Can the Hub succeed where Arthouse failed? Karlin Lillington looks at what went wrong and how to put it right. The situation is appalling. Arthouse and the Hub should be national flagship projects. They should serve as inspirational shorthand for Irish vision on the artistic, enterprise and research fronts, the products of commitment, energy, possibility and achievement.
Temple Bar's media arts centre Arthouse shut its doors permanently last Friday. In its 10-year lifetime, Arthouse has been nothing if not controversial, and it always had as many critics as fans (usually a good sign for arts organisations, which should be brash and challenging).
But much of the controversy was unnecessary. It was caused not by Arthouses's arts agenda but by external circumstances the organisation could do very little to control. This is key because those circumstances are set to duplicate themselves with eerie and depressing precision all over again in a similar, if vastly grander, project - the Digital Hub project in the Liberties.
Arthouse was an innovative and experimental project supposed to combine an interesting bit of property with arts, technology, State and corporate support, and cutting-edge daring. Sound familiar? Arthouse was a microcosm of what the Digital Hub says it intends to be.
Many of the same driving forces are behind both projects - even many of the same individuals. But Arthouse has failed, and it is crucial to look closely at what went wrong. Doing so raises serious questions about vision, commitment, funding and management for the Hub.
Like the Hub, Arthouse was initially a modest project that grew by chance and by design into something new and potentially far more exciting.
Conceived a decade ago as headquarters for the Sculpture Society, Arthouse morphed instead (with vitriolic opposition from some of the arts community) into a place that tried to open up to emergent forms of expression that, controversially, united technology with the arts.
The Digital Hub too was initially a less-ambitious project. It began as a sidebar to the then-larger story of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab Europe (MLE). The Hub aimed to be a "village" of Irish digital media firms clustered around MLE. Only later did the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, announce it as a huge urban renewal enterprise and arts district.
What went wrong with Arthouse? Let's start with vision. While Arthouse's various directors had a strong sense of what they wanted to do with the centre artistically, neither the Government, which funded its development along with the EU, nor Temple Bar Properties, which oversees much of its operations due to Arthouse's cultural quarter remit, showed guiding initiative. Financially, this left Arthouse floundering.
On the Government's side, this is particularly galling. All during the 1990s, as the State built a reputation as a technology industry centre, the Government and development agencies trotted visiting executives and groups through Arthouse, using it as a metaphor for Irish creativity and the State's support of cutting-edge industry.
Worldwide, it was the first of its kind, visited and admired not just by artistic luminaries like Laurie Andersen and Brian Eno, but by arts delegations from other countries. Leading new media centres such as Ars Electronica in Austria and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada were modelled on Arthouse. Ironically, the multimillion pound new media facility Baltic in Gateshead in northern England, also inspired by Arthouse, opened the day after Arthouse closed.
Meanwhile, the centre was funded on a pittance that changed from year to year, historically receiving about half the modest amount it requested. The Arts Council granted it the same amount this year as last, a miserly €244,000. In contrast, the Ark children's centre in Temple Bar received €620,000 and the Project Arts Centre, €690,000.
The implication seemed to be that Arthouse should get funding from the corporate world, and that's what Arthouse set out to do, negotiating an extraordinary €1.5 million sponsorship deal with Esat last year. It seems utterly obvious for a technology-based new media arts centre to seek support from the tech and telecoms sectors.
Yet Temple Bar Properties rejected the deal, even after Esat generously agreed to provide the support without any advertising.
Despite having such yea-or-nay power, Temple Bar Properties has never defined how and where Arthouse could secure funding. It had to function as cybercafe and training centre to raise badly needed funds, while also trying to be an artists' resource centre and exhibition place. With proper funding and support, it should and could have been all these things with panache.
If over 10 years, the State and management groups such as Temple Bar Properties couldn't get Arthouse right, what hope has the Hub, with its similar aims and cast of characters? The situation is appalling. Both Arthouse and the Hub should be national flagship projects. They should serve as inspirational shorthand for Irish vision on the artistic, enterprise and research fronts, the products of real commitment, energy, possibility and achievement. But vision is empty if not backed by solid planning and adept execution. Arthouse's failure can be attributed to Irish failure on those fronts, at the highest levels.
Similarly, the Hub is supposed to fulfil many roles and objectives - an enterprise centre, an arts centre, a research centre, a business incubator. But we are still waiting for the Hub's executive team to explain how it will source and combine Government and industry support, what incentives it will provide to business and research, and how and why organisations should want to move there.
If the State has any real commitment to the Hub, then it must demand concrete plans with proper and focused leadership. And if anyone had any sense at all, Arthouse should be re-established without equivocation and funded properly. If, in the past, it served as a strong vehicle for promoting Ireland Inc then with real backing it would be the ideal artistic outrider for a properly executed Hub.
On another note, I am asking for financial support of my own from individuals and companies in the high tech sector.
I will be joining a few hundred other masochists the last weekend in July, cycling 130 miles from Dublin to Sligo to raise funds for the Special Olympics World Games, to be held in Dublin in 2003.
With O'Briens Sandwich Bars as a main sponsor of the Dublin games, its managing director, Mr Brody Sweeney, decided to organise this jaunt. And with another well-known O'Brien, former Esat owner Denis, as the games' chairman, it seems appropriate to show how generous the tech sector can be to this worthy cause. Anyone interested in funding my pain can e-mail me for further information, or send a cheque made out to the Special Olympics World Games 2003 to me at The Irish Times.
Thanks!
