IDEAS
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas
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The Human Computer Microsoft, that imperialist of the information-technology world, has actually succeeded in patenting the human body as a computer network. What Microsoft is proposing is to use the skin's own conductive properties to transmit the data needed to create a network. And the firm does not stop at people. A 'wide variety of living animals', it says, could be used to create computer buses, as they are known technically, in this manner." - The Economist 07/02/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20040705-49218.html
An UnSATisfying Test Just What does the infamous SAT test measure? "Just before the SAT undergoes another of its periodic transformations -- a new version of the exam, referred to as the 'New SAT,' will be unveiled next spring and will include, for the first time, a writing portion -- a study published in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science claims to prove that the current SAT is, in the end, an IQ test." - Boston Globe 07/04/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20040705-49201.html
Ready For My Close-up? Awww, Forget It! The new generation of movies has abandoned the close-up. "This trend towards wide shots is in part explained by the landmark technological changes which cinema is undergoing. Those who doubt that the digital revolution is significant should consider the fact that the two previous occasions on which film "went wide" and turned to stories set in classical times were the 1950s - after the switch to the various widescreen processes such as CinemaScope - and the very first decades of filmmaking, when audiences were still agog and directors such as Cecil B DeMille presented frieze-like tableaux of classical excess. Both were formative moments, and so is the present one. In each of these three periods, producers and directors who were faced with a new technology fell back on primitive, likeable, pre-cinematic ideas of showmanship." - Prospect 07/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/ideas/redir/20040705-49199.html
ARTS ISSUES
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues
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SF Mayor Drops Arts Funding Merger Plan "Faced with stiff opposition from the San Francisco arts crowd, Mayor Gavin Newsom has dropped his controversial budget proposal to merge the city's Grant for the Arts program with the San Francisco Arts Commission -- at least for now." - San Francisco Chronicle 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20040705-49206.html
Reform Bug Hits Non-Profit Management After Congress passed legislature tightening accountablity on corporations, non-profits are looking at their management operating standards with an eye to reform. "Efforts at philanthropic self-policing have been launched across the nation. They aim to counter public perceptions that financial abuses may be widespread at charities and to deflect lawmakers' calls for more federal regulation." - Chicago Tribune 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20040705-49200.html
Bioterrorism Fumble Against Artist Is Worrisome Sign So the Steve Kurtz "bioterrorism" case has been resolved, and Kurtz has been cleared of terrorism suspicion. "His case is the latest 'whoops' as America tries to regain its legal balance post-9/11. The government is walking the line between prosecution and persecution. In Kurtz's case, it stumbled. Pre-9/11, that's where it would have ended. Those days are gone. The FBI was called. Kurtz was arrested, his neighbors evacuated and a hazmat team in spacesuits picked through his trash. With the (Joe) McCarthy era, it was a Communist in every corner. Now it's a terrorist lurking everywhere." - Buffalo News 07/02/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/artsissues/redir/20040705-49195.html
DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/dance
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Say Goodbye To Frankfurt Ballet: The Frankfurt Ballet gave its final performance Sunday night. "After many curtain calls and a few tears, the Frankfurt Ballet ceased to exist. One of the most exciting chapters in contemporary dance was over. As one troupe dies, however, another is taking shape, because a new Forsythe Company should be born in January. And it too will be based in Germany. Unlike the Frankfurt Ballet, which worked from the Frankfurt opera house, the Forsythe Company will have two homes." The New York Times 07/05/04
http://artsjournal.com/dance/redir/20040705-49192.html
MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
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Are Documentaries The Next Big Thing? With the success of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, critics are wondering if documentaries are going to be the next big thing in movies. "Are documentaries going to be taken more seriously? The short answer is yes. But Michael Moore is still a special case. He's become a star, almost like any other star. That said, I do think audiences are getting used to going to documentaries in a way they haven't before." The New York Times 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/media/redir/20040705-49191.html
MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
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Downloads-As-(Business) Opportunity Music companies seem finally to have caught on to the idea that downloaded music is a good thing. "At a time when some high street stores are abandoning the sale of singles altogether, even the record industry got the message: downloaded music isn't a threat but an opportunity. The fact that the music moguls resisted music downloading for so long is par for the course. They opposed audio, cassette and video taping and, later, DVD. Yet each turned out to be extraordinarily profitable." The Observer (UK) 07/04/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040705-49213.html
Introducing... The No-Frills CD? Attempting to combat the lure of piracy, Betelsman is offering three different "classes" of CD's. "The no-frills version will look virtually identical to a pirate copy, with only the title printed directly on the disc. It will cost €9.99 - about £6.70. The regular version will cost €3 more. It will include a cover and lyrics. A "luxury" version with additional material and video clips will cost €17.99." The Guardian (UK) 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040705-49212.html
Scottish Opera May Put Its Hand Out Scottish Opera is facing a shutdown. But the company is considering asking for donations to help it stay active. "The company is debating whether to launch a fundraising drive that would appeal for donors to keep productions up and running. There were fears that, amid headlines of crisis and cutbacks, opera backers might feel their cash would go into a black hole. But regular supporters have already come forward asking how they can help, and a few have sent cheques for hundreds of pounds." The Scotsman 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040705-49209.html
Jazz In Montreal The 25-year-old Montreal Jazz Festival is one of the world's great music festivals. "The festival's sense of its own history is one. As large an enterprise as the event has become -- 500 concerts, 10 indoor stages, another 12 on the downtown streets around Place des Arts, attendance approaching two million -- it tempers its penchant for grandiosity with a strong sentimental streak." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040705-49215.html
SF Opera - System Failure In America Why did Pamenla Rosenberg withdraw from running San Francisco Opera? "What Rosenberg overlooked when she returned to the US after years working in two of Germany's most avant-garde opera houses was that a European-style artistic policy depends on European-style consistency of funding - some thing the US opera community can never provide." Financial Times 07/04/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20040705-49202.html
PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/people
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Neruda - The Examined Life Pablo Neruda "would have turned 100 on July 12. Today he is the emblem of the engaged poet, an artist whose heart was consumed by passion -- for people and politics. García Márquez called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century, in any language." While the homage might have been overinflated, there is little doubt that Neruda is among the most enduring voices of the last, tumultuous (in his own words, "the saddest") century." Chronicle of Higher Education 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20040705-49217.html
Marlon Brando, Civil Rights Champion Marlon Brando might have been a great actor, but Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest remember his important role in defending Indian fishing rights. "The Indians who once stood in protest with Brando during Washington's 'Fish Wars' of the 1960s, remembered him not as acclaimed movie star, but as a sensitive defender of civil rights. Marlon Brando was the first person of non-color to step forward to help us. Marlon Brando was ahead of his time." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 07/03/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20040705-49207.html
PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing
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Relatives Protest Auction Of Joyce Letter Descendants of James Joyce are condemning a plan to auction an intimate letter he wrote. "In the letter, missing for nearly a century until it was found tucked inside a book, Joyce writes to his lover, Nora Barnacle, of a sexual encounter similar to the couple's first on 16 June, 1904, when Nora opened his trousers and 'made a man of him'." The Observer (UK) 07/04/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20040705-49214.html
Catching The Code - In Search Of The Da Vinci Code The Da Vinci Code has spurred interest in places and things mentioned in the book. Tourist visits at the Roslyn Chapel in Scotland are up, and visitors to the Louvre are asking questions... The Observer (UK) 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20040705-49211.html
The Rap On Rap In School English Classes "Since his death eight years ago, there has been a stampede to include Tupac Shakur on American college syllabuses: not just the "we take anyone" community colleges, but institutions such as Harvard and Dartmouth solemnly cogitate on the inner meaning of Tupac's lyrics and the printed volume of his verse, The Rose that Grew from Concrete. Universities can get away with putting Hit 'Em Up alongside Othello. Undergraduates are adults; school pupils are not. A huge fuss has been kicked up this year since education authorities put The Rose that Grew from Concrete on summer readingsyllabuses for sixth- and seventh-grade children." The Guardian (UK) 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20040705-49204.html
Moveable Feast - US History Through Lenses Of Self-Interest History belongs to those who choose to write it, right? "Extracts in ''History Lessons: How Textbooks From Around the World Portray U.S. History'' tell us two things: historical narratives are biased and untrustworthy; and America's impact on the world cannot be underestimated. Interesting history is interested history, so the secondary school texts excerpted here generally relate international events as they reflect local concerns." The New York Times 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing/redir/20040705-49194.html
THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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The Enduring Chekhov A hundred years after his death, Chekhov still exerts a major pull on the theatre. What is it about his work that makes it endure? The Telegraph (UK) 07/05/04
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20040705-49210.html
VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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Coffee Table Architecture The gorgeous new Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture Is a grand proposition."At a total of 824 pages, the Atlas includes entries on 1,052 buildings built over the last six years by 656 architects in 75 countries. The text is accompanied by 62 maps and 7,000 illustrations. The book comes in its own clear plastic carrying case, and is a foot and a half tall and 12 inches wide and weighs about 18 pounds. At $160 plus tax, it also comes with sticker shock. Though it's priced in reference-book territory, most copies won't ever see the inside of an architecture firm or library." Slate 07/01/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040705-49216.html
The Amazing Tillie, The Wonder-Dog/Artist "The 5-year-old Jack Russell is an artist who has had her paintings exhibited in New York, Los Angeles and Europe. She recently opened a gallery and store in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, the borough's epicenter of all things artsy and hip. Her intense, instinctive scratch marks -- in red, blue, yellow and black -- have drawn comparisons to abstract artists Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly." Washington Post (AP) 07/04/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040705-49208.html
Chicago - Recapturing The Millennium "Chicago's reputation for innovative architecture has languished in recent decades, its silhouette blighted by undistinguished glass and steel office buildings, monolithic concrete condominium towers and ubiquitous three-storey brick apartments. Conceived in 1997 and intended as part of the city's celebration of the new century, Millennium Park was aimed at recapturing the spirit of innovative design that had brought Chicago architectural glory." The Guardian (UK) 07/05/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040705-49205.html
Stolen Statue Epidemic "According to art recovery experts there is an epidemic in stolen statuary in England and Wales that is being fuelled by the increasing demand for salvage to feed the boom in home and garden renovations. Gangs of thieves, who study magazines such as Country Life to locate their spoils, find the lead and stone figurines, iron benches and sundials easy plunder." The Guardian (UK) 07/05/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040705-49203.html
Family Sues Liz Taylor Over Van Gogh "Actress Elizabeth Taylor is seeking a court declaration that she is the rightful owner of a painting by Van Gogh, to which the heirs of a former Jewish resident of Berlin have asserted a claim." The Art Newspaper 07/02/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040705-49198.html
Bank Customers Sue Billionaire Russian To Claim Faberge Eggs Only days after nine Faberge Imperial eggs and some of the approximately 180 other Fabergé pieces belonging to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg went on display in the Kremlin, the clients of a failed Russian bank filed a lawsuit asking that the "newly acquired Fabergé imperial eggs be confiscated by the authorities and auctioned to recoup the money they say they lost through their business with the bank." The Art Newspaper 07/02/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040705-49196.html
The Hip Near-Past For Sale When it opened in 1998, the Damien Hirst-designed Pharmacy restaurant was the hippest thing in London. Maybe it was so hip it failed to outlive its opening moments, and last September it closed. Now the restaurant's contents are being auctioned - relics of a singular moment. "There will be paintings with estimates of over $550,000 as well as objects expected to sell for under $100. A group of 10 of the artist's much-loved butterfly paintings, each with a bright color background and each with love in the title, are estimated to fetch over $110,000. The auction will also have 11 of his well-known medicine cabinets and a molecular model sculpture with estimates each from $183,360 to $275,000." The New York Times 07/05/04
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20040705-49190.html
