Ideas Are People And Machines Cozying Up? "A scan of recent academic titles reveals an abundance of books drawing on what might be called 'the cyborg concept' - the idea that people and technology are converging and merging, perhaps even already inextricably fused. What was once a speculative notion about the shape of things to come has become a normal part of the conversation, at least in some quadrants of scholarly life." Chronicle of Higher Education 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:03 pm Visual Arts China's Fake Art Trade Enormous finds of art in China over the past decade have flooded the art market. But along with the legitimate finds, fakes of every description and sophistication have also appeared to tempt the gullible. "Most of those fakes come through Hong Kong, China's wildly capitalistic gateway to the world. Trying to quantify the trade in fakes is like trying to get your hands around an octopus. No one keeps records of the illegal trade." Seattle Times 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 11:38 pm Choosing A Plan For Ground Zero A decision could come this week. Herbert Muschamp casts his vote: "Public officials will be criticized no matter what they decide. People protested the Eiffel Tower, too. If it were up to me, I would pick the pair of latticework towers proposed by the Think group. It is a work of genius, a towering affirmation of humanism in modern times. This is a work of abstraction. It does not impose literal meanings on the viewer. Yet implicitly it embodies the theme of metamorphosis." The New York Times 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 11:16 pm Europe's Best Contemporary Art Museum? Here's a vote for the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, which just reopened after a renovation that took five years. "Thanks to the efforts of curators who followed the founder's own predilection for visiting studios and hanging out with some of the best and most radical artists, the museum has one of Europe's key collections of modern and contemporary art - several thousand works - from 1900 to the present day. It contains many familiar international names, from Joseph Beuys to Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter to Bruce Nauman. And it displays their works in particular contexts: Russian suprematism, Dutch plasticism, and among fellow artists that were collected with the individual sensibilities of a succession of curators. This is not a generic collection. It has character, and it is a museum of surprises." The Guardian (UK) 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:19 pm Britain Stops Export Of Raphael Painting The British government has ordered a temporary hold on the export of a valuable Raphael painting to allow a "last chance" effort to raise money to keep it in the country. "The National Gallery is campaigning to keep it in the UK after the Duke of Northumberland, one of England's wealthiest land and art owners, accepted a £32m offer from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles." BBC 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 8:29 pm Music San Francisco Opera Slashes Operations Beginning in 2005, the company will cut its season from 88 performances of 11 or 12 productions to about 65 performances a year spread over nine productions. "The goal is to shrink the annual operating budget from around $60 million to $45 million. The Opera had a deficit of $7.6 million for the 2001-02 season and is predicting a $9.2 million shortfall this year. "This city is just not able financially to support a jumbo jet." San Francisco Chronicle 01/28/03 Posted: 01/28/2003 8:49 am Disney Hall Will Seduce The LA Philharmonic's new Frank Gehry-designed concert hall is beginning to take final form. "Curvaceous and shiny as a Hollywood starlet, Disney Hall will have little trouble seducing the Philharmonic from the gloomy luxury of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion across the street. Despite its cheerful predictions, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, like other American orchestras, struggles for listeners and money. Its endowment of $57 million is precariously low for an institution of this size. Forty million dollars of a 'quiet' $100 million drive is said to be promised. Skeptics note the Disney's near-death struggle for funds and believe the well may have run dry." The New York Times 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 11:23 pm Previously: A First Look At Disney Hall Alan Rich isn't ready to make prognostications on what an orchestra will sound like in LA's new Disney Hall, but he's impressed with how it looks this far into construction. "The hall itself — the 'Ralphs/Food 4 Less Auditorium,' it will say in modest lettering on the door handles — is close enough to completion that you can sense the intimacy of the place as compared to the Chandler Pavilion. It's not only a matter of smaller size; it's the contour of the room that seems to wrap itself around you." LAWeekly 01/16/03 The Mystery Grammy Nominee Just how did a singer by the name of Eartha get nominated for a Grammy for Best Female R&B Artist? "The raw numbers tell quite a story. The albums from which Aaliyah, Ashanti, Blige and Scott's nominated songs were taken have sold a collective 7 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The total sales in SoundScan-surveyed outlets for Eartha's album, 'Sidebars': 52. You didn't hear her on radio, either. Her nominated song, 'I'm Still Standing,' did not appear among the top 1,000 songs played on R&B or adult R&B radio stations in 2002." USAToday 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 11:10 pm Music Licensing Plan Could Kill Pub Performances? A new music-licensing proposal for English pubs has musicians and pub owners protesting. "The bill is potentially fatal to the future of live entertainment of all kinds." It's described as "a central plank in the government's drive to tackle anti-social behaviour. Overnight, live music 'in any place' will be illegal unless a licence or temporary entertainment notice from local authorities is obtained, with all its attendant costs and red tape. This means everything from Christmas festivities to impromptu music sessions in small, out-of-the-way pubs will be liable to penalties of up to £20,000 and six months' imprisonment." The Guardian (UK) 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:26 pm UK Musicians Protest Licensing Plans British musicians protested a proposed new licensing scheme for entertainment in small pubs. "Around 500 musicians wore gags in a demonstration against the government's licencing bill, which they claim will silence live entertainment in Britain's pubs and clubs." The bill will require venues in England and Wales to obtain licences from their local council for any form of entertainment, with a maximum punishment for performing without permission of £20,000 or six months in jail. Protesters claim it will hit small acoustic bands, folk singers and even carol singers and nativity plays in church halls and could kill off traditions like Morris dancing." BBC 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 8:40 pm Arts Issues Salons - We're Having A Party "Since the mid-nineties, various Toronto artists have attempted, in fits and starts, to revive the salon tradition by repositioning it as a multi-media drop-in, not a formal symposium. Artists in the city quickly realized that showing works in private homes can be a lot less trouble than begging (and paying) dealers for space or negotiating the byzantine, committee-driven world of publicly funded galleries." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/28/03 Posted: 01/28/2003 8:08 am Art Or Money - Can't We All Just Get Along? The struggle between the vision of art and the business of art is neverending. But in tighter economic times, the battles seem more dramatic, more public. "What conclusion can be drawn from this eternal square dance between the powers of money and the powers of art? Artistic directors can't be slaves to money, but they can't be defiantly unrealistic, either." The New York Times 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 11:33 pm Tuition Hikes Could Discourage Arts Studies Critics say that the British government's plan to raise university fees for students will make arts courses unaffordable. Students will be encouraged not to study the arts because their earning potential after graduation is lower. "The colleges will find themselves in a dilemma because arts courses - with expensive materials and practical tuition - are inevitably costly to run, and yet by charging more affordable fees to attract more students, colleges stand to get less government support." The Guardian (UK) 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 11:02 pm Scotland's Arts Crisis Scotland was supposed to be in the middle of a "Golden Age" for the arts now. And yes, theatres and concert halls are full. But underneath there's a crisis. "Devolution was supposed to herald a golden age for the arts in Scotland, but there has been no cultural renaissance. Plans for a Scottish national theatre have stalled, numerous arts organisations are being forced to cut their creative output to make ends meet, and there are fears of a talent drain to England, where regional theatre is benefiting from £25m worth of government funding." The Guardian (UK) 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:15 pm The Boat Has Sailed On Scottish Arts "Scotland’s new government missed its historic chance to boost the arts; and now its error has been compounded by spectacular increases in arts spending in England - an 81 per cent cash increase since 1997, compared with 32 per cent in Scotland, further enhanced by the spending associated with the major push by Newcastle, Liverpool and other northern cities to be named European City of Culture 2008 - which in turn has led to fears of a new cultural exodus from Scotland to the south." The Scotsman 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:06 pm American History In Sound The first 50 recordings to be named to a new American National Registry of Sound have been chosen. "The registry, which began life yesterday with 50 inaugural inductions, is meant to call attention to the problems of preserving this country's recorded legacy. The recordings chosen include significant troves of folk music, famous speeches, ethnographic recordings and a few representative classical, jazz and pop selections that are already widely familiar to audiences. The recordings were required to be more than 10 years old and be culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Washington Post 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:00 pm Theatre Broadway's Fight Over Music "In what are expected to be the most bitter contract talks on the Great White Way in recent history, show producers are pushing to eliminate a longstanding union rule that compels Broadway theaters to hire a minimum number of musicians, currently 3 to 26, depending on the size of the venue. And vowing that the shows must go on in the event of a strike, producers are turning to a high-tech offshoot of taped music known as virtual orchestras, capable of simulating the subtle variations of tempo and tone in live music." New York Daily News 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:59 pm Previously: Will Broadway Continue To Employ Live Musicians? Broadway musicians are getting ready to negotiate for a new contract. The musicians' union says the negotiation will be about whether theatres continue to use live musicians. "They have made direct statements to me that they are or will be prepared to replace us with mechanical devices. They're going to walk in with a proposal to eliminate minimums, and behind it will be the threat to replace us should we go on strike." Backstage 01/23/03 The Sam Mendes Formula Diretor Sam Mendes has earned cachet for the plays he directed at Donmar Warehouse, the "flashy and successful London theatre" he co-founded a decade ago. He "knows, in his post-Peter Brook way, that the play is not the thing; the star is, no matter how ill-equipped he or she may be for the exigencies of the stage. He knows, too, that the theatre nowadays is to movies what jazz is to pop music: it has a certain cachet, but few prefer it to the populist-minded alternative." The New Yorker 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 4:33 pm Publishing Collins: Why Poetry Isn't More Popular Why don't more people read poetry? American Poet Laureate Billy Collins says he knows: "There's a waiting audience out there that was frightened away by Modernist poetry in school. You feel alienated from your own language, which is unpleasant. There's a syllogism at work here. The syllogism goes like this: I can read and understand English; this poem was written in English; I can't understand this poem." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 01/28/03 Posted: 01/28/2003 8:44 am America's Hurting Libraries American public libraries are in a funding crisis. "We can no longer afford to be silent about the drastic cuts forcing libraries to close early, lay off experienced staff, eliminate periodical and book budgets and reduce programs and services. Library services have gone up dramatically as the economic downturn has kicked in. That is creating a funding nightmare." Washington Post 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 11:45 pm Media Performers' Unions Discuss Merger The main American actors' unions are discussing a merger. The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are metting to decide if a combined union would give them more clout. "Shifts in our business dramatically impact SAG and AFTRA's strength at the negotiating table as well as their ability to protect and improve members' interests." Backstage 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:10 pm The Oscar Pirates - For Your Consideration... Police in the UK have seized tens of thousands of illegal copies of the latest Lord of the Rings movie. Where did the copies come from? From an Oscar voter. Copies of the film were sent to Oscar judges with strict warnings not to copy them. But the illegal copies include a "for your consideration" Academy Award message that pops up every 15 minutes, indicating it was a judge's copy. "These direct digital copies were a much better quality than traditional pirated movies, which are usually made using a handheld video camera to record the film during a screening." BBC 01/27/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 8:33 pm Dance Is Ballet Child Abuse? "The ballet world in France – and beyond – is still quivering with indignation about a report leaked last month on the ill-treatment of children at the dance school of the Opéra National de Paris. The report said that the boarding school, one of the oldest classical dance schools in the world, operated a regime of 'psychological terror'. Injuries were ignored; anorexia was common and even, implicitly, encouraged. The pupils, aged from eight to 18, known affectionately as 'little rats', lived under a permanent threat of expulsion to goad them beyond their mental and physical limits. The report has provoked an interesting and passionate debate in France. Is the Paris Opéra school cruel to children? Or is it classical dance itself that is cruel?" The Independent (UK) 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:57 pm The World's Largest Contemporary Dance Center "The Laban Centre for Movement and Dance - is the sort of building that forces a smile. It comes from the wonderful optimism of an organisation that, in the unprepossessing surroundings of New Cross, has grown to become the largest school for contemporary dance in the world, has found £22 million to create a new building, chosen to stay in Lewisham and had the nerve to commission one of the world's most interesting architectural practices to design something that will be a beacon for south-east London." The Telegraph (UK) 01/28/03 Posted: 01/27/2003 10:50 pm