Harnessing The Power Of Us "Call it the Age of Peer Production. From Amazon.com to MySpace to craigslist, the most successful Web companies are building business models based on user-generated content. This is perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of the second-generation Web. The tools of production, from blogging to video-sharing, are fully democratized, and the engine for growth is the spare cycles, talent, and capacity of regular folks, who are, in aggregate, creating a distributed labor force of unprecedented scale." Wired 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 9:36 am
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The Museum Will Be Podcast "Thanks to podcasting, it's becoming as easy to download a museum visit onto a portable digital audio player as it is a pop tune. And museums, realizing this is a way to reach a younger generation of potential patrons, are racing to get involved. They are making their in-house audio tours of special exhibits, as well as original programming, available on their websites for free use on iPods and other MP3 players. And art lovers can listen through their home computers as well. There's even a newly coined term for the phenomenon - 'artcasting'." Denver Post 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 9:23 am
Falling For The Picasso Hype? Christie's has been hyping the sale of an expensive Picasso owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber. But maybe it's not a very good Picasso. "Lloyd Webber recently suggested to Bloomberg that his sale announcement would be 'the biggest news in the art market in 30 years.' Why does it matter if someone actually falls for such hype? After all, the proceeds will reportedly go to a good cause---the education of young performers. The problem is that feverish prices pose a threat to the longterm health of the art market. The acquisition of lesser works for exorbitant amounts is the art trade’s version of 'irrational exuberance.' It can only set the stage for the next correction." CultureGrrl 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 8:16 am
Canadian Portrait Gallery Stalled While Americans celebrated the reopening of Washington's National Portrait Gallery, plans for a Canadian portrait gallery have been languishing. "If the U.S. National Portrait Gallery's reopening in Washington is 'symbolic of the American spirit,' what does it say about the Canadian spirit that Canada Day, 2006, has passed with completion funding for the Portrait Gallery of Canada still in limbo?" The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 6:32 am
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Escalating Tensions In Seattle Symphony Dispute A survey taken by musicians of the Seattle Symphony rating music director Gerard Schwarz is to be out this week. But the orchestra's executive board reportedly did an analysis of the survey's methodology. "Its report concluded that the June 1 survey was flawed in design, data collection and overall methodology, so that its 'results are highly suspect'. The board's executive committee believes the survey may also be a breach of the musicians' contract." Seattle Times 07/03/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 11:55 am
- The Conductor Who Stayed Too Long? The Seattle Symphony is in turmoil after the orchestra renewed music director Gerard Schwarz's contract. "The larger question -- how long before a music director overstays his welcome? -- is pressingly relevant to any orchestra. And as the turbulence up north suggests, the answer is that the cutoff date comes sooner than some people are willing to believe." San Francisco Chronicle 07/03/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 9:01 am
Out To Record Music Of The World A simple idea, really, so why was no one doing it? Forty years ago David Lewiston set out to travel th world with his tape recorder, capturing music along the way. He became "a recorder and collector of traditional music from dozens of countries over a territory that extends from Bali to Kashmir to Peru." The New York Times 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 7:45 am
Ottawa Orchestra Extends Zukerman Contract Ottawa's National Arts Center Orchestra has renewed music director Pinchas Zukerman's contract through 2011. "The renewal comes despite Zukerman's abrupt five-month sabbatical from the NACO and reports of conflict between the conductor and his musicians." While on "sabbatical" Zukerman also made disparaging remarks about his orchestra. BBC 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 6:25 am
Universal Revamps CD Cases To Compete With Downloads To try to compete with music downloads, Universal, the world's largest CD producer, is revamping its CD cases, replacing some jewel boxes with cardboard sleeves. "Universal Music Group is introducing three tiers of packaging in Europe, also including deluxe and sturdier versions of the standard case. It expects the basic CDs to sell for about £7, the standard for about £10, and the deluxe - offering bonus CDs or DVDs - for around £14." BBC 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 6:22 am
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Of Art Reviews And Politics (No Mixing?) Should critics keep their political opinions out of their reviews? Some readers of the Orlando Sentinel think so... Orlando Sentinel 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 8:21 am
Copyright Killing Artistic Freedom? Canadian artists are protesting plans to revise their country's copyright laws. "Canadian artists find existing laws restrictive, and most assume that new legislation will only increase constraints -- especially if, as expected, it leads to Canada's ratification of 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization treaties protecting works in the digital environment. Canada took part in those WIPO talks, but unlike the U.S., never ratified. This annoys the entertainment industry, whose executives describe Canada as 'a piracy haven'." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 7:32 am
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Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, 52 Hunt Lieberson occupied a special place on the music scene due to the protean nature of her musical interests -- baroque to contemporary -- extraordinary gifts and the committed, spiritual aura both her presence and plangent voice conveyed. Bloomberg.com 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 6:30 am
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Berkeley Rep's Grand Plan Berkeley Repertory Theatre is embarking on an ambitious project, says artistic director Tony Taccone. "The lion's share, he says, 'is an artistic endowment' to fund a program for creating work, modeled, on a smaller scale, on the extensive program at England's National Theatre. The project is designed to commission 30 to 70 plays in the next 10 years, not all of which would end up being produced by the Rep. Each would receive at least a staged reading or workshop. Some would become part of future Rep seasons, if not on one of its current stages, then in a new, 150-seat house to be developed under the endowment." San Francisco Chronicle 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 8:54 am
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Art To Help You Break The Law "Travelling Guide is written in the style of a guide-book, but is not intended for affluent Western tourists. It is a piece of controversial art which aims to 'subvert the language and purpose of the format', speaking directly to Romanian travellers and illegal immigrant workers, helping them through border controls, ports and stations into Western Europe. It contains instructions on acquiring forged identity papers, fake UK national insurance numbers, includes a bar chart grading the risk factor at each crossing point, instructions on breaking into shipping containers and safety tips." The Times (UK) 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 9:20 am
Authors Get Into The Audio Production Biz More and more authors are producing audio versions of their own books. Some are calling on celebrity friends to help out, producing versions with large casts... The New York Times 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 7:39 am
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Your TV Online - Everyone's Doing It New internet-only TV shows are an indication of how hot online video has become. "The inter-tube trend has been ongoing since the late '90s, but slow connections, poor buffering and small screens hampered it from gaining a mainstream following. Now, with over two-thirds of Internet users paying for broadband connections, the inter-tube is taking off." New York Daily News 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 9:16 am
It's Hot - All About The Video "The success of YouTube, which a half-year after its launch is streaming more than 50 million video clips a day, has spawned 180 video sites in the past three months alone. Visits to online video sites have increased fourfold in the past six months. Online video has become the latest evolution in consumer-generated content." USAToday 07/05/06
Posted: 07/05/2006 8:37 am
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