Everyone knows that cultural industries are mostly hyper-concentrated into a few golden triangles where issues are sorted out with the media, financial institutions and ministries, all centred in the same locations.
Within this industrial operations framework, the necessary conditions for cultural diversity are far from being guaranteed. Yet cultural diversity is as oxygen to emerging creations.
Short channels are now bringing artists and audiences together ; they take shape, die away, come back to life, Cultural economy is becoming (once again) social and responsible, co-ops are emerging, and this “electricity on all floors” has generated a few resounding bypasses within the convoluted maze of the complex cultural industry.
Are these forms sustainable and modest? Are they inter-connected, beyond their national/regional scope? What benefits do they reap from new technologies? Do they enter into the scope of new methods of local governance? Are they a barrage against standardised (national) identity, and if so, in what way? These issues will be debated in the coming POTLATCH, fourth of its kind …

Don’t forget your voltmeter and screwdriver…

Ferdinand Richard
Director of A.M.I.