Upload Your Brain To A Supercomputer? (Scientist Says It'll Happen) 'If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem. If you're rich enough then by 2050 it's feasible. If you're poor you'll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it's routine. We are very serious about it. That's how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a long time in IT.'" The Observer (UK) 05/22/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 5:54 pm
Click here for more Ideas stories...
Is The Canadian Art Market Ready For Its Close-Up? "The major anticipation over this spring's auctions of high-end Canadian fine art is less about the sale of a specific work (or three) and more about whether the market will continue to show the unprecedented buoyancy it's had in the last nine or 10 years. Over the next seven days, the three major auction houses -- Vancouver's Heffel Fine Arts tonight, Toronto-based Sotheby's (in association with Ritchie's) on Monday and Joyner Waddington's of Toronto next Tuesday and Wednesday -- are putting almost 1,000 lots, worth a total estimated at CAN$12.5 to CAN$16-million, under the hammer... In a sense, this spring's auctions will be a test of the maturity of the market." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 6:07 am
Art Under The Microscope Princeton University has unveiled a new exhibit of the kind of art rarely seen by average museumgoers. "The 55 pieces in the exhibit are all the products of scientific research, or works of art that incorporate the ideas or tools of science... The art includes a neon image of a virus infecting human cells; multicolored, magnified ants; an image of colliding galaxies; and a close-up of the genitalia of a spider. There's even a line drawing of Albert Einstein in a bustier." Wired 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 5:44 am
A New Tone For The Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale's new director has big changes planned in an attempt to bring some order to the event. "Bringing a touch of rigorous business thinking to proceedings, he has announced a programme for the next three years, starting with next month's edition of the festival, which he hopes will present "a clearer picture of where we are, and how we got there" to the world. This year's 51st Biennale, directed by two Spanish curators, María de Corral and Rosa Martínez, (the first co-curatorship, and the first women to do the job), is already much slimmed down in terms of artists involved: just 91 contenders will bring their work to the city." Financial Times 05/24/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 7:34 pm
Whitney Expansion Plan Approved New York's Landmarks Commission has approved a modified expansion plan for the Whitney Museum. "The vote, which was unanimous, was a mixed victory of sorts for the architect, Renzo Piano. After heated arguments from preservationists in previous hearings, he submitted an alternative plan halving the size of a proposed new entrance for the museum so he could spare the brownstone and win the commission's approval." The New York Times 05/25/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 7:17 pm
Art Theft Is Less Lucrative Art theft pays less these days. "Changes to legislation, together with police crackdowns,have spelled an end to the days when a stolen work of art could command a high price, a conference in London heard. In response, the black market has itself grown more sophisticated." The Independent (UK) 05/24/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 4:59 pm
Click here for more Visual Arts stories...
Slatkin Back In London Leonard Slatkin, who recently ended a mixed tenure as music director of the BBC Symphony, has been named principal guest conductor of London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Slatkin was also recently named principal guest in Los Angeles, and he will continue as music director of Washington, D.C.'s National Symphony through spring 2008. His name also tends to pop up whenever high-profile American music director openings are discussed. Washington Post 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 6:36 am
OSM Strike Drags On How serious is the strike at l'Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal? In the two weeks since the OSM's musicians walked off the job, the two sides have not met at the bargaining table even once. Still, things have taken a slight turn towards compromise, and negotiations could resume later this week. Meantime, the musicians are keeping busy not only with picket lines, but with the usual free concerts designed to drum up support and keep connections to the larger community open. CBC 05/24/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 5:38 am
Vox Populi Comes To The Concert Hall One of the most frequent complaint about modern classical music is that it ignores what the audience wants to hear in favor of intellectual calisthenics too difficult for most ears to comprehend. But the California-based Pacific Symphony shouldn't be hearing any complaints when it unveils its next commission, if only because the composer will have been chosen by audience vote. "The composer who captures the most audience ballots will walk away with a $5,000 commission for a work the Pacific Symphony will perform next season... The idea, conceived by symphony president John Forsyte, was a big hit in its first incarnation two years ago, attracting more than 200 submissions from composers around the world." Orange County Register 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 5:12 am
- You Get What You Pay For The Cleveland Chamber Symphony has come up with a unique way to fund a major new commission - it's offered to pay composer Dennis Eberhard by the measure, and just to make things interesting, "individuals and organizations may purchase one or more measures of Eberhard's score for $25 apiece... Contributors to the commissioning project will receive a printed copy of their measure or measures, and they will be invited to a gala premiere celebration. In addition, they will have a chance to meet with Eberhard while he is composing the work to discuss its development." The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 5:00 am
An iPod Experiment That Failed Last year, Duke University spent $500,000 on iPods for its students. The plan was hyped as a tech step forward. But the experiment wasn't exactly a big success... InsideHigherEd 05/23/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 6:43 pm
The Philadelphia Orchestra's Kluger Years What was Philadelphia Orchestra president Joe Kluger's impact on his orchestra in 16 years at the helm? "He leaves behind an orchestra that for several years was worse for his presence, and in more recent years, better off. A lot went wrong at Philadelphia's most important cultural institution in his 16 years - an awful 64-day strike that took the mayor to settle, an impotent response to the orchestra's losing its national and international presence in radio and recordings, and the hiring of a music director whose name, when announced to musicians, was greeted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. How much of what went wrong was Kluger's fault? How much the board's? The musicians'?" Philadelphia Inquirer 05/24/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 3:04 pm
Click here for more Music stories...
Has The File-Swapping War Already Been Lost? Defenders of traditional copyright law might have the law on their side in the battle against file-swapping and free music, but that won't be enough to win what is basically a Quixotic war of principle being fought against simple progress, says Joshua Ostroff. The latest battle has seen courts ruling that "sampling" of other artists' work is illegal, an absurd notion that has done nothing to stop the widespread practice. Such crackdowns might temporarily set back the advance of new media practices, but audio enthusiasts are firmly convinced that nothing can be done to stop the changes already in motion in the music industry. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 6:09 am
How Computers Got Their Soul According to a new book, scientists might have built the computer, but "longhairs liberated computers from I.B.M. and the military industrial complex and profoundly shaped the technology that is ubiquitous today. Formerly sequestered behind forbidding glass walls, computers went on to become accessible, usable and friendly. The industry had its consciousness raised - became a vehicle of togetherness." The New York Times 05/22/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 7:12 pm
Group Ends Disney Boycott The fringe American Family Association has ended a nine-year boycott of Disney, saying the AFA's point had been made. "The organization objected to movies like 1995's Kids being made by Disney through its Miramax subsidiary, as well as the company's decision to grant benefits to the common-law spouses of homosexual employees. It also wanted to put an end to gay-themed events at Disney's parks." CBC 05/24/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 4:55 pm
Click here for more Arts Issues stories...
Umberto Eco At 73 "He is one of the fathers of postmodern literary criticism - the general gist of his approach being that it doesn't matter what an author intends to say, readers are entitled to interpret works of literature in any way they choose. He was also a pioneer of semiotics, the study of culture as a web of signs and messages to be decoded for hidden meaning. Doesn't it drive him mad, always seeing meaning where others just see things? " The Telegraph (UK) 05/25/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 7:28 pm
Paul Ricoeur, 92 Paul Ricoeur, the great French humanist philosopher, died last Friday at the age of 92. But "it is Tuesday already, and nobody in the American media has insulted Ricoeur yet. What’s going on? Have our pundits lost their commitment to mocking European intellectuals and the pointy-headed professors who read them?" InsideHigherEd 05/24/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 7:00 pm
Click here for more People stories...
Toronto Rings Sells $7m In Advance Tix "One week after the box office opened to the public, the [Toronto-based] world premiere stage production of The Lord of the Rings has generated $7 million in sales. Allowing for the $3 million (all figures Cdn) in group sales and the $1 million in Internet advance, that still means nearly $500,000 worth of tickets have been sold every day, an astonishing figure for a show that doesn't open for nine months." Toronto Star 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 6:33 am
CTC Finishes One Drive, Starts Another The Minneapolis-based Children's Theatre Company, which won the Tony Award for best regional company in 2003, has completed a $27 million capital campaign four months ahead of schedule, and announced a special "encore" campaign aimed at raising another $3 million by year's end. The fundraising has been largely targeted to cover construction costs on CTC's new expanded home, designed by architect Michael Graves. The extra fund drive will seek to bolster the company's endowment. St. Paul Pioneer Press 05/24/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 6:27 am
Click here for more Theatre stories...
Are Cheap Supermarket Books Killing Literary Quality? "Cheap books are apparently the spiritual equivalent of universal suffrage, and by offering works by Dan Brown, Patricia Cornwell and Tony Parsons for a pound or two below the prices levied by traditional outlets, Tesco and its friends are "democratising" the book trade. Moving on to the wider implications of our supposedly democratised culture, as a general rule whenever a participant is offered more "choices", whether in the number of book outlets, TV channels or radio stations, the end result will be to depress the overall quality of the available material." The Guardian (UK) 05/24/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 6:20 pm
Record Number Of Books In 2004 "A study announced Tuesday estimates that a record 195,000 new works came out in 2004, a 14 percent jump over the previous year and 72 percent higher than in 1995." But a previous study says that while more titles are being published, fewer books are actually being sold... Yahoo! (AP) 05/24/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 5:22 pm
Click here for more Publishing stories...
PBS Shoots Back The outgoing president of PBS used an appearance at the National Press Club this week to fire back at conservative critics of the public broadcaster. Pat Mitchell's insistence that PBS "does not belong to any one political party" comes in the wake of revelations that the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is supposed to shield PBS from political meddling, had hired a consultant to monitor supposed left-wing bias on a few select PBS programs. Boston Globe (AP) 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 5:55 am
Band Sues NBC For Network Ban The metal band Mötley Crüe has filed a lawsuit against NBC claiming the network "violated the group's free-speech rights and weakened its sales by banning it after Vince Neil, the lead singer, used an expletive on the air in a Dec. 31 appearance on The Tonight Show." The New York Times 05/25/05
Posted: 05/24/2005 7:21 pm
Click here for more Media stories...
Paper To Pols: Bail Out The Ballet Ballet Arizona needs $380,000 in operating funds to make it through this season, in which the company has been homeless as Phoenix's Symphony Hall undergoes a remodeling. And though Arizona is generally a fiscally conservative place, the state's largest newspaper is calling for both public and private money to be directed to the ballet, which has mounted an impressive fiscal turnaround in recent years. "The Phoenix metropolitan area is growing up, ready to be a player on the world economic stage. For that role, we need stellar groups like Arizona Ballet... In the long term, we must develop a sturdier financial base for the arts in this region." Arizona Republic 05/25/05
Posted: 05/25/2005 5:29 am
Click here for more Dance stories...
