mainstream music scene in Germany is that there are far too few performance opportunities for far too many great artists. If there were a higher prioritization of the value of music culture from the state side and a fairer distribution of the provided budgets, culture in Germany could flourish in its breadth without constantly having to fear for its existence (especially in times of an epidemic).

The effects of the capitalist economic system on our society and its musical educational institutions are severe. On one hand, many people lack access opportunities, and on the other hand, the training structures often create too much competition and closed-mindedness. Those who simply want to share music and enjoy mutual support quickly fall short. After all, music and culture act as vehicles for mutual exchange.

Neither statements about the professional suitability nor the profession of a person are made here. It is problematic for social and cultural coexistence when inequalities and structural problems evoke envy and resentment instead of work motivation, goodwill, and joy. We urgently need better structural conditions and a multiperspective vision for greater performance opportunities.

 

2.4 Political and ecological perspective?

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If we want to protect our democracy and further develop it into a more participatory (8) one, we artists and all those working in the music business must face reality: forecasts speak of 100 million to 2 billion possible climate refugees in this century. (9) Moreover, leading scientists already cite visible and tangible negative effects of digitalization, such as algorithm-supported fake news and hate dissemination on social media, as well as "singularization, profiling pressure, extreme affect culture, erosion of the general public." (10) Some consider these effects to be potentially even more threatening to democracy or society in Germany than the impacts of human-caused global warming. (11)

The global climate crisis and the threats of uncontrolled digitalization raise the question of self-definition and function for art and culture in general. How do we want to position ourselves in light of the already dramatic situation today? We align ourselves with the mindset and the drive for action of initiatives like The Ocean Clean Up (12), Seebrücke (13), Hyper Cultural Passengers (14), and the Common Good Economy (15), and we want to redefine our own role as European artists here in Germany.

We want to use the following methods and formats to encourage as many people as possible to participate in our festival and to have a deep impact locally in social strata, in order to ultimately shape a more resilient overall society. Multiperspectivity and interdisciplinarity amplify different perspectives into a new synergistic cohesion of all participants. The resulting exchange, the perception of other viewpoints, as well as discussions are important building blocks of a democracy that we want to strengthen. Workshops accessible to all people serve to educate and further train. We want to ensure functioning inclusion, among other things, through a barrier-free festival, a diverse line-up, awareness teams for a discrimination-free interaction, and freely selectable ticket prices. This way, our festival can appeal to and connect people of all identities and all social and cultural backgrounds. The communities are responsible for the organization. We believe that a more diverse line-up will be automatically assembled when the communities themselves already consist of more diverse people. Therefore, we follow the vision that our communities will be formed from diverse people in the long term. Until then, the communities must develop a plan on how they can ensure a diverse line-up. We see this as a fundamental building block to generate the desired diversity in the audience as well. Through all festival formats that enable exchange and dialogue, as well as joint action and learning, we create inclusion and participation of all involved, especially the audience. We see this inclusion as the foundation for sharing mutual respect, empathy, goodwill, a sense of community, belonging, interest, and fun. And these factors have proven to be the important pillars of a healthy and happy democratic society.

It is evidenced by studies that individuals alone cannot remotely tackle the climate crisis through their consumption behavior. (16) Much more important is to exert pressure on governments to carry out the necessary, massive transformations towards a sustainable circular economy and a more socially just society. (17) The event industry should also behave as climate-friendly as possible: We organizers can, for example, upcycle, use little to no plastic, ask our artists to travel by train, and generally invite more regional artists. Furthermore, we can also use our community and festival platform to ally with existing climate protection networks such as Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, or Wir haben es satt!, offer joint projects, and ultimately increase pressure on politics through a united voice.

 

2.5 Economic Perspective?

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There are various approaches to how a more economically just society could look. We hold the opinion that the state has the duty to preserve and promote culture and education to a much greater extent than before. (18) Culture has many forces of impact, especially outside of the commercial realm – it creates essential values and synergies. (19) These are not valued in the German GDP-focused economy – a significant reason for the severe income and wealth deficits of most self-employed artists in this country. A development that is significantly driven by the fact that in economics (still!) over 90% of the curriculum teaches neoclassicism, although we see after about 40 years of privatization and the dismantling of the welfare state that no equitable society is emerging from it. (20) Differently, for example, it would be in the common good economy.

We wish for a higher appreciation of the social values, spaces, and goods created by culture. The cultural sector is currently repeatedly portrayed as an "appendage" of other sectors with only low economic power of its own. However, this does not correspond to the truth: The revenue of the cultural and creative industries in 2019 amounted to 174.1 billion euros out of a total of 3,449 billion euros, thus about 5 percent of the total German gross domestic product. This made it the sixth largest economic sector in 2019 with about 1.8 million employees. (21)

The German Institute for Economic Research shows in a study published in 2020 that the richest 10% of Germans own about 67% of the 7.78 trillion euros of national net wealth, the top five percent about 55%, the top 1% about 35%, and the wealthiest 0.1% (about 80,000 people) still about 20%. (22) Thomas Piketty also pointed out how glaring global – but also national – income and wealth disparities are. (23) Thus, he advocates for new regulations of ownership and a progressive tax system that could finance a one-time state start-up capital of 120,000 euros for all citizens from the age of 25. Aside from alternative models of wealth redistribution like this, there also seems to be a willingness to share private wealth: In mid-June 2020, there was an open letter from 83 millionaires from seven countries (24) with the declared will to co-finance the social reconstruction after the Covid-19 crisis through taxes.

It thus seems that there is partially the will to distribute one's own high wealth more to society as a whole. We want to directly connect with this through the financing policy of our festival (see 4.2). In addition, we want to dare a new business idea through the organizational structure of the Meta Community – to organize culture beyond the existing dependency systems.

 

2.6 Why queer-feminist, anti-racist, barrier-free, and anti-classist?

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It is time to establish more intersectional festivals with intersectional communities! Intersectionality refers to the overlap and simultaneity of different forms of discrimination such as racism, sexism, queerphobia, ableism, lookism, age discrimination, and classism against a person. (25) Intersectional thinking and acting are necessary to truly include and present all people within the framework of a festival event. We therefore explicitly want to follow the credo of intersectionality in our festival event and do justice to the right to equality enshrined in the Basic Law.

Movements like Black Lives Matter show that the injustices created by history and society must finally be ended. Music culture also contributes to the maintenance of racism and inequalities in the representation, participation, and promotion of people. To stand against racism and ensure more justice, we should all find answers to the following questions:

What Privileges Do We Have Individually and as Groups and How Can We Use Them? Can I help non-binary and queer artists gain more visibility by recommending them in my personal event network or by booking them for my own event? Where can we hold our work meetings so that they are accessible? Do the white members of my community want to participate in an anti-racism workshop? What language is understood by everyone in my group? Who has a social environment that significantly facilitates the building of a musical career? What family support, financial resources, contacts, and time capacities are available to me? Who can afford a PR agency, good videos, or management, and who cannot? In reality, we see inequalities in opportunities everywhere. We as artists want to address the answering of these questions in the development of the intersectionally conceived Meta Community and the Meta Festival, thereby ensuring a fairer basis for shaping the future of our culture!

 

2.7 Why Interdisciplinary and Heterarchical?

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We want to offer an open-minded, diverse, interdisciplinary, entertaining, but also demanding program. To bring our multiperspective approach to fruition, there should also be space for philosophical, economic, and political considerations. This practically demands interdisciplinary formats. This way, not only can the artists exchange their knowledge from different art and music genres, but the audience can also broaden their horizons in various ways. The different themes could be presented in creatively and unusually designed spaces, certainly also in a club atmosphere. This would certainly attract a younger audience that feels less addressed, especially in the jazz scene. We want to critically address this second major challenge of the rarely addressed potential audience with the methods of multiperspectivity and interdisciplinarity.

It is important to us to promote the joint undertaking with other people. This means, for example, inviting friends and acquaintances, but also people from other social spheres along with their interests to the events. In our experience, they often have the desire to participate in the festival work from the very beginning. Everyone can become a part of the whole. The same can be experienced by the artists: One day they play a concert, the next day they come again to listen and enjoy the atmosphere, but also to help out in the kitchen or at the entrance. A shift towards a more heterarchical community could happen; everyone can participate equally, attend, help, organize, and also present themselves.

 

3. How can Meta Community and Meta Festival be implemented?

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3.1 Which existing projects motivate us?

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Motivating examples that give us courage for the implementation and financing of our major project: Across Germany, many collectives and smaller groups of musicians have already come together, of which we know that they long for such an intensive exchange and networking. There are also already some major projects for the renewed usability of existing locations for the local cultural scene – such as in Berlin: the establishment of the Center for Jazz and Improvised Music, as well as the repurchase of the Radialsystem and its transformation into a cultural and event center.

From our own experience, we have also gained courage: Four main organizers and a total of about 25 other participants from Dresden and Berlin were able to organize a week-long future-oriented festival in Berlin with the support of the Musikfonds e.V. and the Berlin Senate. (26) The implementation of a festival should therefore be absolutely possible with good networking of the organizers on site. There are also existing festivals such as Elevate, Unsound, We Are Europe, Fusion Festival, the festivals of the Shapeplatform, Hedonistic World Congress, and our first own attempts with "Kulturrabazzz" (27) and "SURfF" in more or less similar styles. These can serve as inspiration for us. Furthermore, we can share all our knowledge and our previous festival experiences with each other.

 

3.2 Why 52 communities?

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A year has 365 days and about 52 weeks. Our realutopia includes 52 communities that hold their own week-long festivals on a total of 365 days a year. This means 52 different locations, 52 different focuses, 52 different communities that together ensure diversity, can reach a wide variety of local people, and ultimately mean numerous, appropriately paid, new and unique performance opportunities. The presented music encompasses everything that we musicians today understand as jazz or improvised, contemporary or new, fresh or progressive, pop or beats, electronic or acoustic – in short: professional non-mainstream music. Artists present artists.

 

3.3 How does the Meta Community come into being?

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Each community of the Meta Community establishes itself: It can, for example, start with five friendly musicians and grow by spreading the word about their idea. This is how we create our structures from the very beginning. All musicians, organizers, technicians, and volunteers can participate. When a group of organizers considers itself complete for a festival week, the other participants can begin to organize another festival week – another community is created. Thus, the idea propagates, and from an initial festival, more and more festivals emerge that follow the same spirit – from one community, more and more arise, until we ultimately are the Meta Community.

Many of the organizers and supporters can say that they have hardly experienced anything comparable and rarely something as significant in their lives as these self-organized festivals. In the shared creation, they experienced a deeper and almost indescribable fulfillment that overflowed onto artists and the audience.

The invitation to participate in founding a community and to be supported by the Meta Community is particularly aimed at those who feel somewhat overlooked by the existing structures despite high professionalism. The organizers should also present lesser-known acts at their festival, which are just as worth listening to as more established projects, because in the opinion of the organizers, they simply make good music. The music of tomorrow can be better brought to light in the cultural world by us ourselves, without continuing to depend on conservatively established line-up rituals, contacts, and awards. We want to ensure this independence for all artists of the Meta Community and thus achieve a fair distribution of performance opportunities.

 

3.4 What Characteristics Does the Meta Community Have?

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We want to place value on a certain heterogeneity of the groups when founding the communities. How this is exactly shaped, we must experience and formulate in the educational process. Heterogeneity cannot be fully constructed, but we would like to name it as an important educational criterion of the communities, as it will ultimately also contribute to the heterogeneity of our festival.

To be as well prepared as possible for the implementation of the real utopia, the communities should initially strive for a common knowledge base. This is oriented towards our stated core values, which we want to take seriously in the implementation of the festival. For this, we need the corresponding knowledge on the mentioned topics such as anti-racism (28), queer feminism, and plural economic thinking models. We want to attend workshops on these topics for our internal training. In parallel, we could agree on a common base of relevant literature that should be made accessible to all.

Finally, we recommend an internal, intersectional privilege and transparency check: What are my privileges? Where have I been disadvantaged? What do I wish for? Subsequently, we can reflect on and discuss the knowledge gained in conferences of the community structures with the aim of finding a common premise matrix. This collects our desired cornerstones of festival organization. For this, the selection of quotas should also count, especially since currently about 80% of German jazz musicians are cis-male. (29)

Based on these jointly formulated cornerstones, the individual festivals can then shape themselves individually and diversely. We thus want to create a common foundation of knowledge and implementation knowledge for a festival that can truly include all people. We also want to use the communities as a platform for exchanging thoughts, opinions, ideas, knowledge, skills, and professional resources such as contacts and spaces. For example, Jo shares his newly invented rhythm language with everyone interested through his "Recursive Rhythm Get-Together." (30) Here we see enormous potential for creating a supportive space for each other, which can be thought of in any way.

Based on these mentioned characteristics of the Meta Community – with all its communities – we want to emphasize that, of course, various initiatives, collectives, and individual activists are already engaged in the mentioned issues. Nevertheless, we see plenty of potential and need to create structural and lasting improvements. Therefore, we are looking for a more profound form of collaboration that can capture, integrate, and strengthen the existing commitment and individual activism. We want to take further steps towards a forward-looking, pluralistic, cross-genre, multidisciplinary development that can have an impact far beyond its own spaces and create real cohesion.

 

3.5 How does the Meta Community work?

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In principle, we advocate for a rather decentralized organizational structure. The communities should, however, be connected in regular exchange, especially in formulating the premise matrix. Important common questions in the ongoing organizational process should be coordinated among the communities. This will develop an overall structure that can raise a unified voice for the Meta Community in dialogue with institutions and politics.

Regarding our networking, we clearly advocate that we, as communities and as the Meta Community, want to enter the existing interest representations. These, in turn, are networked up to federal levels – from the respective municipal or regional interest groups, state associations, and cultural administrations, to the German Music Council, the Alliance of Free Arts, and the German Cultural Council.

We are very pleased that the associations of the arts and cultural economy have increasingly come together during the pandemic. This has allowed them to demand necessary and urgent measures and support from politics even more effectively, as a kind of cultural overall representation.

In addition to the multifaceted, extremely important, and valuable work of the associations in the music landscape, the engagement of us artists is also needed! Furthermore, we welcome any exchange with people from the music industry. This call for the Meta Community should not be understood as a separation from existing structures, but rather as a joint striving for a progressive and proactive further development and expansion of these. We want to connect in even more intense and successful ways with the people who are already committed to innovative music projects in politics and the cultural sector. We want to amplify our collective potential.

Once a community has been established, networking and communication with institutional structures between culture and politics, as well as with music associations, initiatives, funding institutions, and venue operators, begins. Here, further knowledge can be generated as a source of inspiration for one's own community work and then implemented.

After as many communities as possible have been founded and organized and have entered into exchange with associations and among themselves, all communities will, as a Meta Community, in the final step, address politics with their overall concept and the concerns collected for it.

In the short and medium term, community work is in the hands of all who participate. In the long term, the work in the areas of organization, funding, communication, and advertising should be in the hands of professional staff. The aim would be for these to be financed by the project itself in the long term. At this point, we would like to emphasize again that this project not only has the potential to create a sparkling, encouraging world for ourselves, it also has far-reaching and profound societal benefits, which we will present in more detail below.

 

3.6 What are the Goals of the Meta Community?

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We present fresh and innovative music as well as all kinds of art, promote democracy, create education, unite different social classes, create a never-before-seen national – and hopefully soon border-breaking – flagship project, counter the growing right-wing populism, and include people. We offer significantly more performance opportunities, create an expanded network, a strong sense of belonging and cohesion, and greater independence from existing organizational structures.

Branko Milanovic showed that 60% of income differences can be explained by the country of birth and another 20% by the income level of the parents. (31) This massively relativizes the influence of one's own work and talent on professional success. The philosophy of the entire festival questions the principle of a meritocracy and aims to counteract this inequality of opportunity in order to make one's own work more effective and successful. For example, festival line-ups could be drawn from a pool of good acts.

This type of festival ultimately provides answers to the questions: How can non-mainstream music be successfully presented today and in the future – far from outdated business, venue, and audience structures? How can the challenge of bringing a new, also young audience to the events be met, and how will these events be open, fresh, and a safer space that is accessible to all?

Despite the absolute necessity of so-called high culture and its "lighthouses," we see enormous, additive potential in this subcultural, inclusive type of project. We want nothing less than to create a society of the future, a society that can build resilience in the face of already existing, but also future dangers.

 

4. The Implementation of Values / Festival Formats

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4.1 Why an Awareness Team?

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It is important to us to organize a festival where every person can feel comfortable. In our opinion and experience, this requires a professionally trained awareness team that should be engaged. This team informs all visitors at the entrance that no discrimination will be tolerated. If visitors themselves experience discrimination, they can report it to the awareness team. Although this measure unfortunately does not guarantee a discrimination-free festival, it at least ensures an atmosphere in which everyone can feel safer and is more likely to dare to respond to or report experienced or observed discrimination.

 

4.2 Why 0-100,000 Euros Admission?

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As long as the federal government does not take on the long-overdue task of fair redistribution, we offer the freedom to decide at the festival box office, based on one's own income, how much admission fee can be paid. Visitors can thus also give more than they have to. They can give zero euros if they cannot pay more at the moment. They can pay 100,000 euros if they possess a fortune and feel inclined to support the festival vision as a kind of patron.

 

4.3 Why are there Lectures, Workshops, and Flashmobs?

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We want to view the festival as an opportunity for further education for all people, regardless of their access to culture and education. People who might otherwise have difficulty accessing such opportunities can benefit from the knowledge of experts in lectures and workshops through the barrier-free, inclusive festival and can engage in dialogue themselves. We want to hold lectures by experts from various fields outside of art and music on selected topics of the current global ecological and political situation. In the lectures, visitors can also inform themselves about topics such as climate, digitalization, finance, politics, racism, feminism, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and activism regarding the current and future zeitgeist and state of research. With this, we aim to counteract the growing polemical and discriminatory currents. In this context, we also want to provide a platform for the following alternative models of thought regarding the status quo situation in Germany: Common Good Economy, Modern Monetary Theory, Democratic Confederalism, Degrowth, Participatory Democracy, New and Speculative Realism, Convivialism, Commonism, Urban Design, Ethnofuturisms, Xenofeminism, Multicollectivity, DiEM25, Postcolonialism, Happiness Research, Speculative Design, Progressive International. For a less theoretical and more practice-oriented exchange, we want to offer workshops with experts from various music and art genres. This should explicitly be offered especially for people and particularly children who are generally disadvantaged in society. There is also the potential to offer a long-term structure for discovering potential and promoting talent if further workshops were offered by community members beyond the first workshop participation.

But also areas such as anti-racism, queer feminism, or systemic consensus can form workshop topics within a festival week. Furthermore, we want to play with the ultimately direct and performative festival format and all its possibilities, the flash mob. During the festivals, various actions can be undertaken together with the audience. This makes it easier to generate, feel, and utilize an emancipatory energy of the sense of "we."

Moreover, such actions have the power to have an effect beyond the moment and encourage people in everyday life to combat problematic societal developments or discrimination situations together with others. Last but not least, these are often the activities that are associated with a lot of joy and fun.

 

5. Where could the festivals take place?

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If we want to connect people through the festivals, we should also choose connecting places for that, whether they are neighborhoods that are diverse or locations operated by a group with a diverse profile. Based on our prior experience with Kukulida e.V. in Dresden, the equipment of a venue seems secondary to us when we want to connect people.

We wish from the political side that further places for connecting culture are made available. We believe that the state must be held accountable to provide spaces for art and culture, for experiments and visionary projects. When living and free space is restricted by politically supported privatization and not provided in a socially just manner, expropriation and nationalization (32) or the transfer to collective ownership (33) of living space and new cultural places are overdue. Thus, we also formulate a possible answer to the question of how we want to shape and use our cities and spaces in the future. For a new design of the urban, there are various inspiring approaches and theories. (34)

 

6. Financing, Funding Landscape, and Compensation

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6.1 How is the Meta Festival financed?

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In light of our large-scale support for society and culture, we are initially confident that the project can be funded from state and institutional sources. The goals of the Meta Festival should also be in the interest of the state. The festival budget could therefore fundamentally be supported by institutional funding. It is clear that festivals will also represent an economic and tourist added value. Otherwise, we want to finance the project through private sponsorship with the collected contacts of the 52 communities. The third pillar consists of any excess ticket revenues that could be used for follow-up projects, which we will formulate and make transparent together as communities in advance.

 

6.2 How is the current funding landscape structured nationwide?

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To do this, we need to take a closer look at the general distribution of money from the state as well as the prioritizations within the cultural sector and the music department. Which sector actually receives no state support when considering subsidies, financial aid, or tax benefits? How much money is invested in culture compared to other sectors? What is the ratio between music and theater? Zooming in further: How much funding does jazz and other non-mainstream music receive compared to classical music? And how much does traditionally oriented jazz receive compared to avant-garde jazz? And so on.

Here are some figures regarding the proportionality of the funding landscape: In Germany, the distribution of cultural funding among the federal government, states, and municipalities is, one could say, quite confusingly divided. According to the Cultural Financing Report 2020 (35), the total cultural funding in 2017 was €11.4 billion (17% federal, 38.7% states, 44.4% municipalities) plus €58.7 million from the EU and €1.1 billion from the Artists' Social Security Fund. In 2021, federal cultural funding (i.e., about 17% of the total funding amount) will amount to approximately 0.35% of GDP and 1.77% of the federal budget of €498.62 billion, which is €2.14 billion. (36)

For the states and municipalities, the situation looks a bit different, but the overall distribution for the entire country is as follows: 34.5% for theater and music (€3.9 billion, of which about 70% is for theater); 19.1% for financing museums, collections, exhibitions; 14.1% for libraries, other cultural preservation 13.8%; cultural affairs abroad 6.0%; public art colleges 5.1%; monument protection and preservation 5.0%; administration for cultural affairs 2.5%. Furthermore, there are €2.2 billion for culture-related areas (adult education centers and other further education, church affairs, broadcasting institutions, and television). The six different federal cultural funds of the Federal Ministry of Culture and Media (BKM) received about €12 million per year in recent years, with the music sector receiving €2 million through the Music Fund e.V. (due to Covid-19, an additional €10 million in 2021). (37)

 

6.3 How is cultural funding structured in a country like Berlin?

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The total budget for 2019 (38) amounted to approximately €30.3 billion, with about €720 million allocated to the Department of Culture and Europe, which is 2.37%. In 2020, jazz funding in Berlin was distributed as follows: €304,380 basic funding, €385,621 project funding, €62,000 work scholarships, €9,680 tour funding, and €104,000 audio and video productions. (39)

From the Berlin Cultural Funding Report 2014 (40), the following figures can be extracted: Project funding for music (including the Capital Cultural Fund) amounted to 5.5% in 2013, approximately €3.2 million, while the rest were institutional funding. In relation to other arts in the area of project funding, the figures were as follows: Theater €6.18 million, Dance €2.31 million, Music €3.2 million, Literature €1.14 million, Visual Arts €5.51 million, Cross-disciplinary €2.03 million, Other €2.62 million. (41)

 

6.4 What interesting and current figures and voices are there?

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We would like to mention that there are absolutely commendable proposals for better and more sustainable cultural funding, partly from the funding institutions themselves – for example, from the managing director of the Music Fund e.V., Gregor Hotz. (42) Here is a current example of the need for nationwide projects: The last funding round of the Music Fund e.V. in January 2021 was significantly oversubscribed. The application volume was approximately €11 million, and the available funds were initially about €700,000 and were then increased to €1.7 million through the Restart Culture program. (43)

After an inquiry to the BKM, Minister Monika Grutters reported that in 2018, 1.22% of federal funds were spent on jazz, rock, pop, hip-hop, and electronic music. (44)

 

6.5 What relationship would the Meta Festival have with institutionally funded institutions?

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Such a unique festival, as we demand, including fair payment for all, can be realized, based on our experience, with approximately €100,000. (45) This amounts to about €5 million for our idea of 52 festivals in Germany. Not so much compared to other cultural actions, we would say. For example: The annual subsidies for the Deutsche Oper Berlin (subsidy: €39.2 million, average ticket revenue: €41.4, subsidy per visitor: €177.8, the figures are from 2013 (46)) or the renovation of the Staatsoper Berlin (approximately €440 million (47)).

We do not advocate the idea that we want the money from other genres. We want more for everyone and still point out how the relations are. In direct comparison, our real utopia could even compete financially and qualitatively with events that are also more heavily subsidized, but this is not even the intention. But one could certainly go so far as to ask whether the amounts spent on preserving culture are really in proportion to the development of new culture? Especially as much of the so-called high culture that is heavily funded is absolutely not representative of today's pluralistic society and tends to appeal more to an elitist class.


6.6 What are other important aspects of cultural funding?

How much attention or representation does a music genre receive on television, on the radio, online, offline or in magazines? What is the situation in music education (for children, but also for adults)? What listening habits are developing in our society and why? All these and other aspects need to be discussed in depth and their inappropriate inequalities addressed.

One last interesting figure: every private household spends €138 (48) a year on cultural events.1 This leads us to a discussion that is bound to be a big issue here: should culture finance itself entirely or should it be funded entirely by the state? Either way, we believe that there is currently far too little funding available for the cultural sector. Especially when compared to the tax concessions granted to some large companies and their general contribution to the common good.

 

6.7 How high should the remuneration for the respective activities at the festivals be?

The 2016 Jazz Study shows that 69% of those surveyed earn less than €12,500 per year from music alone, and that the figure is still 50% with secondary employment. (49) In 2019, the threshold value for the risk of poverty for people living alone in Germany was €1074 net per month. (50) Of course, we must emphasize here that this is only a national figure and still represents an extremely high value from a global perspective. In addition, we must of course emphasize that there are different types of capital (51) and that, for example, after studying jazz, you are of course not fundamentally capital-poor. Nevertheless, we want to ensure fair and appropriate payment for all activities associated with the festivals. What exactly this should look like for each activity must be discussed and calculated within the Meta Community during the preparation of the financing plans. In any case, the Meta Festivals should also help community members to break out of any precarious situations. We believe that the minimum fees recommended by the DJU - at least €250 per person in venues and €500 at festivals - are important and should also serve as a guideline for the respective festivals.

 

7. Potential and Outlook

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The potential of the Meta Festival and its communities is enormous! In many areas of the large project, further thoughts can be developed, our ideas are endless! First: What would actually happen if one day 52 communities were actually founded – and thus a scenario of 365 such festival days could become the new status quo? We see the opportunity, at the very latest, to have actually created structural improvements solely through the Meta Festival and its Meta Community in our working and living everyday life as artists.

We believe that, for example, we have the potential in Berlin alone to organize our own emancipatory music platform for streaming, downloading, and other services. Our first desired scenario would be a community of 1000 musicians who try to find programmers and funders for internet servers. If each person brings at least ten music lovers to the platform who have a basic willingness to pay for music, there would quickly be 10,000 interested music fans and 1000 artists. These could create a multifunctional platform for exchange, where fans and artists could interact, independent of advertising, self-limiting algorithms, and without having to share their data with large corporations. Existing platforms like Resonate (52) and Catalytic Sound (53) can serve as inspiring examples.

In the long term, the participating venues and collectives could contribute to a forward-looking development of society that extends far beyond their spaces. The communities and festivals create new spaces for exchange and sharing that could also be further developed. Our festival formats themselves represent an accessible space for inspiration, education, and culture that could also be further developed beyond the festival.

Together, we could awaken a previously unknown, much more intimate sense of belonging that would begin here and now. And perhaps in the future, communities in other countries would feel inspired to follow our idea in the sense of a pan-European cultural community?

 

8. Thank You and Call to Action

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In conclusion, we want to sincerely thank everyone who has been involved in the music and cultural world so far – very often voluntarily and with a lot of energy, and in part for decades!!! We are convinced that projects like this have the power to unite us cultural creators even more, to work together – and not in endless individual struggles – against systemic grievances with new ways of thinking and acting, and to joyfully and devotedly create an even broader and fresher cultural landscape, as well as places of encounter, dialogue, and joint action for all. Let us begin now!

 

9. Participation and Contact

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GET IN TOUCH: meta@subwaterbeats.de

Further information at: subwaterbeats.de/meta

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The Meta Community - Berlin, June 2021

 

 

Author: Jo Wespel

Co-authors/advisors: Julia Kadel, Philipp Gropper, Sanni Lötzsch, Paul Berberich, Elias Stemeseder, Friederike Merz, Vincent Bababoutilabo, Laura Winkler, Julius Windisch

 

 

 

10. References

 

(1) Meta Festival is the current working title and not yet the official name of the project
(2) Collectives: Subwater Beats, KIM collective, Jazzkollektiv Berlin

(3) For us, “radical” means “tackling something from the roots” and changing supposedly given circumstances in a socially positive sense.

(4) Jim Black is a drummer, composer, bandleader and professor from New York City who has been performing widely in concert halls, jazz clubs, etc. for about 30 years.

(5) Aftermovie Kulturrabazzz 2020: https://youtu.be/rF0wzlWQQoU

(6) Nadin Deventer has been artistic director of Jazzfest Berlin since 2018, is on the board of the European Jazz Network and has been active as a curator, dramaturge and project manager for around 20 years.

(7) Aftermovie Kulturrabazzz 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwrfTQacUt8

(8) Cf. Rahel Süß in Episode 46 on democracy and the future: https://www.futurehistories.today/

(9) Cf. Charles Geisler, Benjamin Currens: https://solveclimatechange.com/climate-change-could-threaten-up-to-2-billion-refugees-by-2100-2

(10) Cf. Andreas Reckwitz: Digitalization and the society of singularities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVSIkeolDXo&t=3366s

(11) Cf. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber in conversation with Bruno Latour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-n_44M2nLw

(12) Ref: https://theoceancleanup.com/

(13) Ref: https://seebruecke.org/

(14) Ref: https://www.hyperculturalpassengers.org/

(15) Ref: https://web.ecogood.org/de/

(16) Cf. e.g. Maja Göpel: Unsere Welt neu denken

(17) Cf. e.g. Fridays for Future

(18) Cf. e.g. Modern Monetary Theory und Priorisierungen im Staatsetat bei Wohlstand für Alle. Z.B. Episode 28: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6neimp8nMs&t=1s

(19) S.19 Clubstudie 2021: https://www.livemusikkommission.de/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Pr%C3%A4sentation_Presse_final.pdf

(20) Cf. https://www.plurale-oekonomik.de/ and https://www.rethinkeconomics.org/

(21) https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Dossier/kultur-und-kreativwirtschaft.html

(22) https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61781/vermoegensverteilung

(23) Thomas Piketty at Sternstunde Philosophie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WderB3_kuA

(24) https://www.globalcitizen.org/de/content/wealth-tax-millionaires-for-humanity-covid-19/

(25) Cf. Kimberlé Crenshaw, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdisziplinarit%C3%A4t, Jin Haritaworn

(26) https://subwaterbeats.de/SURfF/

(27) Many of the organizers and supporters can say that they have hardly experienced anything comparable and rarely anything as meaningful in their lives as these self-organized festivals. In creating together, they experienced a deeper and almost indescribable fulfillment that spilled over to artists and audiences. https://subwaterbeats.de/kulturrabazzz/

(28) See e.g. Sow, Noah mit „Rassismuskritisch veranstalten“ https://kurse.noahsow.de/lp/erfolgreich-rassismuskritisch-info/

(29) http://jazzstudie2016.de/jazzstudie2016_infografik_final.pdf

(30) https://subwaterbeats.de/research/

(31) https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/von-wegen-leistung-es-ist-der-zufall-der-unseren-erfolg-praegt-ld.1611707?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-de-DE&reduced=true

(32) Cf. „Deutsche Wohnen und Co. Enteignen“ https://www.dwenteignen.de/?fbclid=IwAR2TLz7G9173zEPPfEHnNit70r4FXygXCNVXxPlcWv1G-Y1YFaC_mk44GDQ

(33) Cf. „Mietshäuser Syndikat“ https://www.syndikat.org/de/

(34) Cf. Christopher Dell: The Improvisation of Space oder vgl. Benjamin H. Bratton: The New Normal

(35) https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildung-Forschung-Kultur/Kultur/Publikationen/Downloads-Kultur/kulturfinanzbericht-1023002209004.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

(36) Status: 10.05.21. Due to the corona pandemic, the figures are estimated to change again.

(37) It should be noted here that the establishment of the Musikfonds e.V. and the generally significant increases in nationwide funding for the jazz sector in recent years are primarily due to the many voluntary lobbying efforts of the German Jazz Union.

(38) https://www.berlin.de/sen/finanzen/haushalt/haushaltsplan/artikel.5697.php

(39) https://www.berlin.de/sen/kultur/foerderung/foerderprogramme/foerderergebnisse/musik/

(40) https://digital.zlb.de/viewer/metadata/15451607_2014/1/LOG_0003/

(41) Here, too, we must clearly emphasize that the work of IG Jazz Berlin since its founding in 2011 has brought considerable benefits as well as a multiple increase in funding for the entire scene!

(42) https://www.field-notes.berlin/de/festivals/47531/blog/55808/freie-szene-freier-fall/57601/gregor-hotz-nachhaltige-kulturfrderung-vier-massnahmen

(43) https://www.musikfonds.de/newspresse/

(44) https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-klassik/news-swr-776.html

(45) Rough extrapolation of our reference, the SURfF Festival: Budget approx. 35,000 € for 6 days, with less extensive program and organization, as well as some unpaid or low-paid tasks.

(46) https://www.bz-berlin.de/kultur/so-viel-kosten-uns-die-opern-und-theater

(47) https://www.br-klassik.de/aktuell/news-kritik/berliner-staatsoper-unter-den-linden-sanierung-erneut-teurer-104.html

(48) https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildung-Forschung-Kultur/Kultur/Publikationen/Downloads-Kultur/kulturfinanzbericht-1023002209004.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

(49) http://www.jazzstudie2016.de/

(50) https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61785/armutsgefaehrdung

(51) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapitalsorten according to Pierre Bourdieu

(52) https://resonate.is/

(53) https://www.catalyticsound.com/