The Growing Importance of Media
3. FACT’s Identity and Impact
3.2 Regeneration: The FACT Centre
3.2.3 The FACT Centre
The FACT Centre opened on 22 February 2003, having cost £11 million, and containing “artists’ film, video and new media projects in the galleries and media lounge as well as...three state-of-the-art cinemas.”657
Fig. 3.2.10 The FACT Centre, Wood Street, Liverpool
Funding was sourced from a number of different places, with £8 million from the ACE, of which almost £4 million was from the National Lottery, and the remaining £3 million being contributed by BFI, City Screen, English Partnerships, Granada Foundation, Liverpool City Council and European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) through the Liverpool Ropewalks Partnership.658 The building that opened was somewhat different from the initial plans for MICE, having moved away from the multi-occupant media centre model it
657
Berg (2003e), “Foreword,” p.5
658 Arts Council England (2003), Annual Review 2003, London: Arts Council England, p.33; Doherty, C. (2003d), X Factor, Liverpool: FACT, p.46; Board Meeting Minutes, 21 May 2001, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Board File 1, Folder – Board Papers 1998-2002); Press Announcement: The FACT Centre – A New Cultural Building for the 21st Century in the Heart of Liverpool, Board Papers 22 November 1999, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Board File 1, Folder – Moviola Board Papers 1998- 2002)
had originally developed, but underpinning the project was a desire to create a building that was suited to the organisation’s diverse needs, as well as creating a facility that offered “significant cultural, social and economic benefits to the city of Liverpool and the wider region.”659 Claims that the FACT Centre would create jobs, investment and training, as well as supporting local businesses, were integral to securing funding from schemes such as the ERDF,660 but FACT described the FACT Centre, in private business plans, as “a physical statement of the ethos that drives the activities within it.”661
The idea of using the building to act as the physical representation of the organisation mirrored the statement made by Ars that its premises are the “architectural expression” of its festival programme,662 and as discussed in Section 3.2.2, FACT further reflected Ars by developing a series of objectives that drove the project, including to: awaken curiosity; reveal connections; invite debate; inform practice; promote participation; provoke enquiry; and entertain.663 FACT and Ars were similar because they had both developed into institutions from a festival programme, and whilst Ars continues to host its festival annually, FACT’s Video Positive festivals were not sustained once the FACT Centre project was underway. Having grown out of a festival with a strong brand, Ars have developed other projects aside from the Ars Electronica Centre, including Prix Ars Electronica and Ars Electronica Futurelab,664 which operate under the same brand whilst maintaining an independent programme in terms of delivery and aims. In contrast, FACT’s brand was developed after the establishment of its independent sub-brands, Video Positive, the Collaboration Programme and MITES and, as a consequence, the organisation has struggled to develop a unified identity that encapsulates its many activities. Consequently, there were lengthy discussions on what name to give the new building, with the FACT Board
659
FACT Centre: Synopsis (The White Book), (Available: FACT Archive, Box – FACT Centre Business Plans (HIST.25); Folder – June 1999), p.34
660 ibid. 661
FACT Centre: Transition (The Orange Book), (Available: FACT Archive, Box – FACT Centre Business Plans (HIST.25); Folder – June 1999), p.2
662 Ars Electronica (2012b), Ars Electronica Centre (Online) 663
The FACT Centre: Making an Institution, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – MICE Archive 1, Folder – Early FACT Planning Docs)
664 Ars Electronica (2012e), Prix Ars Electronica (Online); Ars Electronica (2012c), Ars Electronica Futurelab. (Online)
undertaking a brainstorming session that came up with a number of options.665 However, it was agreed that the building should be known, as with Ars, as the FACT Centre, with the only difference being that the word Foundation would be substituted by Film in the case of the building.666 This alteration to the name was never fully adopted, however, and the organisation and building are today both known simply as ‘FACT.’
The difficulties surrounding the naming of the FACT Centre demonstrates a wider issue regarding the integration of the film programme into FACT’s other activities, and unlike other media centres, such as DCA, the organisation does not have control over the cinemas within the building. The planning and delivery of the FACT Centre project was far more complex, and had a much larger budget, than the other work that FACT had produced or commissioned, and with the organisation in debt following “heavy losses sustained by Video Positive 2000,”667 the ACE placed some strict conditions on its funding allowance. Through David Curtis, the ACE had already expressed concerns about the concept of FACT developing its own premises because of the financial pressures that front-of-house and maintenance responsibilities would bring, and which would detract from the organisation’s other functions,668 although FACT remained confident that it continued to be:
Seen by the Arts Council of England…to fulfil an important national strategic role, as one of a small number of national agencies in the UK dedicated to supporting artist’s film and video and new media work and providing services and product to exhibitions.669
Although this statement is uncorroborated, the level of financial support, and FACT’s ongoing position as one of the ACE’s Regularly Funded Organisations (RFO), suggests it was considered to be of local and national importance. However, the ACE insisted that the cinema screens in the FACT Centre must be controlled by a private partner, leading to a
665
Some of the names suggested included: Atom; Domain; Mobius; Fiction; The Media Institute; and Liverpool Creative (Board Meeting Minutes, 22 November 1999, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Board File 1, Folder – Board Papers 1998-2002)
666
Gillman, interviewed by the author, 27 July 2010; Liverpool Culture Company (2005), Strategic Business Plan 2005-2009, Liverpool: Liverpool Culture Company
667AGM Board Papers, 11 December 2000, (Available: FACT Archive, Box – Board File 1, Folder – Board Papers 1998-2002)
668
Curtis, interviewed by the author, 24 March 2010
669FACT Centre: History and Context (The Green Book), (Available: FACT Archive, Box – FACT Centre Business Plans (HIST.25); Folder – June 1999), p.15
£600,000 capital investment from, and twenty-five year contract with, City Screen Limited, the trading name of Picturehouse Cinemas. City Screen was founded in 1989 and is currently “the leading independent cinema operator in the UK,” with a network of fifty- seven cinemas across the country, twenty of which are owned by City Screen, with the remaining thirty-seven being programmed by the organisation on behalf of its partners.670 City Screen state that the company is committed to providing an arthouse cinema programme which maintains “the individuality of each cinema” by responding to its local audience,671 and the organisation was contracted to “provide operational, managerial and marketing services”672 at the FACT Centre.
Although the FACT Centre development, which is close to the city centre and can be described as “architecturally interesting,” appears to meet with City Screen’s philosophy,673 successive directors, Eddie Berg, Gillian Henderson and Mike Stubbs, have each reported on the difficulty of the relationship between the art organisation and the cinema.674 Clive Gillman, the Lead Artist on the building project, suggests that these difficulties stemmed from disagreements over the final designs for the façade of the FACT Centre, which omitted conventional cinema features such as posters and a readograph,675 and he also suggests that FACT were disappointed that the arthouse programme promised by City Screen was never fully established. On this issue Gillman stated that “it was kind of depressing when we opened FACT, and…a few weeks after opening we were showing [the film] Wimbledon
as the main title.”676 This film was released in September 2004, so it was screened eighteen months after the FACT Centre opened and not as quickly as Gillman recalls, but as a Universal Pictures film starring Hollywood actors Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany which grossed $16.8 million at the US Box Office, its inclusion in Picturehouse at FACT’s listings
670
Picturehouse (2009), City Screen Limited (Online) 671
ibid.
672 FACT Centre: Programme and Operations Appendices R1-7 (The Red Book), (Available: FACT Archive, Box – FACT Centre Business Plans (HIST.25); Folder – June 1999), Section 1.1
673 Picturehouse (2009), City Screen Limited (Online)
674 Berg, interviewed by the author, 26 January 2010; Henderson, G. (Create Kings Cross, former Director, FACT), interviewed by the author, 25 January 2010; Stubbs, interviewed by the author, 7 January 2010
675 ibid. 676
suggests that City Screen had begun to programme more mainstream films than would normally be expected in an arthouse cinema.677
Fig. 3.2.11 Film poster for Wimbledon (2004)