Plugged In - How The Internet Has Impacted Artists How has the internet changed the way artists do their work? "The first large-scale surveys of the internet’s impact on artists and musicians reveal that they are embracing the Web as a tool to improve how they make, market, and sell their creative works. They eagerly welcome new opportunities that are provided by digital technology and the internet."
Pew Internet & American Life Project 12/05/04
Posted: 01/03/2005 7:43 pm
Click here for more Ideas stories...
Artists Of The Under/Over (Reputation That Is) The whole idea of overrated and underrated artists is an odd one. Are we talking about quality not recognized? Is it reputation imbalance? ARTnews takes a survey of artfolk to take on the question... ARTnews 01/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 9:13 am
Art For Your TV Flat screen high-definition TVs are becoming popular. But there still isn't a lot of programming to take advantage of the screens. So one company is introducing the GalleryPlayer. "It will allow subscribers to purchase and display high-resolution digital images of "museum-quality" art and photos on their high-definition digital TV displays." ABCNews.com 01/04/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 6:38 am
"Wall Of Air" To Protect David? Officials in Florence are considering installing machinery that would envelope Michelangelo's David in a constant stream of air. "The "wall of air" is one of several steps the museum is considering that could protect the statue from dirt particles without encasing it in glass. More than a million tourists are said to visit the statue every year in the Italian city of Florence." BBC 01/04/05
Posted: 01/03/2005 6:58 pm
Central Park "Gates" Begin Installation Installation of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's "The Gates" in Central Park has begun. "The $20 million project, a quarter-century in the making and financed by the artists, will go on full view on Feb. 12 and remain until Feb. 27. It is expected to attract thousands of art lovers from around the world. The artists are trying to create "a visual golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of the trees, highlighting the shapes of the footpaths," according to a brochure explaining the project. The color was chosen to cast a warm glow over the park at a gray time of year." The New York Times 01/04/05
Posted: 01/03/2005 6:13 pm
Looking Around At 2005 Is 2005 the start of a new era in art? "We don’t have art movements any more, for one thing. We have market movements. In the place of successive modernist and post-modernist esthetic revolutions -- now decades in the past -- we have fads and collector enthusiasms, things like Japanese anime, Chinese photography and the new Leipzig painters. Such developments are symptoms of a fallow, second- and third-generation period, and at the same time indicate new levels of competition in the continuously expanding, robust international art market." Artnet.com 01/03/05
Posted: 01/03/2005 4:37 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
What's Wrong With The Way We Teach Music? "In the music education of our young, listening—truly active processing and internalizing of sound—is not valued. And we are paying the price for this when audiences—and the composers they all too often come to dread—are not able to hear what is before them. In its passive stead, audiences seem more tuned out than in, experiencing a general wash of comfort or discomfort seemingly tied neither to thought nor feeling, process nor program." NewMusicBox 01/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 9:22 am
The Music Stops In St. Louis "Management called it a strike; the union called it a lockout. But whatever the terminology, for the moment, the music has stopped. Management's last offer was for around $72,000 this season - less than the $73,900 the players are making now." At a meeting of musicians "there was no pontification (from the floor); people just got up and said, 'I'm really sad, but I can't accept it.' We need to maintain our position of parity (with comparable orchestras), and we can't be bankrupt. We need to be able to afford things we've invested in, like instruments and houses and education and all of that." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 01/04/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 8:52 am
St. Louis On Strike Musicians of the St. Louis Symphony voted 85-3 to strike Monday. "The impasse comes as a blow to the symphony, which seemed to be making strides after nearly going bankrupt in 2000 and after the debilitating illness and death of its former music director, Hans Vonk. The hiring of David Robertson, a darling of the critics, as music director next season had brought a sense of excitement to the orchestra." The New York Times 01/04/05
Posted: 01/03/2005 6:33 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
Giant Hong Kong Arts Complex Project Draws Protests Hong Kong proposes to build a gigantic arts complex that includes "four giant museums, four large concert halls and theaters, a school for the arts and more." Designs for the project have already been commissioned from Norman Foster. "But the project has become the center of a bitter debate in the last few weeks. Artists here are deeply split on the idea, and a street demonstration on Christmas Day drew hundreds of protesters." The New York Times 01/04/05
Posted: 01/03/2005 6:20 pm
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
The Many-Sided Sontag For what, will Susan Sontag be best remembered? "It’s not clear what, in the future, will be made of Sontag’s many-sided career. It may be that the fiction will be treated as a secondary matter. “The Volcano Lover” was a high peak of modern psychological realism, but Sontag never matched it in her other novels. If there is one achievement that people should remember her for, it is the critical essays, mostly on writers and filmmakers, that she collected in “Against Interpretation” (1966), the volume that made her famous; “Styles of Radical Will” (1969); and “Under the Sign of Saturn” (1980)." The New Yorker 01/03/05
Posted: 01/03/2005 4:48 pm
Click here for more People stories...
A Venue As Big As NYC "The announcement that former Dublin Fringe director Vallejo Gantner has been named P.S.122's artistic director has quieted fears about the East Village institution's future. But what will Russell—one of the city's most visionary performing arts curators, the man who fostered the careers of John Leguizamo, Eric Bogosian, Spalding Gray, and Danny Hoch—do without a venue to program? Why, program the city, of course..." Village Voice 01/04/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 9:05 am
Click here for more Theatre stories...
Don Quixote Turns 400 (Would He make It Today?) "One wonders: Would Don Quixote pass the test and be published in New York today? I frankly doubt it. It would be deemed what editors call "a trouble manuscript": too long, the story line problematic, the plot stuffed with too many adventures that do too little to advance the narrative and too many characters whose fate the reader gets attached to but who suddenly disappear. And that awkward conceit of a character finding a book about himself! The style! Those careless sentences that twist and turn!" Chronicle of Higher Education 01/07/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 9:11 am
Addicted To Books On Tape Reading is king of course. But there are those among us who develop an addiction for hearing the spoken word read to us. "Perhaps there is something psychologically reassuring about listening to someone read a story. Hardly a day has passed in the last 30 years in which I have not heard a spoken-word recording of one kind or another. I go to sleep every night with the soothing sounds of a recorded book." Chronicle of Higher Education 01/03/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 6:47 am
195 Added To Book Of People Who Mattered "The lives of 195 people who died in 2001 - including Beatle George Harrison - have been added to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The book includes biographies of kings, queens, celebrities, philosophers, assassins, builders and scientists." BBC 01/04/05
Posted: 01/03/2005 7:26 pm
Peter Rabbit In Glyphs Beatrix Potter's "Peter Rabbit" has been translated into hierogyphics. "The translation turns the story of a mischievous rabbit into symbols of the Egyptian world, shapes and squiggles. Peter Rabbit becomes a square, a semi-circle, an ellipse and a rabbit image. The "time seemed appropriate" for the hieroglyph version, due in April, translators said, as the story had already been published in 35 languages." BBC 12/31/04
Posted: 01/03/2005 6:45 pm
Click here for more Publishing stories...
Blockbuster News - No More Late Fees There were shortages of some popular movies at Blockbuster Video this past weekend, as the company eliminated late fees. That means renters can be more leisurely about returning movies. "The Texas-based megafirm eliminated all late fees for rentals, effective Saturday, despite the estimated $250 million to $300 million in revenues they would have generated for Blockbuster in 2005." Boston Herald 01/04/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 8:06 am
Looking In On The Bootleg "Community" Communities of movie bootleggers have their own community websites in which they trade praose and information about their latest scores. "On the top sites, on those really private sites, the sport is about the next film and the next game. They score even more points if they do it before the release date." Boston Globe (AP) 01/04/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 8:02 am
The Satellite Jukebox "A handful of new and soon-to-be-released devices enable music listeners to automatically record tracks from satellite radio broadcasts onto hard drives or portable music players such as the iPod. While the recording industry has publicly decried such activities for terrestrial radio, analysts say it has a financial reason for remaining silent about satellite radio recording." Wired 01/04/05
Posted: 01/04/2005 7:00 am
Click here for more Media stories...
The Trocks - Bang For The Buck Joan Acocella checks in on the Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, currently celebrating its 30th anniversary. "Has success spoiled them? I don’t know—I wasn’t there in 1974—but when, last month at the Joyce, I watched the opening night of their thirtieth-anniversary season, thought, These people are delivering more bang fo the buck than most other classical companies in America." The New Yorker 01/03/05
Posted: 01/03/2005 4:52 pm
Click here for more Dance stories...
