Paris. In June 2023, Rima Abdul Malak, then Minister of Culture, and Bruno Bonnell, Secretary General for Investment, brought together with great fanfare at the Paris Opera the winners of the “culture” calls for projects as part of the “France 2030” plan. A little less than three years later, the curtain is beginning to rise on the future of these projects. In April 2024, the Court of Auditors drew an initial assessment – not very encouraging – of the cultural projects financed under previous future investment programs (PIA) (read the JdA No. 631 of April 12, 2024). It emerged that the windfall from PIA 1 and 3 had benefited operators who had not yet demonstrated their relevance (Grand Palais Immersif, Cité internationale de la langue française at the Château de Villers-Cotterêts, etc.), or companies which had gone bankrupt.
This time, the magistrates of Rue Cambon looked at two specific calls for projects from the 4th PIA (integrated into France 2030): “Augmented experience of live entertainment” and “Digitization of heritage”, each with a budget of 10 million euros. Given the recency of the program, the Court was mainly interested in the organization of the selection of files. Already in 2024, it was pointing to a “complex and difficult to understand governance (…) a multiplicity of stakeholders (…)”. A few months later, she reiterated her criticism. The choice of projects and their monitoring are very approximate, shared between the general secretariat for investment which depends on the Prime Minister, the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations which ensures administrative and financial monitoring, and the Ministry of Culture which is confined to an observer role.
Digitization of content and windfall effect
The Court points to a lack of objectification of aid rates (which can go up to 50% of the budget), a leverage effect on financing that could be improved and, with regard to the digitization of heritage, “the continuation of actions started, without demonstrating any particular innovation”, while the objective is precisely to generate innovative cultural offers.
It must be recognized, however, that inventing such marketable offers is not easy; this very often involves a first phase of content digitization, digitization which is in theory not covered by these calls for projects. There is thus a windfall effect from which the Center des monuments nationaux (€1.06 million), the National Library of France (€1.3 million), the Guimet Museum in Paris (€280,000) and the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine (€710,000) benefited, which obtained resources to continue to digitize their funds. Private companies have also taken advantage of these future-oriented investments to digitize their archives, such as the Philippe Rizzotti Architecte agency.
Disinterest in augmented reality
More worrying is the future of certain projects. According to a report established by the Caisse des Dépôts in November 2024, of the 17 “Digitization of heritage” projects, 7 are following their normal course, 8 are being monitored, one project is encountering difficulties and another is at a standstill. Despite a high rate (12%) of selectivity of applications, the projects carried out by small structures are fragile. The company Perspective(s) is in liquidation, the company Manzalab has filed for bankruptcy, and the company Théia has put its project on hold. Generally speaking, the offers around the metaverse suffer from a lack of interest in these immersive virtual universes where users interact through digital avatars. We also wonder about this immersive 3D game project supposed to allow players to create a digital exhibition, supported by the Frac Réunion – while the Arts Journal explained in its previous issue that this regional contemporary art fund would not see the light of day before 2030.
It is in the nature of this financing to integrate a degree of uncertainty, especially when technological breakthroughs follow one another at such a rapid pace: the day before yesterday NFTs (non-fungible tokens), yesterday the metaverse, today artificial intelligence (AI). However, these “culture” PIAs raise three questions. Are the funds allocated (€20 million for the two calls) not too low compared to the costs of managing and monitoring the projects? Should we not continue to finance the digitization of content through exceptional means, an essential step for any innovation? Should we not relaunch as quickly as possible a PI 5 centered on AI in culture?
