Do Computers Slow Us Down? "Computers are tremendous labor-saving devices. They give us power to accomplish extraordinary amounts of work in extraordinarily short intervals of time. But they also give us the capability to do things like play solitaire. Or send instant messages. Fiddle with fonts. Futz with PowerPoint. Twiddle with images. Reconfigure link rollovers. Large investments in computers and communications seem necessary for rapid, industry-level productivity growth. Still, there is a strong sense that computers are less of an asset to the economy than they might be if we truly knew what they were good for and how to use them." Wired 06/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 7:46 pm
Middle East Archaeology At Standstill "Since the start of the current Palestinian uprising more than two years ago, archaeology in the disputed territories has ground to a virtual standstill. And the demands placed on security forces on both sides have left many important archaeological sites vulnerable to looting." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 06/24/03
Posted: 06/25/2003 7:25 am
From Venice To Basel (Oh What A Relief It Is) The Basel Art Fair is "strategically timed to consolidate the impressions made and deals struck in Venice [at the Biennale]. This year we could not wait to leave the pavilioned heat and enter the temperate climate of Switzerland and the air-conditioned neutrality of Basel's exhibition halls. It was not only the most searing heat since 1908, nor humidity pushing 90 per cent, nor 40,000 art professionals who for three days were simply pushing, that made this the most disappointing Biennale for many years. There was a strong sense that the exhibition's format had run its course." London Evening Standard 06/24/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 8:45 pm
Sistine Chapel Online Now you don't have to travel to Rome to see Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel paintings. The Vatican has put its art online. "Now, at the click of a mouse, they will now be able to zoom up to the recently restored ceiling, under which the painter - who only wanted to be a sculptor - spent endless months, between 1508 and 1512." The Vatican website gets 50 million visitors a month. The Guardian (UK) 06/24/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 8:20 pm
Free At Last - Winthrop's Collection Is Liberated Grenville L Winthrop was "arguably the most discriminating and independent-minded of all 20th-century American collectors. Yet his collection of 4,000 paintings, drawings and objects is far less well-known than theirs." He left his collection to Harvard's Fogg Museum with instructions the art was not to be loaned. "Then, about five years ago, the director of the Fogg looked again at the fine print in Winthrop's will. The document stipulated that, if the museum ever lent a work from the bequest, it would be obliged to pay to the Foundlings Hospital in New York City the sum of $100,000 - a fortune in 1937 when the will was drawn up, but not such a big deal in the late 1990s. In a coup so outrageous I smile every time I think about it, the director simply sent a cheque to the happy orphans, and, hey presto, the magic spell had been broken. The museum was free to lend any of the pictures anywhere, any time, and to anyone who asked. Art that had been immured in an ivory tower went global." The Telegraph (UK) 06/25/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 8:16 pm
Venice - Just Looking At Art Many people have worries about contemporary art, and the Venice Biennale can make those worries rear up at you. But "you don't have to like it all in order to embrace it. You're allowed to make distinctions and your distinctions are as likely to be right as anyone else's. Only a certain percentage of what is in fashion now will stand the test of time. In this way, contemporary art is not so very different from the art of the past." The Telegraph (UK) 06/25/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 8:12 pm
The Substance Behind Hip-Hop "In ever-evolving forms, hip-hop rules planet Earth, or at least the global entertainment economy from Japan to Cuba. But is there something deeper going on than the flash of 50 Cent's platinum chains and Eminem's silver tongue? Where is hip-hop's artistic vanguard, its intelligentsia? Wasn't this $1.6 billion-a-year industry once rooted in resistance?" San Francisco Chronicle 06/25/03
Posted: 06/25/2003 8:20 am
America's Opera Companies Prepare For Cutbacks America's opera companies got together last week to talk about business. The news isn't good. "To keep the most expensive of the performing arts alive in a slumping economy, opera companies are cutting services, staff and productions, dipping into cash reserves and adjusting their budgets for lean years ahead. Administrators from two of the three midsize opera companies at a breakout session said they were dropping works from next season's schedule. The wolf's at the door, and opera folks have no place to hide." Chicago Tribune 06/25/03
Posted: 06/25/2003 7:51 am
Lloyd Webber Oratorio - Sincere, But... An oratorio written by Andrew and Julian Lloyd Webber's father William in 1948, gets its world premiere. "If sincerity alone were the key to a work's success, St Francis of Assisi would be a winner, but unfortunately the score falls down on so many crucial issues of drama, variety, pacing and characterisation that it emerged in this belated premiere, given by the Joyful Company of Singers, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and a team of fine soloists conducted by Peter Broadbent, as more of a curiosity than a real find." The Telegraph (UK) 06/24/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 8:06 pm
Florida's 80 Percent Arts Cut Florida's new budget was signed into law this week, and it means an 80 percent cut in arts funding. "The budget, signed into law Monday, provides nearly $5.9 million for the state's arts organizations, down from the $28 million they got last year and a far cry from the $35 million they'd requested for the coming year. Add to deep budget cuts the difficulty arts groups have raising money, and the result is a collective gasp." Daytona Beach News-Journal 06/25/03
Posted: 06/25/2003 7:20 am
Minnesota Cuts Arts Employees The Minnesota State Arts Board budget has been cut 61 percent, so eight of 19 employees were laid off Monday. The cuts represents "a 42 percent cut in the staffing of an organization that has supported art and artists in the state for a century." St. Paul Pioneer-Press 06/25/03
Posted: 06/25/2003 7:03 am
Camp: Where You Can Belt It Out You've heard of fantasy baseball camps. Now there's fantasy Broadway camps. "Now, for folks who've imagined belting to the back of the house like Betty Buckley or Nathan Lane, the Broadway Musical Fantasy Camp (BMFC) is here." New York Daily News 06/24/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 8:56 pm
Misunderstanding Orwell "In the 53 years since his death George Orwell has become a secular saint, acclaimed by the political left and right and many in between, revered as a seer and truth-teller, honored for his moral courage, his razor-sharp intellect and his diamond-hard prose. Somewhere along the way, however, amid all of the hero worship, the real man - the idiosyncratic, squeaky-voiced, tubercular Englishman who dressed like a pauper, rolled his own cigarettes, chased after women and practiced a wobbly but sincere brand of socialism - seems to have gotten lost, and perhaps the real writer has as well. Orwell has suffered the famous author's ultimate fate: He is revered and invoked more than he is read." Washington Post 06/25/03
Posted: 06/25/2003 9:01 am
Some Librarians Still Refuse Computer Filters Many libraries say they'll give up federal funding rather than install content filters on their computers, as the US Supreme Court ruled earlier this week. "We just don't feel we as librarians need to be in the position of telling people what they should read, see or hear. When you put filters on computers, that's what you're doing." San Jose Mercury-News 06/24/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 7:51 pm
Boston TV Arts - Going, Going... Three Boston TV stations used to have arts reporters covering the local scene. But two years one of the stations cut its coverage, and last week another one was let go. That leaves one... TownOnline.com (Boston) 06/25/03
Posted: 06/25/2003 7:15 am
The New Italian (American) Film City In the 1950s in the era of La Dolce Vita, Cinecitta Studios outside of Rome was a center of cinema, home to Federico Fellini. Inevitably, over the years the studio fell into disrepair. Now it's undergoing a rebirth, led by a wave of American films. "The studio, built in 1937 by Mussolini as a propaganda instrument, is too often seen as a relic, fettered to Fellini and his peers: 'It should be seen as a current place, full of people who will be in the cinema tomorrow, not decades ago. Now the most important are the Americans.'Many American productions have used the studio recently."
The New York Times 06/25/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 7:40 pm
Competing For Exposure "The New York International Ballet Competition - founded 20 years ago and offered every three years - has established itself as one of the world's premiere dance contests. It can pull promising dancers up from relative obscurity, enhance their professional education and boost them into career opportunities that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. And, with 48 dancers from 23 nations (and Puerto Rico) participating, it sets for itself the rather lofty goal of promoting international understanding and goodwill. All this in an intensive three weeks of class, rehearsal and performance." Newsday 06/25/03
Posted: 06/25/2003 8:08 am
Differently-Abled Movement The field of disabled dance has grown out of "a combination of forces: the broader movement to improve the rights of the disabled; the growth of physical therapy; and the influence of contact improvisation, which is more accepting of different kinds of bodies and movement." Miami Herald 06/24/03
Posted: 06/24/2003 8:54 pm
