The presidential debates and public discussions have been almost entirely arts-free this election season, as is usually the case. Economic travesty and foreign wars (as well as America’s favorite gaffs and blunders) have been clouding any such nuanced discussion of where the arts fit into national policy and international diplomacy. Fortunately, Americans for the Arts […]
Inverting the traditional web strategy
Building on yesterday’s post about embedded content (bits of code that allow anyone to add dynamic content from other web sites onto their own — photos, videos, text, audio, etc.), I started to wonder about what the extreme strategy in such a world might look like. What if, instead of striving to make your organization’s […]
Embedding…not just for journalists anymore
Increasing numbers of web users are not just browsing anymore, but also curating their own content — gathering favorite feeds and videos, writing their own commentary, pimping and preening their Facebook profiles. In this emerging on-line reality, creative content is less and less separate (a web site you visit or link to), and more and […]
The cash (and consequences) of cultural tax districts
Since it’s Monday, I’m guessing you really want to read about tax districts. I mean, who wouldn’t? Fortunately, the good folks at WESTAF have provided the means, through this seminar proceedings report now available for download from their publications page (or here in PDF format). Tax districts are one of many tools in the public […]
Forecasting the future by ”living” it out loud
Devastating outbreaks of a pandemic respiratory disease? Climate refugees who have fled homelands made unlivable by global warming? Legions of hackers who exult in bringing down global information networks? These are just three of the five ”super-threats’‘ facing human society in 2019, according to an on-line game of survival set to launch on October 6. […]
Constructing the concert experience
Alex Ross in The New Yorker offers a quick history of the classical concert, and reminds us that what we now believe to be ”traditional” and ”pure” in the concert environment is, in fact, a rather recent construct. Sitting silently in the dark and listening to a full program of complete works wasn’t the way […]
There’s good money in bungee-cord ballet
In the heat of August, somehow I missed this announcement from nouveau-circus mavens Cirque du Soleil about their 20-percent buyout by the government of Dubai (through Istithmar World Capital and Nakheel PJSC, also reported here). The stake adds meat to an existing partnership between the Canadian mega-performer and the emirate, where the two had already […]
Good concept, bad context
Things have gone a bit south for our nation’s financial markets in the past weeks. For our local performing arts center, it was a bit of a last straw. The Overture Center for the Arts announced this week that the trust fund behind its complex financing strategy would be liquidated to pay off a large […]
Good man gone
I was sad to hear about the passing of Jim Dusso this week, a longtime colleague and a warm and wonderful leader in the arts. Jim finally succumbed to the brain cancer that had appeared suddenly in 2007. His voice and his presence will be greatly missed. Jim was an alumnus of the Arts Administration […]
More cowbell
It may not rise to the level of artistic or administrative innovation, but the ability to add cowbell and Christopher Walken to any audio file is certainly a welcome distraction from actual work. The on-line extension of the classic Saturday Night Live skit shows what a little software development talent and a lot of spare […]
