now let’s see..where are we..

In deciding which organisations to fund (from April 2012) as part of its new Portfolio. Arts Council England took the opportunity to ‘find a balance’ across its investment in the arts - including artform, size and type.

So just what kind of ‘balance’ have they achieved?

They shafted Animate Projects, but we’re just one organisation. Albeit the only organisation focused on experimental animation. Or any other kind of animation for that matter.

But what about the rest..

Some media organisations did well - or at least survive. National agencies LUX (200k) and Film and Video Umbrella (377k), and regional organisations including Film London (320k), FACT (1m), B3 Media (190k), no.w.here (55k), furtherfield (77k), Nottingham’s Broadway (100k) and Brighton’s Lighthouse (120k).

But other digital/media organisations have either been axed or maybe they didn’t apply (ACE said it would publish a list of all applicants, then changed its mind).

As well as Animate Projects, the Arts Council has axed or won’t be funding: onedotzero, PVA Lab, Lumen, Four Corners, Vivid, Picture This, tank.tv, folly, proboscis, Pavilion, SCAN, Mute, Potland Green Cultural Projects, Lovebytes, Media Art Bath, Independent Cinema Office. And digi-friendly types like ArtSway, Castlefield, moti roti, Isis..

The North East’s (brilliant) AV Festival and Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival seem to be the only new visual arts digital media related organisations on the list. Oh, there’s also Somerset Film and Video. Getting 87k. I’m sure they do good work, but they do seem to be emphatically a film organisation. And in the same region as Picture This.

Animate Projects denied Arts Council England Portfolio status

Animate Projects is sorry to announce that its application for Arts Council England's National portfolio funding from 2012 was unsuccessful, because there are ‘other arts organisations whose contribution fits better into the national picture’.

As we announced in January, our application to Arts Council England’s Grants for the arts programme for 2011-2012 funding was also rejected. However, we were encouraged to resubmit and we are pleased that this application was successful. So, we can continue to deliver a programme of online exhibitions over the next year.

We would like to say a very big thank to the many people who expressed their support; we will be exploring all possibilities that might enable us to continue to support animators, artists and their audiences..

We send commiserations to other colleagues who were unsuccessful and our congratulations to those that made it into the Portfolio.

Competition: win a copy of the exclusive CUJO PRIMITIVE

To mark the UK DVD release of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, we are pleased to offer three copies of the Primitive issue of CUJO as prizes.

CUJO is ‘a magazine and a guide to the imaginary’. It’s free, published in Italy, distributed by hand, published in a numbered edition of only 1000 - and available only in ‘personal places that the artist loves and that somehow represent him’, spread around the world. It is not available in the UK.

Find out more about CUJO here

You can buy the Primitive DVD at Amazon here.

For a chance to win a copy of CUJO: Primitive, we want you to tell us three famous people or animals you would like to have been in your past lives. Entry through Twitter - tweet your 3 names followed by #CUJOPRIMITIVE

The three trinities that intrigue us most win a copy of CUJO. Tweet before noon, 1 April 2011. Our decisions are final!

Uncle Boonmee.. and CUJO PRIMITIVE are part of the PRIMITIVE projects, as are the short films Phantoms of Nabua (which you can see here) and A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (see it here)

Lapse: online exhibition

"The technology [work with 3D, inverted camera position, subliminal techniques] and heavily mediated image allows the viewer to look at a slightly altered and dislocated version of the world that calls into question our daily relationship with the environments that we have created and engage with." Helen Sloan, Lapse 2011

Our latest online exhibition, Lapse, showcases the work of five artists who explore the possibilities of time-lapse techniques, including Inger Lise Hansen who made an intoxicating time-lapse work for AnimateTV in 2006.

We could also have included from the Animate Archive - the enigmatic landscapes of Cobra Mist by Emily Richardson, and also Sunset Strip by Kayla Parker, which although it isn't strictly a time-lapse technique is similar to Alistair Ruff's exhibited works in its use of a strict system based process to condense 365 sunsets into one animated work.

We'd like to know what experimental time-lapse works you've seen recently that have made you see the world anew - please share your suggestions via the comments box below and include URLs so we can check out the work.

Animate and ACE

We'd like to thank people very much indeed for all the supportive comments. We have been encouraged by Arts Council England to make a resubmission to Grants for the arts, and that's gone in. It is for a substantially reduced programme, but their support would allow us to continue, and to work on fundraising from other sources for projects.

We'll keep you posted. And thanks again.