FAUNA SILVESTRE E INTRODUCIDA DEL MUNICIPIO DE LA CRUZ

Giles Gibbons states that “brands are the promise of something,”557 and without a successful brand he warns that there is:

No way to create mass customer loyalty; no customer loyalty: no guarantee of reliable earnings; no reliable earnings: less investment and employment; less investment and employment: less wealth created; less wealth created: lower government receipts to spend on social goods.558

This analysis clearly implies that branding is intrinsically linked to economic potential, and although this thesis concerns a non-profit organisation, the need for successful branding is essentially the same as Moviola operated as a publicly-funded body. In this case, branding is used to appeal to the emotions of potential funders and audiences, and the brand becomes the “new axis that connects production and consumption.”559

For non-profit organisations, however, the economic potential of a brand is secondary to the brand’s function as a “conveyor of information”560 and, as has been shown in Part 2, Moviola’s functions had expanded significantly since the mid-1980s. A moviola is “a device which reproduces the picture and sound of a film on a small scale, to allow checking and editing.”561 Having worked specifically with film and video projection in Merseyside when the organisation first launched in 1985, the name Merseyside Moviola was well suited, but

556

Kornberger, M. (2010), Brand Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.263-264 557 _{Gibbons, G. (2009), “The Social Value of Brands” in Brands and Branding, ed. R. Clifton, London:} Profile Books, pp.45-60 (p.45)

558 ibid. 559

Kornberger (2010), Brand Society, p.12

560 _{Lindemann, J. (2010), The Economy of Brands, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p.5} 561

as the organisation developed and diversified, Moviola’s identity became less apparent in relation to its name.562 As Eddie Berg attempted to develop a national and international profile for the organisation, the regional prefix was dropped, and throughout the 1990s, Moviola’s activities increased in both number and ambition. Berg identified Video Positive, the Collaboration Programme and Moving Image Touring and Exhibition Service (MITES) as the organisation’s “core ‘brands,’” but each of these brands had a distinct identity and field of operation that existed beyond the brand of Moviola. In the Factors (2003) publications, he identified 1995 as the year that Moviola saw the need to unite each of these activities in an attempt:

To establish our own space, to tell our own story, to provide facilities and resources to more effectively and pro-actively support practice and ideas and create a more measured and strategic approach to infrastructural support.563

It was asserted that this could be achieved by the organisation using its brand as a tool for defining Moviola’s identity, as well as guiding future development and connecting this future to a history of progress and innovation.

(L) Fig. 3.1.1Merseyside Moviola logo, 1985

(R) Fig. 3.1.2 Moviola logo, 1989

Berg’s claims of his awareness of the need to unite Moviola’s sub-brands was made with hindsight, however, and it is important to note that in March 1996, Moviola received a letter from Magnasync/Moviola564 in the USA threatening legal action should Merseyside

562

Berg, interviewed by the author, 26 January 2010 563 _{Berg (2003b), “95: Building Blocks,” pp.10-11} 564

Moviola continue to use their trademarked name.565 This threat of legal action forced the organisation to undergo a process of rebranding which coincided with its increasing focus on the development of a building that would accommodate its various functions. The rebrand has subsequently been depicted as a conscious decision to develop “a consistent corporate identity which communicates the full range of company activity,”566 and although the process was initially imposed upon them, Moviola used it as an opportunity to reconsider its activities and outputs. The rebranding process was, therefore, a pivotal shift in the profile and identity of the organisation.

The first stage of the process was selecting a new name for Moviola and, as part of this, the Board wanted to reflect the:

Shifts in digital technologies, the expanded portfolio of artists projects using new technologies and the wider context in which new technology based work is produced, distributed and exhibited.567

The ensuing brainstorming sessions that were reportedly undertaken by those involved with Moviola568 are not documented in the archive, but the chosen name, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, and its acronym FACT, reveals certain elements of the decision-making process. In arts and culture, a foundation is more often an organisation that has been established by an endowment,569 and although this was not the case for FACT, Eddie Berg stated that he was particularly keen to use this terminology, before the name or acronym had been decided upon, because it “implies permanence.”570 The term also has overtones which reflect the process of commercialisation and professionalisation that was occurring throughout arts and culture in the 1990s, and FACT’s Board selected the

565

Discussion Notes for Board Meeting, 27 March 1996, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Board File 1, Folder – Board Papers 1996-1997); Board Meeting Minutes, 27 March 1996, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Board File 1, Folder – Board Papers 1996-1997)

566

Foundation for Art & Creative Technology Business Plan: Update (1997/98), (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Admin General 1; Folder – Business Plans 1997-2000), p.15

567

Board Meeting Minutes, 27 March 1996, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Board File 1, Folder – Board Papers 1996-1997)

568 _{Biggs, interviewed by the author, 25 January 2011; Berg, interviewed by the author, 26 January} 2010; Gillman, interviewed by the author, 27 July 2010

569

Oxford English Dictionary (1989b), Foundation, n. (Online)

570_{AGM Board Papers, 26 November 2001, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Board File 1, Folder –} Board Papers 1998-2002). See also Berg, interviewed by the author, 26 January 2010

name because of its suitability for an organisation with a building, a project which was being discussed at this time.571

Fig. 3.1.3 FACT logo, 1997 Fig. 3.1.4 FACT logo, 2010

As ambiguous as the term is, however, the inclusion of both art and creative technology

within the organisation’s title explicitly states the range of interests and activities that had been adopted by Moviola throughout the 1990s. As previously discussed, Moviola focused on moving image artworks and, irrespective of its evolving identity, the organisation was keen to assert its position as an art organisation. The inclusion of creative technology is particularly interesting, and Board member Sean Cubitt stated that its inclusion demonstrated “a degree of opportunism...[because] we wanted to be able to attract funding not only from art agencies but from far richer funds available to science and technology.”572 The rebranding process was, therefore, intrinsically linked to increasing the economic potential of FACT by maximising opportunities for funding, thus connecting it to traditional branding practice. Since the FACT brand was launched, the organisation has received additional funding from funding bodies that had not previously supported Moviola, and which are more traditionally aligned with science and technology, such as the Wellcome Trust and Nesta. As such, the new name can be seen as successful in placing the organisation at the cross-section of art and technology, and although the decision to rebrand Moviola was enforced, it was approached by a politically savvy Board that was

571

ibid.

572 _{Cubitt, S. (2009b), “Creative Technology” in We Are The Real-Time Experiment, ed. FACT, FACT} and Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, pp.30-33 (p.31)

keen to establish FACT at the junction of the traditionally disparate worlds of art, science and technology.573 At the time, Eddie Berg noted that rebranding the organisation was:

Not merely desirable but absolutely necessary if we are to benefit from the shifting structures of national funding policies both in relation to film and video and so called ‘new technology’ based work and to locate ourselves more visibly within the emerging landscapes of contemporary art and culture.574