A Machine That Measures Thrills "What thrills us depends on our personal hopes, fears, loves and desires. But now a British designer, working with a computer scientist, is creating a machine that can measure the experience of thrill. The hope is to create an industry-standard measure that can be used to gauge thrilling experiences, and, ultimately, dynamically modify such experiences in real time. For computer gamers, the prospect is tantalizing." Wired02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 9:52 pm
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Making Sure There's Always Something Good On TV "Those sleek flat screens popping up on people's walls may just look like fancy televisions. A new generation of artists and gallery owners wants you to think of them as something else: an empty picture frame... Digital works, the latest genre of new media art, usually are sold in limited edition DVDs. But this spring, Steven Sacks, the director of New York City's bit-forms gallery, plans to start selling lower-priced original works of software art at software ART space. Prices will range from $100 for unlimited-edition works to $1,000 for numbered pieces. Buyers will get a sleekly packaged disc; limited editions will be signed by the artist." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 6:51 am
Cooper-Hewitt Wants To Expand New York's Cooper-Hewitt Museum is proposing a "$75 million expansion that would create three new floors beneath the spacious gated garden of its home, the landmark Carnegie Mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. 'In visitation and profile, Cooper-Hewitt is struggling to gain traction in the competitive cultural environment of New York City'." The New York Times 02/17/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 9:39 pm
National Gallery Tops 5 Million Visitors London's National Gallery was the UK's most popular museum attraction in 2004. "With 5 million people marching through the National Gallery's doors last year, it was the most visited museum in the country, and the second most visited tourist attraction - pipped only by the perennially popular Blackpool Pleasure Beach, according to figures prepared by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions." The Guardian (UK) 02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 5:02 pm
Central Park Gates Draw Million People More than a million people have been to Central Park to see the Christo Gates. "An estimated 350,000 people visited the park on Saturday's opening day; even more – 450,000 – came Sunday. Rain reduced crowds on Monday, the conservancy said, but noted that 200,000 visited on Tuesday, when U.S. First Lady Laura Bush was among those in attendance. By comparison, the park typically receives 65,000 visitors a day during weekends in February. In the spring during the city's busy tourist season, the park receives about 250,000 visitors a day on weekends." CBC 02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 3:49 pm
Iran Dams Threaten Archaeological Sites Several dam projects in Iran seriously threaten important archaeological sites. Some of those projects may be delayed so surveys can be completed. Others are out of time... The Art Newspaper 02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 3:40 pm
British Government Knew Queen's Benin Bronze Had Been "Expropriated" The British Foreign Office knew back in the 1970s that a Benin bronze head given to the Queen by Benin's president had been "expropriated" from the Lagos Museum. “The bronze which Gowon gave to the Queen on his [1973] state visit was a sixteenth century piece worth up to £30,000 on the market. It was in the Lagos Museum up to a few days before Gowon left for the UK when, realising he had to come bearing a suitable gift, he sent to the Museum and said ‘I’ll have that one’.” The Art Newspaper 02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 3:30 pm
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Legendary NY Clubs In Danger Of Folding "In the latest round of real estate brush fires to hit the [New York] rock scene, several clubs in the East Village and on the Lower East Side are facing their demise, including CBGB, the Bowery dungeon that was the birthplace of punk in the 1970's. Besides CBGB, the clubs in danger include the Luna Lounge, Fez and Tonic... Owners of endangered clubs complain that rents and insurance charges have skyrocketed and that city officials show little interest in helping them survive." The New York Times 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 6:27 am
AZ Opera Closes Budget Gap Arizona Opera has met a $500,000 fundraising goal and qualified for $250,000 in matching funds from the city of Phoenix, offsetting a budget shortfall created when the company was forced to temporarily move to a new home while its existing venue is renovated. Arizona Republic 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 5:37 am
Edinburgh Fest Scraps £5 Tickets A few years back, the Edinburgh International Festival sought to recapture some of the crowds and attention which had been diverted to the hugely popular Edinburgh Fringe by creating a new late-night concert series featuring some of the world's finest classical musicians, with all tickets priced at a rock-bottom £5. The idea was to try to draw new audiences who ordinarily wouldn't have come near the concert hall. Instead, while the Festival's existing audience found the £5 admission attractive, no one else seemed to much care. So this year, the Festival is pulling the series altogether, claiming that it had the opposite effect on ticket revenue from what was intended. Edinburgh Evening News (UK) 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 5:23 am
St Louis Symphony Strike Drags On The St. Louis Symphony musicians' strike is taking its toll. Musicians are hurting for money, the orchestra says it's lost $700,000 in revenue. "Fifteen subscription concerts have been canceled. Thousands of schoolchildren have missed out on educational concerts at Powell Symphony Hall, a cavernous former vaudeville theater built in 1925. Half a dozen of those were canceled, along with 20 concerts in churches, schools and homes for the elderly in poor neighborhoods that were part of the orchestra's lauded outreach program." The New York Times 02/17/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 9:47 pm
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Rand Corp: Stop Quantifying, Focus On Quality "After wading through stacks of economic and educational studies used to drum up arts funding, Rand Corp. researchers say the numbers don't make a persuasive case and that arts advocates should emphasize intrinsic benefits that make people cherish the arts." Education and economic return have been proven selling points with politicians who are otherwise reluctant to fund the arts at all, but the Rand study says that "trumpeting the most quantifiable and utilitarian benefits doesn't address the biggest long-term challenge facing arts organizations: cultivating an arts-savvy public that wants what museums and performing groups offer." San Francisco Chronicle (LA Times) 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 7:08 am
Kennedy Center Makes Major Push On Arts Ed Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center has announced that it will spend a whopping $125 million on performing arts education programs over the next five years. The new initiative includes plans for a new theater specifically designed to accomodate young audiences, a collaboration with Disney Theatricals to encourage the production of school musicals, and an extensive arts management training program. The money for the project will be raised entirely through private donations. Baltimore Sun 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 5:49 am
When Is A Blogger Not A Journalist? As more and more bloggers enter the realm of investigative journalism, some have begun to face similar quandaries to those faced by "real" journalists, and the issue of First Amendment protection for the self-styled reporter crowd has started to be seriously debated. "A useful first step would be to learn whether bloggers are covered by existing state statutes that protect journalists from having to cough up sources. The vast majority of states mark a clear line between professional journalists and everybody else. How do reporters qualify? They must be employed by news organizations -- or as bloggers refer to it, the dreaded MSM (mainstream media)." Wired 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 5:15 am
Berlin - Catching Up With Culture Berlin seemed to have it all culturally after the fall of the Berlin Wall. "Seen from, say, London, Paris or Vienna, Berlin had all the ingredients to become a, if not the, European cultural capital. Almost overnight, the city government was owner of 17 museums, 3 opera houses, 8 orchestras and 17 theaters. Further, as the only city to experience German unification firsthand, Berlin itself became a work in progress. For artists, this meant unfettered freedom to explore new avenues." The reality has turned out somewhat different... The New York Times 02/17/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 9:30 pm
Star Search - UK Arts Orgs Hunt For New Leaders Several of the UK's most important culture jobs are vacant, and a talent search is underway. But where is the talent for those top jobs going to come from? The Guardian (UK) 02/17/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 5:15 pm
Arts Council Chief: Politicians Don't Get The Arts The head of the British Arts Council says politicians are out of step with how popular the arts have become. He "warned against excessive political interference in the arts and 'the gradual amputation' of the arm's-length policy that protects artists from direct political tampering. Arguing that politicians are out of step with huge popular support for the arts in Britain, he said: 'Since 2001 the percentage of adults who believe that arts and cultural projects should receive public funding has increased from an impressive 74% to an even more impressive 79%'." The Guardian (UK) 02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 4:56 pm
- Politicians Are Arts-o-Phobic? "Sir Christopher's suspicion that it is 'almost as if politicians are embarrassed to be associated with the arts', rings horribly true. Labour leaders are happy to be pictured with sports stars and TV personalities, but their alarm bells ring when an artist, playwright or composer gets within snapping range." The Guardian (UK) 02/17/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 4:45 pm
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Death Of A Salesman (And His Dream) "Its gradual demise lacks the éclat of the Gillette takeover, the disappearance of Fleet Bank, or the offshoring of John Hancock, but Cahners Publishing Company's death by a thousand cuts has had a significant impact on civic life in Boston. The name of Norman Cahners, the hustling young Harvard grad who turned a Navy inventory newsletter called 'The Palletizer' into a trade publishing empire, was quietly removed from the company's signature Newton Corner headquarters a while back. Now the Boston-area staff is leaving the building entirely... The purge of the Cahners name was completed two years ago, when the founder's daughter Nancy was summoned to Newton to remove her father's portrait." Boston Globe 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 5:57 am
Plans For Hemingway House Rile Idaho Neighbors Neighbours in the town of Ketchum, Idaho fear that plans to open to the public the house in which Ernest Hemingway killed himself will "bring scores of tourists who will disrupt their peace and clog up their drives. They want to buy the property - which could have a price tag of more than $500,000 - from the conservancy that owns it, and move it down the road. But the plan has run into opposition from the Idaho Hemingway House Foundation, which counts the Hollywood luminary Tom Hanks and the writer's granddaughter Mariel Hemingway as board members." The Guardian (UK) 02/15/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 4:48 pm
World Book Day - The Power Of Recommendation Organizers of World Book Day want to harness the power of word of mouth to promote reading. They plan to distribute 8 million postcards which would "enable one in seven people in the British population to recommend a book to a friend, or enemy. The card, due to come tumbling out of virtually every publication in Britain until World Book Day on March 3, are designed by artists ranging from the Guardian's Graham Rawle to Peter Blake and Simon Patterson. The organisers, whose mission is to raise the profile of reading and book buying and borrowing, call this harnessing the power of recommendation, and are focusing it on a single day." The Guardian (UK) 02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 4:38 pm
Call To Arms: Help Cuban Librarians Nat Hentoff says jailed Cuban librarians need the help of American libraries. "How inspiring it would be if the world-renowned New York Public Library and its president, Paul Leclerc, would join the small Vermillion Public Library in South Dakota to further circulate stories and songs of freedom by sending books—and encouragement—to the Cuban independent libraries. Many of the multicultural users of New York's library system would be proud of its flagship center and its lions guarding the freedom to read." Village Voice 02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 4:15 pm
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The Rise Of Clear Channel It's accepted as gospel these days that Clear Channel Communications is the 800-lb. gorilla of the media world, controlling blocks of radio stations, billboards, and concert venues in nearly every large metro area in the country. But it wasn't too long ago that Clear Channel was nothing more than a struggling radio group, competing with countless other station owners in a relatively competitive marketplace. Then, back in 1996, Congress passed a Telecommunications Act which legislators swore would increase competition and serve consumers better. As everyone now knows, the opposite happened, and Clear Channel became the face of America's new corporate media. City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul) 02/16/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 6:55 am
FilmFest Wars Claim Two In Montreal Montreal's Festival du Nouveau Cinema is in danger of folding in the wake of the resignations of its president and executive director. Montreal has three major film festivals, and city officials have been working with the film industry to try to cut that number by two. The result has been open warfare between festival organizers, which culminated last week when the newest entry, the Montreal International Film Festival, was seen as encroaching on the Nouveau's territory with its decision to schedule its inaugural season directly opposite Nouveau's. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 6:30 am
A Stripped-Down Approach To Filmmaking Documentarians can be scrappy and persistent, but Canadian filmmaker Eva Ziemsen might take the prize for most innovative baiting of her subject. Desperate to conduct a face-to-face interview with iconoclastic filmmaker Lars von Trier, Ziemsen, traveled across Europe with nothing more than the vaguest hope of success, barged into von Trier's studio with the camera rolling, and then, with the ultimate rejection at hand, offered to conduct the interview naked. Two hours later, von Trier was sitting across from her (and no, she didn't have to remove any clothing). The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 6:23 am
Protecting PBS From Those Nasty Cabinet Secretaries PBS is asking the U.S. Congress to create a dedicated endowment which would fund the public broadcaster in perpetuity, protecting it from the political whims of politicians who object to one program or another. PBS has frequently been accused by conservatives of tilting to the left (as has nearly every broadcast network in the U.S.), and a recent flap over an episode of a children's program which featured a family with two mothers has renewed the right's vitriol, even though PBS has recently launched several high-profile shows featuring conservative commentators. The idea of funding PBS through a permanent trust comes as the network prepares to begin a search for a new president. Boston Globe 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 6:03 am
- Mitchell Leaving PBS PBS President Pat Mitchell told a gathering of the network's managers this week that she will step down when her current term expires in 2006. "Under Mitchell's leadership, prime-time ratings rose to the highest ever and PBS stations extended their reach for digital broadcasting to over 89 percent of the country. Mitchell also added diversity to the schedule - including the 'American Family', an emmy-nominated series featuring a Latino family, and 'American Mystery!' a special featuring Indians living in the Southwest." Minneapolis Star Tribune (AP) 02/17/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 6:02 am
24 Lessons For An America At War The third season of the terrorism drama, 24, currently running on the Fox network, has stirred up a lot of controversy with its depiction of an American Muslim family secretly made up of terrorist killers. Fox has acknowledged the sensitive nature of the plot, running a public service announcement featuring the show's lead actor reminding viewers that most American Muslims are, well, still Americans, and don't want to kill anyone. But the show has become much more than simply an envelope-pushing shockfest: in fact, for all its bluster, it's a fairly decent depiction of all the unresolvable contradictions, moral quandaries, and societal soul-searching faced by a country at war. CBC 02/16/05
Posted: 02/17/2005 5:06 am
US House Passes Stiffer Fines For Broadcasters The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that radically hikes fines for broadcasters charged with indecency. "The bill, passed by 389 votes to 38 on Wednesday, boosts the maximum penalty for firms and individual entertainers to $500,000. But the bill, supported by the White House, cannot become law until the Senate approves similar legislation. Legislators said stiffer fines were needed to force broadcasters to clean up their programmes and protect children from inappropriate material." BBC 02/16/05
Posted: 02/16/2005 3:12 pm
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