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Real Unreal "Virtual" Situations (And What We Can Learn From Them) "Blast Theory" is an amalgam of theatre performers and scientists creating interactive "performances" that mix reality with virtual situations. "The laboratory provides the technical and theoretical underpinning for their fascination with computer and communications technology, and its ability to create 'virtual' situations that blur distinctions between the real and the imaginary. Verbal and visual ambiguity is very much the stuff of artistic endeavour. But with the development of three- dimensional imaging and 'intelligent' and ubiquitous computing devices, a number of scientific laboratories worldwide are attempting to understand how humans will interact with all this smart machinery." Financial Times 08/04/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 5:34 pm
Ear's Something Revolting A British artist plans to use plastic surgery to graft a human ear grown in a biotech lab onto his forearm. "Even in an art world used to the antics of Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst, the Extra Ear project will cause upset. Many critics of unusual modern art say a fringe of the movement is caught in an 'arms race' of stunts that have little artistic merit but plenty of shock value. Last month a French artist cut off his own finger with an axe and donated it to a museum." The Observer (UK) 08/03/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 10:11 pm
British Museum: Absolute No To Returning Parthenon Marbles The British Museum has categorically rejected sending the Parthenon Marbles to Greece for the Olympic Games. "Having for years resisted discussing the issue, the museum's new director, Neil McGregor, told the Greek minister of culture that, as one of a handful of 'universal, world institutions', the British Museum was the best place for them." The Guardian (UK) 08/04/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 10:08 pm
Libeskind's WTC Is A Project For An Orchestra Is Daniel Libeskind getting edged out of the WTC project. No, writes Justin Davidson. Hiring Santiago Calatrava to design part of Libeskind's vision is inspired. "If Libeskind is the great enshriner of memory, Calatrava is a poet of forward motion. His best buildings seem to be poised in the instant before taking flight. Straining yet serene, as fast and frozen as a comic book swoosh, they look like icons of weightlessness. Almost a century ago, a group of Italian artists-ideologues who called themselves the Futurists published a polemic in which they declared 'that the splendor of the world has been enriched with new forms of beauty, the beauty of speed.' The Futurists approved of little, but they might have loved Calatrava." Newsday 08/05/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 5:08 pm
Does America Need An African-American Museum? "The U.S. Senate recently authorized the start-up of a national museum of African-American history and culture that would be part of the Smithsonian Institution and located on the Mall. This seems a very good thing for our nation, although no one has mentioned that a separate museum might seem to replicate the very segregation that the museum is meant to decry. Wouldn’t matters be better served in providing a 'true' picture of American history and in understanding African-American 'contributions' to American culture, as the official cant goes, if the story was fused with the main national narrative?" Newsweek 07/31/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 4:59 pm
The Tally At Iraq's National Museum What artwork is actually missing from the Iraq National Museum? "American and Iraqi investigators last week released a 'most wanted' list showing 30 priceless antiquities still missing from the museum’s main collection, along with some 13,000 other pieces. (No, they’re not printed up as playing cards.) Over the past couple of months, Iraqi museum staff, experts at the British Museum in London and U.S. investigators, have discussed the thefts in detail with Newsweek reporters. While some of the picture is still vague and the true culprits still can’t quite be identified, the fog is slowly lifting." Newsweek 07/31/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 4:57 pm
Revenge Of The Teenage Art Gangs Teenage art gangs seem to be hip right now. "These days the very youngest and hippest American collectives all seem to come from Rhode Island, namely groups such as Forcefield and Dearraindrop. These are apparently two distinctly different organisations who happen to share the same provincial bohemia and a not dissimilar anarchic aesthetic of extreme visual and sonic overload; what’s more their combined ages probably add up to just one mid-career abstract painter." The Art Newspaper 08/01/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 4:47 pm
Milwaukee: The Calatrava Effect How's the Milwaukee Art Museum doing since opening its new Calatrava building last year? "Our annual expenses since the Calatrava addition opened have gone up by about $3 million - and so has income, by a like amount. Membership is up from 13,000 members before the expansion to 30,000 now; admissions are running at 360,000 visitors a year, or double levels before the expansion; annual donations and a successful museum store account for the rest." Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 08/02/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 4:26 pm
Are Recording Labels Irrelevant These Days? "Record labels these days are the stuff of great melodrama in the decline-of-Rome battles between petulant artists and the fading major brand names that print their work onto CDs. But music lovers these days know more about who built the blank CDs stacked in their ripping rooms than the name of the record company that puts out Queens of the Stone Age or Ashanti." Denver Post 08/05/03
Posted: 08/05/2003 7:13 am
Seattle's New Opera House When it looked like it was going to cost $99 million to upgrade Seattle's Opera House just to make it earthquake-ready, the city decided to build a new one around the bones of the old. Now the new $127 million house has debuted... San Francisco Chronicle 08/05/03
Posted: 08/05/2003 6:58 am
- Seattle - Sounding Good The most important verdict: Acoustics in the new hall are "excellent." "Though the seating capacity declined only to 2,890 from 3,017, the hall seems much more intimate. The side walls were narrowed, the balconies were extended and the proscenium was made higher. In a visually striking innovation, the side sections of orchestra seats slope upward so they connect with the first balcony." The New York Times 08/05/03
Posted: 08/05/2003 6:46 am
Death Of The Single? Is the record single a dead item? "High promotional costs mean the industry doesn't make much money from the sale of a single. But singles attract new consumers (teenagers buy more singles than any other age group) and drive album sales. Singles also generate valuable media interest - for instance, Blur v Oasis in the 90s. Britpop aside, the singles charts have not been much fun for many years." The Guardian (UK) 08/05/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 10:06 pm
Brooklyn Opera Revolt Over Use Of "Virtual" Orchestra Prominent board members of the three-year-old Opera Company of Brooklyn are resigning over the company's plans to use a virtual orchestra to accompany a performance of "The Magic Flute". "The one-night-only production is being presented by the Opera Company of Brooklyn, started just three years ago to help foster the careers of rising opera talent. The company is using the virtual orchestra because it cannot afford a live one," says the company, which has accumulated a deficit in its short lifetime. The New York Times 08/04/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 5:02 pm
Cremona da New Jersey Evelyn and Herbert Axelrod could have given the 30 rare Cremonese string instruments they owned to the Vienna Philharmonic (which reportedly offered $55 million for the lot). Or they could have sold them to the New York Philharmonic, which also came a'calling. Instead they gave them to the tiny New Jersey Symphony for the bargain-basement price of $18 million. It's a remarkable thing to do... New York Times Magazine 08/03/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 4:52 pm
Edinburgh - A Festival Of Individual Passions "Should festivals be educational? Directors of Edinburgh’s mighty assemblages of acts have often been drawn to communicate their own ideas and enthusiasms." These passions have often resulted in artistic experiences not to be duplicated anywhere else (and sometimes the big fat floperoo). The Scotsman 08/01/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 10:29 pm
Robert McFerrin At 82 Robert McFerrin (father of singer Bobby McFerrin) is 82. "In 1955, McFerrin became the first black man to be signed to New York's Metropolitan Opera. He also performed the songs for a lip-synching Sidney Poitier in the 1959 MGM classic 'Porgy and Bess'. He was honored June 18 in St. Louis with a lifetime achievement award from Opera America." St. Paul Pioneer-Press (AP) 08/05/03
Posted: 08/05/2003 7:40 am
Warhol At 75 Andy Warhol would have been 75 this week. "He might be taken aback by his status as a household name, and by the fact that his personal museum has become a cultural cornerstone of his hometown. Or maybe he'd be taken aback just for a little while and then revel in his fame, given his fascination with the concept..." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 08/05/03
Posted: 08/05/2003 7:28 am
Jarvi - Back Home In Estonia Conductor Neeme Jarvi, who "turned 66 in June, left Estonia in 1980, but retains enormous patriotic affection for it. Jarvi's word is magic in his home country, where he played a key role in inspiring the construction of the new Parnu concert hall and a new opera house and concert hall scheduled to open in 2008 in Tallinn, the capital and Jarvi's hometown. He is an active participant in Estonian musical life, returning annually to conduct and teach at the academy that bears his name." Detroit Free Press 08/04/03
Posted: 08/05/2003 7:10 am
Boston Curator Named Director Of Frick Anne Little Poulet has been named the new director of the Frick Museum. "Although she has never run a museum, Ms. Poulet, 61, comes to the job with 30 years' experience in the art world. For two decades she ran the department of European decorative arts and sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. During that time she was responsible for a number of acquisitions." The New York Times 08/05/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 10:18 pm
More Terror Than Comedy The self-styled "Comedy Terrorist" gained notoriety in the UK after casrhing Prince William's birthday party. Now he's at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He's dreadful - a "talent-free zone." "Throughout its tortuous, one-hour length, the show radiated this sort of laziness. The gags, most of which revolved around the conflicts in the Middle East, were too pathetic to repeat; the props smacked of a primary-school play. And then there was the delivery. Oh lordy, the delivery..." The Telegraph (UK) 08/05/03
Posted: 08/05/2003 7:37 am
Lit In Pictures "Graphic novels aren't new – Will Eisner created the first one in 1978. What's new is their audience and influence. In last year's flat economy for books, sales for graphic novels leapt by one-third. Of the $400 million in annual comics sales, graphic novels now make up $100 million. Publishers Weekly, the book industry bible, calls them 'one of the fastest growing categories in publishing'." Dallas Morning News 08/03/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 5:26 pm
- Previously: The Serious Side Of Comic Books...Er... "Graphic Novels" "A generation of ambitious, serious artists and writers have been applying vast amounts of their creative energy into a milieu which is essentially the visual equivalent of the rock opera: the "graphic novel"—that is, a full-length book in comics format (cartoon drawings with word balloons for dialogue) printed between hard covers or glossy soft-cover. The idea is not new." New York Review Of Books 08/14/03
Movies Grosses Up, Admissions Down The movies took in more money in July than they did last July. But the increase was due to ticket price increases. "Estimated admissions for the month of July were 194.1 million, down 4% from the 202.5 million tallied during the comparable period in 2002. In a historical context, it was only the 10th highest admission count for the month of July in the past 11 years." Backstage 08/04/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 10:57 pm
The New Adult Cartoons Animation isn't just for kids anymore. "A host of new, cutting-edge animated shows is set to debut this year and next. Many of them feature brash characters and dysfunctional families, as well as story lines that poke fun at societal and cultural taboos. The new shows, also on such cable channels as Showtime and the Sci Fi Channel, along with the earlier success of "The Simpsons," "South Park" and Adult Swim's "Space Ghost Coast to Coast," prove that TV animation - once dismissed as kids' stuff - is finally being taken seriously." Denver Post 08/04/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 5:29 pm
Balanchine Comes Home New York City Ballet travels to St. Petersburg to perform Balanchine at the Maryinsky. Th company is a hit. "The Maryinsky has been dancing Balanchine since the beginning of the 1990's and never once could one have suspected that it can be like this." The New York Times 08/05/03
Posted: 08/04/2003 10:16 pm | 
