iii is involved in initiating talks within the Digital Culture sector on what Fair Practice means in our field. On Thursday May 11th, we had the kickoff meeting in Amsterdam of this series of talks.

After taking part in the talks on Fair Practice in Design last year, Marije Baalman realised that the everyday practice of Designers was quite different from the workers in Digital Culture. Thus, she started to work with PlatformACCT to create a separate ‘chain table’ (ketentafel). The goal is to create transparency together in the working processes of digital artists and (cultural) organisations engaging with artists working in the field, so that we can lay a foundation for coming to fair agreements on price and conditions.

Last week, participants of the new ‘ketentafel’ (‘chain table’) Digitale Cultuur gathered for the first time! Employees, employers, intermediaries, experts and representatives of the art and technology field of education and expertise, will be working on cementing a fair practice code in the field of new technologies, new media, games and the virtual domain.

Digital culture is a broad and interdisciplinary field. The forms of presentation and media within this sector concern video, light, sound, smell, games, screen-based media and interaction, interactive physical games, performance, installations, et cetera. In these, all senses are addressed: the work can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted and felt. Typically, creators not only use technology, but also take a critical and investigative stance towards it. Within the sector, our digital society is questioned and new perspectives are developed. Research, experiment and innovation are at the core of this.

Digital and interdisciplinary art forms offer great opportunities to renew and innovate the creative process. At the same time, it remains a difficult task to get an accurate picture of what fair working conditions should be for interdisciplinary practices. Creators often find themselves in an interdisciplinary practice between art and technology; they participate in different contexts and they play the role of producer as well as of performer. Employers often do not take into consideration these varying contexts and job rolls when dealing with their budgets, nor do creators do this with regards to their rates. The needs of the digital culture sector as well as desired tools and corresponding goals, will be set out during this first meeting.