Greece and Britain have the opportunity to renew their respective stories by leading the way in creating a museum for the 21st century. How it would be organised would be open to discussions. But at a minimum, it would be a consortium of museums from around the world prepared to contribute works from their own collections to tell the story of human history. The exhibits would depict the way that past thought, religion, politics, art and history has formed a platform for each stage of human development. – The Guardian
Building Audiences
The Streaming Wars Are Bringing On A New Media Dystopia
The return to piracy is both a bit of a meme and a bit of a reality. And its return is absolutely the result of a market that giant companies have built to intentionally trap customers into either a single-company ecosystem (one ISP, one easy streaming service) or an annoying, expensive patchwork. And while piracy signals discontent with the system, it’s quite unlikely that these companies will react by changing their approach, let alone lowering prices. – Slate
Is It Possible To Enjoy The Instagram “Museum” Without Your Phone?
Specifically, the Ice Cream “Museum,” which is all about shareable selfies. After all, what’s the point of going if not to take appealing pictures? – New York Magazine
Turns Out That People Who Are Likely To Pay For Streaming Services Are Also Likely To Pirate Shows
At least, that’s true in Australia, according to the results of a recent survey. The more services you subscribed to, the more likely you were to pirate. That’s a little weird, right? Well … “Electronic Frontiers Australia board member Justin Warren said people who were paying for multiple subscriptions were likely turning to piracy out of frustration at not being able to find what they wanted on the services they were paying for.” – The Guardian (UK)
As ‘Fresh Off The Boat’ Ends, What Did It All Mean?
Asian Americans remember how excited – and worried – they were when the show was announced five years ago, after a two-decade drought for Asian American representation on network TV. Did the series live up to its hype? One writer says, “It felt like a dream.” (And it changed the media landscape demonstrably as well.) – Shondaland
Study: Arts Sector Digital Efforts Stall In Trying To Attract Audiences
Research from Arts Council England (ACE) and innovation foundation Nesta has revealed “a widening gulf” between large and small organisations’ capacity and capability to adopt – let alone maximise the potential of – digital technologies ranging from cameras and phones to distribution software and digital art. Some organisations may already feel “too far behind the adoption curve” to test new technologies, the authors say. – Arts Professional
Another Job In The Arts You Hadn’t Thought Of: Narrating Porn For The Blind
Pornhub launched this particular initiative in increasing access for the disabled to the arts four years ago, hiring professional freelance writers to produce text and professional voice actors to read it. Here’s a Q&A with Kathryn Simpson, an art history Ph.D. who has written the narration for 35 Pornhub videos. – Slate
Attendance Isn’t A Good Enough Metric, So This Museum Is Trying To Measure Its Social Impact
“Working with a group of social scientists, the [Oakland Museum of California] devised an innovative plan to take stock of both its ability to connect with visitors and to foster connections between visitors themselves. The idea came after previous data collection efforts revealed a more thorough snapshot of the institution’s audience, which is one of the most diverse in the country.” – Artnet
Revealed: YouTube’s Most-Watched Gaming Channels Are Infested With Bots
In January, all seven of the most-watched YouTube Gaming channels weren’t run by happy gamers livestreaming the game du jour. They were instead recorded, autoplaying videos advertising videogame cheats and hacks, sometimes attached to sketchy, credential-vacuuming websites, according to one analytics firm. – Wired
Has Netflix Reached Its Max Audience?
“Our research shows that most pay TV households already have Netflix so even if cord-cutting accelerates, Netflix won’t get a whole slew of new customers. In [other] words, people are cutting the cord because they have Netflix. They don’t cut the cord and discover Netflix for the first time.” – Fast Company
This Could Be The Berkeley Public Library’s Most Treasured Collection
“The Berkeley Tool Lending Library is one of the Bay Area’s great public gifts, a free-to-use service for Berkeley residents looking for anything from saws to ladders to a hard-to-find screwdriver. You’d think a repository of free tools, some very expensive, would disappear frequently, but supervising librarian Dan Beringhele says theft is rare. It’s just that beloved.” – San Francisco Chronicle
For South L.A., A Sort Of African-American High Line
It’s not an elevated park, and it’s not on disused train tracks (in fact, it’s tied in with a new light rail line), but Destination Crenshaw (as it’s called) will be a 1.3-mile-long public space along Crenshaw Boulevard, with landscaping, murals and other public art, and plazas — all intended as community gathering places to affirm the area’s African-American identity as the pressures of gentrification increase. – New York Magazine
How A Theatre Powered The Downtown Revival Of Illinois’s Second-Largest City
That city is Aurora, an outer-ring suburb of Chicago with about 200,000 people, and the theatre is the twice-restored, 1,885-seat Paramount. in fact, writes Chris Jones, “with the exception of Cleveland, which has benefited immeasurably from the Playhouse Square Center, I’d argue that no Midwestern downtown has been more changed by a single arts organization.” – Chicago Tribune
Living At The Intersection Of Dance, Social Media, And Teenage Life
Who profits when a 14-year-old Black teenager creates a dance and shares it – and it goes viral? Not she.”TikTok, one of the biggest video apps in the world, has become synonymous with dance culture. Yet many of its most popular dances, including the Renegade, Holy Moly Donut Shop, the Mmmxneil and Cookie Shop have come from young black creators on myriad smaller apps.” – The New York Times
Has Fan Culture Gotten Out Of Hand? Should They Have So Much Influence On The Art?
The last decade or so has witnessed huge changes in the awareness, perception and tools of fandom. In terms of television and film, the enormous successes of Game of Thrones and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have introduced geek culture – and its brand of participatory fandom – to the mainstream. At the same time, the internet – and more specifically social media – has amplified fans’ voices, while also breaking down the boundaries between them and the artists they love/hate. – BBC
Prediction: Half Of American Homes Will Cut Cable TV Cord By 2024
Roku predicts that within four years, half of all U.S. homes will have never had cable TV or will have canceled their subscription, the company said in a letter to investors on Thursday released along with the company’s fourth quarter 2019 results. – CNBC
The Obama Portraits Have Become, In Essence, Pilgrimage Sites
“Stories of visitors praying or breaking down in tears before the portraits circulated on social media.” (Not unlike Jerusalem or Lourdes.) Says the director of the National Portrait Gallery in D.C., “It’s a form of what I call secular pilgrimage. Much like people go to Graceland or John Lennon’s grave — the response has that quality to it.” – Artnet
Another Coronavirus Catastrophe: China’s Cinema Box Office Down By 99.75%
That’s not a typo. The country’s total movie ticket revenue for the past 20 days is down from $1.52 billion for the same period last year to $3.9 million, and the movie industry there may need a government bailout. – The Hollywood Reporter
Peak TV? Yes – Here’s How Many Shows Were Available To Watch Last Year
Folks like to joke that there’s just too much TV to watch, but rarely do they back it up with facts. Now, they can. According to new data from Nielsen, there were 646,152 unique programs available in 2019 across network TV, cable, streaming services, and every other kind of outlet. – Wired
A Human Response To Amazon’s Algorithms: Custom-Designed Book Subscriptions
Two bookstores in England are offering book(s)-of-the-month services in which, after some discussion with the customer, a knowledgeable staffer selects and ships books the staffer thinks the individual recipient will like. – The Guardian
Meet Seattle Opera’s Scholar In Residence, First Of Her Kind In The U.S.
“As scholar in residence, [Naomi] André acts as an adviser to help Seattle Opera become more inclusive, both for audiences and behind the scenes. … Her most visible role involves a series of free, public community conversations that invite audiences to question problematic social themes and portrayals of marginalized communities in opera while appreciating the artistic elements that continue to hold up.” – The Seattle Times
Could The Success Of ‘Parasite’ Finally Convince Americans To Accept Subtitled Films?
Actually, U.S. viewers were getting more comfortable with subtitles even before Parasite became this year’s Oscar hit. That’s thanks to two major entities: the FCC and Netflix. – The New York Times
Why’s New Zealand Rescuing The Classical Radio Station And Not Ours? Ask Māoris
With a public outcry having convinced Radio New Zealand’s management not to eviscerate its classical service, advocates for the country’s Māori-language radio stations are arguing that they have been underfunded for decades and deserve a fair share of broadcasting resources. – The Spinoff (New Zealand)
How Instagram Is Changing Theatre
“Instagram is absolutely shaping the theatre industry,” says Jay Armstrong Johnson, who recently played Raoul in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. Johnson notes that Instagram has become “a necessary app, a connecting device” not just for fans and those without access to the arts, but also “to other artists, which has often led to new projects and/or collaborations.” – American Theatre
Bay Area Theatre Folk Are, Well, Ambivalent About Little Clapping Man In SF Chronicle’s Reviews
One local company head says that the “wild ovation” man can be very helpful, as can the step below, but anything lower stops single-ticket sales dead. The Chronicle‘s arts editor grants that some critics and theatermakers have mixed (at best) feelings about it, but that many readers love it. Critic Lily Janiak worries that it can encourage readers to stop reading. And ACT artistic director Pam McKinnon says the little guy is “a white supremacist icon.” – American Theatre
First Major Arts Venue To Make All Its Performances ‘Relaxed’
Starting this month, London’s Battersea Arts Centre is making all its events “relaxed performances” — at which audience members may enter, leave, move around, and sometimes make noise, and first developed for neurodivergent patrons. – The Times (UK)
Parasite Has Won So Much More Than Best Picture
The thing about Parasite is that even before it became the first non-English language film to win a Best Picture statue, it “had already earned all the accomplishments that really matter; it didn’t need an Oscar.” Or maybe it did, or the Oscars needed Parasite. “In taking home the Best International Film trophy and also claiming the biggest honor of the night, Bong’s movie made the Oscars slightly less local.” – The Atlantic
Author Says The UK Educational System Is Dreary, Needs More Laughter
Michael Rosen blames the Reformation – truly. That time period was “when they thought the only way you could be virtuous was to be modest and serious, so humour was pushed aside, seen as frivolous … even dangerous. And that seeps through into education today, so there’s a slight fear of subversiveness or laughter, as well as a dismissal of it. And for some of us, humour is a means of survival.” – The Guardian (UK)
Listenership Of BBC’s Classical Music Station Up By 16%, Tying Its All-Time Record
“The classical music station Radio 3 has recorded its joint highest audience share since records began, as listeners weary of politics take refuge in Brahms and Bach. The BBC station reached 2.13 million listeners a week in the last quarter, up 16 per cent on the same period for the previous year.” – The Times (UK)
This Study Shows Why Netflix And Movie Theatres Shouldn’t Be Enemies
“People were more likely to stream a movie when they knew it had been released in theaters, according to a new survey by Ernst & Young … Sixty two percent of the study’s respondents reported that if a movie had appeared in cinemas, they were more willing to check it on their streaming services.” – Variety