This Week in Audience: The Latest Fronts On Understanding Who’s Paying Attention
Is social media communication, marketing, art, or all three? … The perils of market research when it drives your art … The latest front on artists’ war on cell phone use … How NPR discovered a ton of information about its listeners … How the internet is changing our perceptions of the world. … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts Audience Published 2016-06-28
Brexit and culture: it’s complicated
There is a tension, for which there is no easy resolution, between wanting to have a society that is open and welcoming and inclusive to people and their traditions from around the world, and the preservation of what is seen to be special, exceptional, about the extant native culture. … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2016-06-28
What Can Be Left Out
My point last week was about planning and about understanding the essential work of your organization. This time I’m focusing on my call for arts organizations to become indispensable. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-06-28
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Archives for June 2016
Why Doesn’t Canada Have A National Theatre?
“At a time when many in the arts bemoan shrinking audiences, wonder whether live performance is losing social relevance and even predict the death of theatre, here is a new institution vigorously engaging local and global audiences through national drama. It’s enough to make you ask, why doesn’t Canada have a national theatre?”
Philosophy’s Diversity Problem (Not What You Think)
“Philosophy must become more diverse in order to make progress on its fundamental questions. But cultural diversity means something different in philosophy, compared with other humanities disciplines.”
Problem: Artificial Intelligence Starts With The Biases Of Its Programmers
“Sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are being built into the machine-learning algorithms that underlie the technology behind many “intelligent” systems that shape how we are categorized and advertised to.”
Tempting As It Is To Think That Hard Work Matters More Than Talent…
“Far from undervaluing effort, Americans seems to overestimate the potential of their own endeavour. A 2014 study by Pew Research found that 73 per cent of Americans believe that hard work is very important to success, the highest out of all the countries surveyed. Only 49 per cent of Germans agreed. We know, from a growing pile of evidence from many different sources, that while innate ability is far from the only contributor to success, it is probably the best predictor of it.”
A Hostile University Revolution That’s Disrupting Education
“For, whomever or whatever you might blame for the current state of affairs, the recent hostilities have been distinctly unfriendly to the creating and sustaining of intellectual energy. Universities need to get beyond these disputes, at least to some degree, if they are going to retain any meaningful chance to fulfill their social missions.”
Why Even Skilled People Make Big Mistakes In Chess (Or Anything Else)
“The fact that mistakes have more to do with the problem itself, as opposed to skill or time, raises questions well beyond the domain of chess.”
Edward Snowden’s Busy International Social Life – As A Robot
“Snowden’s body might be confined to Moscow, but the former NSA computer specialist has hacked a work-around: a robot. If he wants to make his physical presence felt in the United States, he can connect to a wheeled contraption called a BeamPro, a flat-screen monitor that stands atop a pair of legs, five-foot-two in all, with a camera that acts as a swiveling Cyclops eye.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Playboy Interview
Q: “You’ve said that when you look at yourself in the mirror you see a guy who got fired three times. Do you think there will ever be a point when you’ll look in the mirror and see the dude who changed the game with Between the World and Me?”
A: “No, because that remains to be seen. And the game could get changed back.”
Benign Neglect – Why Are America’s Great Symphonists Ignored?
“A British colleague observed that American works, highly celebrated in their own time among musicians, contrast in their current obscurity with comparable works by UK composers that are increasingly celebrated in the UK. This got me wondering: have US musicians and presenters unjustly ignored their own symphonists, or have audiences voted against them?”
Nearly Half Of English Public Against More Arts Funding: Survey
“Only 9% of English adults think Government spending on the arts should be increased, compared with 45% who think it should be decreased, according to new research by consultants ComRes. It also found that more than half know ‘nothing at all’ about Arts Council England (ACE), and the vast majority (89%) don’t think that it is good at communicating the value of arts and culture.”
Local School Board Votes To Charge Students $100 Each To Participate In School Plays
With strapped school budgets, the school board is looking to close its budget by making families “pay to play”.
This Week in Audience: The Latest Fronts On Understanding Who’s Paying Attention
Is social media communication, marketing, art, or all three?… The perils of market research when it drives your art… The latest front on artists’ war on cell phone use… How NPR discovered a ton of information about its listeners… How the internet is changing our perceptions of the world.
Now *This* Is A Theater Company That Knows How To Make Do On A Tiny Budget
“It sounded like your typical aspirational, ‘I want’ musical-theater song. Except for the part where a jaguar, played by Jennifer Lim, roared into the scene and pounced on [Celia] Keenan-Bolger. Also, the horses were cardboard heads on sticks, and the ensemble a team of cardboard cacti (with sad faces drawn in black Sharpie).”
‘Game Of Thrones’ And The Politics Of 2016
Emily Nussbaum: “Season 6 … felt perversely relevant in this election year. It was dominated by debates about purity versus pragmatism; the struggles of female candidates in a male-run world; family dynasties with ugly histories; and assorted deals with various devils. George R. R. Martin surely didn’t intend his blockbuster series of fantasy books … to be an allegorical text for U.S. voters in 2016. But that’s what you get with modern water-cooler dramas, which so often work as an aesthetic Esperanto that lets us talk about politics without fighting about the news.”
Turning An Auto-Body Shop Into A Center For Dance And Dancers
Renovations began last week on the Performance Garage, which former Martha Graham dancer Jeanne Ruddy and her husband bought back when it was an actual garage for repairing cars. The plan is to make it a comfortable, affordable performance and rehearsal center for many companies; BalletX already rehearses there.
Female Cinematographers Talk About Making Their Way In A Very Male Profession
“Vulture spoke to [Natasha] Braier (The Neon Demon) and two other prominent female DPs, Maryse Alberti (The Wrestler, Creed) and Rachel Morrison (Fruitvale Station, Cake, Dope), about the challenges, opportunities, and absurdity of being a woman in cinematography.”
Models Claim Artist Pressured Them To Penetrate Themselves With Rope; Artist Says She Clearly Informed Models And Required Nothing
“In Brazilian artist Laura Lima’s exhibition The Inverse, ‘the participant’s body achieves uncanny abstraction, presence, and suspense,’ according to a description. But two models say Lima went way too far in trying to achieve this effect.”
This Bookstore Will Serve You An Espresso While You Wait Five Minutes For Your Printed-To-Order Book
“The pronounced stock shortage inside the Librairie des Puf” – that’s for Presses universitaires de France – “is not the result of an ordering mistake, but the heart of the shop’s business model.”
Edoardo Müller, Longtime Conductor At San Diego Opera, Dead At 78
“Müller was recognized as an ‘old school’ conductor who worked with two generations of opera artists around the world. He was also known for his scholarly study of singing and at least once stepped in to perform a major tenor role in La Traviata at a San Diego Opera dress rehearsal.” He conducted 45 productions at the company over 31 years.
British Museum In Court Disputing Nearly $1M Tax Bill
The museum is contesting a tax bill from the local council of the London borough of Camden for £720,000. The council maintains that revenues from the museum’s two restaurants and gift shop should be taxed at for-profit rates.
Gargantuan Statue Of Columbus, Rejected By At Least Six Cities, Finds Home In Puerto Rico
“At 350 ft, Birth of a New World is not the tallest sculpture in existence. … But [Zurab] Tsereteli’s work is enormous, 45ft taller than the Statue of Liberty from pedestal to torch. In 1993, Columbus, Ohio, turned it down. Other cities followed suit, including New York, Boston, Cleveland, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Finally the statue was offered a home in Puerto Rico, where Columbus arrived in 1493.”
A Final Count Of The Departures From Pennsylvania Ballet
“Today, the ballet’s website shows 25 dancers: five principals, four soloists, 11 corps dancers, and six apprentices. That makes 18 dancers or 42 percent of this season’s company who will not be on stage at the Academy of Music or Merriam Theater next season.”
Reading Conrad With Convicts: Leading A Book Club In A Maximum-Security Prison
“I’ve always believed that, to remain open to the surprises and contingencies offered by literature, you have to value ignorance more than self-confidence. … The prisoners, however, see my openness as wishy-washy. If this is what you get from literature, they tell me, maybe it’s better to leave it alone. Who wants to be uncertain and indecisive? At least they know where they stand. That may very well be true, I reply, but look where it’s got you.”
Backstage Drama Bursts Into Public View At Legendary Berlin Theatre
“On Monday, 180 directors, actors and stage designers associated with the Volksbühne published an open letter in which they expressed ‘deep concerns’ about plans for the future of the legendary avant garde theatre, which is due to be headed by Tate Modern’s outgoing director Chris Dercon from early 2017. ‘This is not a friendly takeover,’ they write.”