What If They Could Read Your Mind? Researchers believe that advances in microelectronics and medical imaging are "bringing us closer to a world where mind reading is possible and some blindness is overcome with visual prostheses." But as alluring as some of the possibilities may be, the capabilities of such technology may very likely have a nasty downside. "Researchers may one day find brain activity that correlates with behavior patterns such as tendencies toward alcoholism, aggression, pedophilia, or racism." If so, what will that mean for those so labeled? Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (UPI) 06/03/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:33 pm
Venice - The Countries That Are There But Not There Scotland does have a representative at this year's Venice Biennale. "Though the artists’ names are listed in the index, Scotland does not appear in the list of participating countries. Not all of these listed countries have a presence in the Giardini. There simply isn’t the room. So a good many late-coming nations have pavilions scattered throughout Venice. But officially, as we are not listed, we do not have a national presence, though the ground floor of the same palace, the Ca’ Gustinian-Lollin, is the official national pavilion of Singapore. The Welsh, who also have a presence this year, are treated the same way. They are there, but not there. The politics of this is obvious." The Scotsman 06/17/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 6:24 pm
Guards Charged With Stealing Dali Four guards at New York's Rikers Island prison have been chaged with stealing a Salvaore Dali painting. The four "staged a phony fire drill" to "steal a $250,000 Salvador Dali sketch from the jail's lobby, then replaced the artwork with an unframed copy, prosecutors said Tuesday."
New Jersey Online (AP) 06/17/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 6:08 pm
An (Ancient)Queenly Furor Berlin's Egyptian Museum placed a 3000-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti atop the modern nude torso created by German artists, who then videotaped it for their installation at the Venice Biennale. But Egyptians are protesting, saying the project demeans their culture. Museum officials defend the work, saying that "the 19-inch-high bust, with its elegantly arched brows and towering blue headdress, sat only briefly on the life-size body created by Hungarian artists Andras Galik and Balint Havas. The transfer on May 26 was done with care." CBSNews.com (AP) 06/17/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:54 pm
Swiss Take Steps Against International Art Theft Because of its lax laws, Switzerland is well-known as a "transit centre for stolen works of art". But the Swiss Parliament has passed a new law to bring it into compliance with the UNESCO Convention against cultural goods trafficking. "Until now, Swiss law has treated cultural goods no differently to ordinary merchandise. With the new legislation, which has taken over ten years to be approved, the laundering of stolen artworks should also disappear." Swiss.Info 06/17/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:49 pm
World's Oldest Children's Museum Forced To Cut The Brooklyn Children's Museum - opened in 1899 and the first museum for children - is cutting its outreach programs and charging more for admission after having its city funding cut. The small museum attracts 260,000 visitors a year. New York Daily News 06/17/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:46 pm
California Center for Arts Museum To Close The California Center for the Arts Museum in Escondido is closing July 20. It's said to be a "temporary closure" but as the staff is being let go, it looks like the museum is done. Why? The CCA blames reduced state funding. "Though it consumes only $438,000 of the center's current $7.3 million budget, the center says it can no longer afford to keep the museum open with reduced state funding." San Diego Union-Tribune 06/15/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:15 pm
Louisville Delays Bankruptcy Filing The Louisville Orchestra, which was expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday, instead delayed its decision until today, in what may be a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement with the orchestra's musicians to avert a shutdown. "The orchestra is out of cash and owes two banks $1.3 million in past-due loans, plus a pair of unmet payrolls to its musicians, conductors and administrative staff." Negotiations between musicians and management broke down last weekend, with management insisting that drastic salary cuts were needed, and musicians livid over what they said was a last-second moving of management's goalposts. Louisville Courier-Journal 06/17/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 6:40 am
Vail Braces For A Publicity Upgrade For years now, Colorado has been a popular summer destination for professional musicians. The state boasts multiple summer festivals from Aspen to Boulder, and this summer, the 15-year-old Bravo Vail Valley series is getting a major PR boost, with the presence of the New York Philharmonic. "The orchestra's residency will be the first of three annual appearances in Vail as part of an agreement announced nationally by the two organizations in New York in January 2002." Denver Post 06/18/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 5:45 am
Muzak For The Hipster Crowd Apple's celebrated new MP3 player, the iPod, is making waves throughout the music industry, and in some very unlikely corners of capitalist society, as well. "Instead of piping bland background music over tinny speakers, enterprising music promoters are loading hundreds of hours of hip tunes onto iPods and renting them to restaurants, nightspots, clothing boutiques and hair salons." The enterprise is giving independent musicians a chance to be heard by a larger audience than they would ordinarily have access to, and clients of the new service are thrilled to be getting something other than the typical Muzak. Wired 06/18/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 5:12 am
English National Opera - A Daunting Job Sean Doran is only a few weeks into his job of running the embattled English National Opera. "Fresh, if a little bruised and battle-hardened, from his four extremely lively years as director of Western Australia's Perth International Arts Festival, Doran lets the Irish lilt in his voice sound an optimistic note. 'One of the reasons I accepted the job was that I do believe ENO is one of the few opera companies that has the ability to develop the art form itself. My ideas will come from continuing to learn exactly how this company ticks and how far I can stretch it'." Sydney Morning Herald 06/18/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 6:29 pm
Execs Needed In Milwaukee Executives of several of Milwaukee's high-profile arts groups have stepped down recently, leaving something of a power void at the top levels of the city's cultural scene. The latest to resign is Judy Smith of the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, who has reportedly been exhausted by a massive fundraising effort she was spearheading. In fact, many of the Milwaukee execs have left their posts not because of controversy or dissatisfaction with their work, but because they were simply burned out by the intensive fundraising work required during an economic downturn. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 06/17/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 6:14 am
Vandalism As Copyright Enforcement Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) believes he has a solution to the problem of illegal file-swapping and downloading of copyrighted material: destroy the computers! Hatch wants technology developed which would disable or destroy any computer attempting an illegal download. The fact that such a plan would be in blatant violation of U.S. anti-hacking law does not seem to concern the senator, but the plan does not seem to have much support among Hatch's colleagues. BBC 06/18/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 5:02 am
An Arts Agenda: How About Depoliticizing Arts Subsidy? Britain has a new arts minister. There doesn't seem to be much for Estelle Morris to do, though. But then again... under Labour, the arts have been shackled to the "grand, if vague, strategy of social inclusion and urban regeneration." Okay, it's time to jsutify cultural subsidies again. "The sting is that those who can't or won't play this game - and a game it usually is, on all sides - will be denied their ration of subsidy and starved into death or submission. Just about everybody who works in the arts is sick of the administrative grind of compliance and cynical about it, too - once you've ticked the boxes marked education project, chair-lift and minorities quota, you know your cheque will be in the post and your accountant can help you channel the money into something more meaningful." The Telegraph (UK) 06/18/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 6:03 pm
Fireworks or Art? An Easy Decision For One Town Budget woes are affecting even the smallest towns in America. In tiny Susanville California, the city manager's first crack at a $6.1 million budget included cutting the city contribution to July 4th fireworks. The town's mayor has other ideas: "The Arts Council, they get $7,500 a year? I think fireworks is more beneficial than the arts council. They used to get much less than that before. That's pretty generous." Lassen County News (California) 06/16/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:21 pm
Florida Arts Cuts = Unhealthy State The state of Florida recently cut its arts budget by $22 million. Now arts groups across the state are trying to figure out what that means to them. "I think the Legislature made a very disturbing statement in terms of priorities, that the arts are disposable. One sign of a healthy state is one that supports the arts." Gainesville Sun (Florida) 06/17/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:04 pm
Sontag Wins German Peace Prize Author Susan Sontag has been named the recipient of a "Peace Prize" by the German publishing industry. "In a world of falsified images and mutilated truth, she has stood up for the dignity of free thinking," according to the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. The award comes in response to negative publicity Sontag received in the U.S. for an article she wrote in The New Yorker shortly after September 11, 2001, in which she accused the U.S. government of manipulating the public in order to wage unjust wars. London Free Press (AP) 06/18/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 6:07 am
Celebrating Frederick Olmstead A century after his death, Frederick Olmstead's legacy continues to enrich America. The father of American landscape architecture made an impact on cities across America. "He democratized the whole idea of open space. To me, I don't think the United States would have turned out like it did without Olmsted."
Hartford Courant 06/17/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:29 pm
Stealing Harry By The Trailer-load Thousands of copies of the new Harry Potter book were stolen from a trailer in Northern England. "A trailer containing around £1m worth of books was stolen from Newton-le-Willows trading estate on Merseyside at around 10.30pm on Sunday. The trailer was recovered yesterday in Salford, Greater Manchester, minus its load." The Guardian (UK) 06/17/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 6:16 am
- Why Steal It? Try Wal-Mart. In yet another bizarre story of Potter-mania, a Montreal woman somehow managed to purchase a copy of the new Harry Potter book from her local Wal-Mart this week. The book is scheduled to go on sale Saturday. Since the woman was only planning to read the book, and not, y'know, post it on a web site or something, the publisher just laughed it off as an innocent mistake. HA! No, of course they didn't. In fact, Raincoast Books, the Canadian distributor of the Potter series, offered the woman $5000 if she would return the illicit copy. She said that Raincoast could have her copy back once she's finished reading it. Montreal Gazette 06/18/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 6:15 am
Death Of The Gay Bookstore Gay bookstores were one of the hallmarks of the first twenty years of the Gay Rights movement. So why are so many of them dying off now that homosexuality is more widely accepted in mainstream society? "In the past 10 years, well over half of the GLBT bookstores in the country have closed, leaving about 40 to carry on a tradition that was crucial to gay liberation. There is no gay bookstore in Chicago; only three survive in New York City." The reality may be that such niche stores have become victims of the success of the movement that spawned them. In an era when gay-themed titles are enthusiastically stocked by national chains and mainstream independents alike, it's difficult for the niche stores to hold on to their clientele. City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 06/18/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 5:22 am
Next In Mags: Bring Out Your Dead! What's the next great idea in magazines, asks Russ Smith? Obituaries. It's a winner, he writes. Everyone's interested in dead people. "It's long been a truism that the most popular features of a daily newspaper are the sports pages, comics and death notices. In many cases, people over 40 turn to the day's obituaries first, not only for morbid fascination, but because they recognize the names of famous men and women or, on a local level, neighbors and friends. Obviously, there wouldn't be a shortage of material for such an enterprise." OpinionJournal.com 06/18/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 5:00 pm
Overhaul For CanCon? In Canada, a stringent government policy has governed film and TV productions for 30 years, aimed at making sure that Canadian culture is not overwhelmed by the American entertainment juggernaut. But CanCon, as it is known, has come under fire in recent years as being counterproductive, out of date, and too focused on the commercial benefits of cultural industries. A new report commissioned by the federal government recommends sweeping changes, including "the adoption of a new system that would be based on the costs associated with the more creative elements of the production. The model would require that the three top creative jobs -- writer, director and lead performer -- in any domestic production be filled by Canadians." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/18/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 5:56 am
Montreal Film Fest Loses Its Luster "The upcoming 27th annual instalment of Montreal's World Film Festival could be its most interesting yet -- but less for what's on its screens than the circumstances under which it will be occurring. For the first time in its tumultuous history, the festival will be unspooling without its A-list or "category one" status as North America's only "non-specialized competitive festival." Moreover, the festival admitted recently that it has yet to pay out $50,000 in prize money to the directors of two films honoured at last year's festival." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/18/03
Posted: 06/18/2003 5:54 am
SAG And AFTRA Talk Merger Hollywood's two biggest actors unions are discussing a merger - the Screen Actors Guild's 117,000-member union with the 80,000-member American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, known as Aftra, which also represents actors. "A merger has been discussed since the 1940's, but it came up for a vote only once, in 1999, when the proposal fell far short of the 60 percent needed to pass. Now its proponents, including the officers of both unions, argue that while Hollywood studios and television networks are consolidating into bigger and bigger global conglomerates, the best way for performers to magnify their clout is similarly to band together." The New York Times 06/18/03
Posted: 06/17/2003 11:28 pm
