This isn't really about an arts organization, but it has a lot of interesting examples that show the evolution of copyright law and music distribution over the last decade.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/technology/08pandora.html
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
How Community Arts Organizations Are Using Social Media
http://mashable.com/2009/07/08/community-arts-organizations/
"As more diverse organizations dive into web marketing, for-profit organizations can learn well from their indie counterparts about experimentation and innovation online. A few notable community and arts groups have been inventive in their use of social media and truly collaborative in their outreach in ways that even the most seasoned corporate marketer can appreciate.
Among the arts and community organizations using social media thoughtfully and in big ways (which aren’t necessarily representative of their limited budgets) are independent artists and companies in photography, film, modern art, radio and craft. They’ve capitalized on the audiovisual nature of the Web to showcase the storytelling and community-building aspects of their work, and the results are worth a pass-along."technologyinthearts.org
I'm sure everyone has used this or at least seen it, but I figured I would post it anyway, just in case!
http://www.technologyinthearts.org/
http://www.technologyinthearts.org/
From Pocket to Stage, Music in the Key of iPhone
Keeping with the same theme but in music instead of visual arts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/technology/05orchestra.html?_r=2&scp=6&sq=music&st=Search
"The Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra’s performance on Thursday used the most unusual of instruments: Apple iPhones amplified by speakers attached to small fingerless gloves."
"While computer music composers once spent hours programming giant mainframes to synthesize a single sound, advances in hardware and software have brought powerful and easy-to-use music tools to personal computers and now, to smartphones."
This article is a fascinating statement about the era that we live in. The arguments, of course, are for the expressiveness, subtle, and response one can get out of a traditional instrument. "Nothing is better than a cello at playing the cello".
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/technology/05orchestra.html?_r=2&scp=6&sq=music&st=Search
"The Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra’s performance on Thursday used the most unusual of instruments: Apple iPhones amplified by speakers attached to small fingerless gloves."
"While computer music composers once spent hours programming giant mainframes to synthesize a single sound, advances in hardware and software have brought powerful and easy-to-use music tools to personal computers and now, to smartphones."
This article is a fascinating statement about the era that we live in. The arguments, of course, are for the expressiveness, subtle, and response one can get out of a traditional instrument. "Nothing is better than a cello at playing the cello".
David Hockney turns the iPad into an art form
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/may/11/david-hockney-ipad-drawings/print
"David Hockney, one of the most influential British artists of the past century, has already been using the Brushes application on the device to draw pictures and email the results to friends.
"David Hockney, one of the most influential British artists of the past century, has already been using the Brushes application on the device to draw pictures and email the results to friends.
The 72-year-old, who lives in Bridlington, was a well-known user of the application on his iPhone, and would similarly create 'paintings' before emailing them to around 20 friends."
He sees the iPad as a way for drawing by hand to "make a comeback rather than an indication that the new technology would lead to the skill diminishing".
This is an interesting perspective, especially from an artist, in a time where there is so much controversy about how technology diminishes the value of art.
The Magic of Adobe’s Photoshop CS5
Adobe’s Photoshop CS5 recently became available, and as usual, there’s plenty of magic for photographers under.
The star of the new Photoshop is without a doubt Content-Aware Fill. This technology takes Content-Aware Scaling, which first appeared in CS4, to the next logical level by enabling you to select an object — a stranger who wandered into your photo shoot, for instance — and then delete him from the photo. Content-Aware Fill will then examine the background surroundings and fill in the white space where your object formerly resided. It’s fun and often amazingly accurate. Here’s a video that shows how it works.
Also in the realm of magic is the Puppet Warp feature. Puppet Warp lets you recompose part of an object to achieve specific design goals. For instance, you can select an elephant’s trunk and change the curve of the trunk. Puppet Warp isn’t as easy to use as Content-Aware Fill and you won’t use it as much, but it’s cool nonetheless.
Adobe also has made it easier to select and mask intricate images with improvements to its Refine Edge tool, an enhancement that is less fanciful that Puppet Warp but will certainly be much more widely used. The software enables you to more accurately isolate an object from its background, and it’s particularly helpful with complicated edges like human hair.
Fans of high-dynamic range (HDR) photography will appreciate the HDR enhancements. The HDR Pro tool enables you to merge identical images taken at different exposures and combine the exposures to create a single shot with a very wide dynamic range. The tool also includes a Remove Ghosts feature that automatically removes artifacts that often occur when merging overlapping shots.
If you’re working with a single shot, however, the HDR filter is a fun addition that enables you to easily adjust the toning of the image to mimic the effects of HDR photos.
The Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which ships with CS5, has been updated to support new camera models; in all, 275 models are supported. Camera Raw 6 also has improved sharpening and noise removal, and lets you apply film grain when editing a RAW image.
Adobe also added a lens-correction feature that corrects the three most common lens-based errors: geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. You can also create custom profiles of your lenses.
As usual, Photoshop doesn’t come cheap. CS5 is $699 for the full version, or $199 for an upgrade from previous versions.
from http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/the-magic-of-adobes-photoshop-cs5/?scp=2&sq=adobe&st=cse
The star of the new Photoshop is without a doubt Content-Aware Fill. This technology takes Content-Aware Scaling, which first appeared in CS4, to the next logical level by enabling you to select an object — a stranger who wandered into your photo shoot, for instance — and then delete him from the photo. Content-Aware Fill will then examine the background surroundings and fill in the white space where your object formerly resided. It’s fun and often amazingly accurate. Here’s a video that shows how it works.
Also in the realm of magic is the Puppet Warp feature. Puppet Warp lets you recompose part of an object to achieve specific design goals. For instance, you can select an elephant’s trunk and change the curve of the trunk. Puppet Warp isn’t as easy to use as Content-Aware Fill and you won’t use it as much, but it’s cool nonetheless.
Adobe also has made it easier to select and mask intricate images with improvements to its Refine Edge tool, an enhancement that is less fanciful that Puppet Warp but will certainly be much more widely used. The software enables you to more accurately isolate an object from its background, and it’s particularly helpful with complicated edges like human hair.
Fans of high-dynamic range (HDR) photography will appreciate the HDR enhancements. The HDR Pro tool enables you to merge identical images taken at different exposures and combine the exposures to create a single shot with a very wide dynamic range. The tool also includes a Remove Ghosts feature that automatically removes artifacts that often occur when merging overlapping shots.
If you’re working with a single shot, however, the HDR filter is a fun addition that enables you to easily adjust the toning of the image to mimic the effects of HDR photos.
The Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which ships with CS5, has been updated to support new camera models; in all, 275 models are supported. Camera Raw 6 also has improved sharpening and noise removal, and lets you apply film grain when editing a RAW image.
Adobe also added a lens-correction feature that corrects the three most common lens-based errors: geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. You can also create custom profiles of your lenses.
As usual, Photoshop doesn’t come cheap. CS5 is $699 for the full version, or $199 for an upgrade from previous versions.
from http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/the-magic-of-adobes-photoshop-cs5/?scp=2&sq=adobe&st=cse
Firefox Add-Ons Double as Art, Pranks and Fun
The Internet doesn’t always have to be serious business. Just ask Tobias Leingruber and Jamie Wilkinson, co-founders of Artzilla, an online repository for plug-ins to Mozilla’s Web browser, Firefox. The extensions found on Artzilla won’t help you organize bookmarks or add nifty features. They’re more likely to scramble Web interfaces, inject misspellings or teleport your browser back to the dark ages of the Internet, you know, circa 1996.
Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Leingruber are members of Free Art and Technology or F.A.T. Lab, a loose-knit group of hackers who tinker with art and technology. “Our mission statement is to pair pop culture with open source,” Mr. Wilkinson said.
The duo created Artzilla at the end of November after noticing that their particular brand of Firefox add-ons weren’t making it into the official directory of Firefox extensions.
Unlike the standard fare available in the official Firefox extension list, most of the Artzilla extensions dabble in media culture and experimental design: Take, for example, two of Mr. Leingruber’s contributions, the China Channel, a plug-in that mimics the Web experience for Internet browsers in China, and Pirates of the Amazon, an extension that made it easy for people who were browsing on Amazon.com to download the same products free through the Pirate Bay, the illicit BitTorrent site.
“That’s when we decided to make a place to put these things,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “They were missing out on the fun.”
In addition to the 10 or so plug-ins listed on their site, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Leingruber also created an Artzilla Wiki, with tutorials on installing and creating various types of Firefox extensions.
The main purpose behind Artzilla, Mr. Wilkinson says, is to “make the Web a more interesting experience.” In many ways, he said, the “Web browser replaced the television set as the main way we get content.” Artzilla is an experimental way to “hack the Web and change our experience online.”
Here are some of Mr. Wilkinson’s favorites from the Artzilla collection:
Add-Art: Add-Art takes ad-blocking software one step further. After removing all the advertisements from a Web page, Add-Art replaces them with a spattering of images from an up-and-coming artist, who is vetted by a team of curators. Every two weeks, there’s a new “show” or series of artwork presented through the extension. Previous artists featured include an M.I.T. Media Lab graduate, Ayah Bdeir, who showed a series of photographs depicting a woman undergoing a Transportation Security Administration search and a cheeky group show that imagined the future of online advertising. According to Mr. Wilkinson, there are currently more than 25,000 active users of the patch.
Time Machine: In case you have a hankering for early Web design, replete with animated GIFs, clunky fonts and slow-loading wallpapers, this Firefox Add-on will refresh your memory by warping any Web page back to 1996.
Rolltube: On the off chance you haven’t yet been rickrolled, or duped into watching the YouTube video of Rick Astley’s 1987 hit pop song “Never Gonna Give You Up,” RollTube will cure you of that. This Firefox extension switches every YouTube video with Astley’s masterpiece.
Tourette Machine: This Firefox plug-in will sporadically plant curse words and inappropriate phrases while typing. The extension comes in two flavors: Moderate, which inserts swear words every three to five words and extreme, which injects foul language every other word.
from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/firefox-add-ons-double-as-art-pranks-fun/
Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Leingruber are members of Free Art and Technology or F.A.T. Lab, a loose-knit group of hackers who tinker with art and technology. “Our mission statement is to pair pop culture with open source,” Mr. Wilkinson said.
The duo created Artzilla at the end of November after noticing that their particular brand of Firefox add-ons weren’t making it into the official directory of Firefox extensions.
Unlike the standard fare available in the official Firefox extension list, most of the Artzilla extensions dabble in media culture and experimental design: Take, for example, two of Mr. Leingruber’s contributions, the China Channel, a plug-in that mimics the Web experience for Internet browsers in China, and Pirates of the Amazon, an extension that made it easy for people who were browsing on Amazon.com to download the same products free through the Pirate Bay, the illicit BitTorrent site.
“That’s when we decided to make a place to put these things,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “They were missing out on the fun.”
In addition to the 10 or so plug-ins listed on their site, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Leingruber also created an Artzilla Wiki, with tutorials on installing and creating various types of Firefox extensions.
The main purpose behind Artzilla, Mr. Wilkinson says, is to “make the Web a more interesting experience.” In many ways, he said, the “Web browser replaced the television set as the main way we get content.” Artzilla is an experimental way to “hack the Web and change our experience online.”
Here are some of Mr. Wilkinson’s favorites from the Artzilla collection:
Add-Art: Add-Art takes ad-blocking software one step further. After removing all the advertisements from a Web page, Add-Art replaces them with a spattering of images from an up-and-coming artist, who is vetted by a team of curators. Every two weeks, there’s a new “show” or series of artwork presented through the extension. Previous artists featured include an M.I.T. Media Lab graduate, Ayah Bdeir, who showed a series of photographs depicting a woman undergoing a Transportation Security Administration search and a cheeky group show that imagined the future of online advertising. According to Mr. Wilkinson, there are currently more than 25,000 active users of the patch.
Time Machine: In case you have a hankering for early Web design, replete with animated GIFs, clunky fonts and slow-loading wallpapers, this Firefox Add-on will refresh your memory by warping any Web page back to 1996.
Rolltube: On the off chance you haven’t yet been rickrolled, or duped into watching the YouTube video of Rick Astley’s 1987 hit pop song “Never Gonna Give You Up,” RollTube will cure you of that. This Firefox extension switches every YouTube video with Astley’s masterpiece.
Tourette Machine: This Firefox plug-in will sporadically plant curse words and inappropriate phrases while typing. The extension comes in two flavors: Moderate, which inserts swear words every three to five words and extreme, which injects foul language every other word.
from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/firefox-add-ons-double-as-art-pranks-fun/
No One Quite Does it Like The Met
When it comes to using technology to create an interactive experience for Arts Organizations, no one can compare to the lengths that The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has gone to.
Check out their
Check out their
- Flickr Group
- YouTube Channel
- Twitter Feed
- RSS Feeds
- Not to mention Facebook, iTunes U Channel, and many more
You Tube Your Way to Broadway!
Everyone knows that you can find just about anything on YouTube; Soldiers dancing to Lady GaGa, clips from your favorite TV show, old commercials, and of course; people singing (well or poorly) their favorite Pop, R&B, Country or Broadway songs.
Well, Broadway has recently found a way to integrate YouTube into productions.
Two shoes, Everyday Rapture and Sondheim on Sondheim, feature scenes inspired by or clips from You Tube.
Sondheim on Sondheim features a YouTube montage of different people singing Send in the Clowns.
Everyday Rapture has a scene where the star interacts with a fan she discovered on YouTube lip syncing to one of her songs. The scene tries to translate the interactions by having the actor playing the fan in a "computer screen".
The article facilitated a great discussion on using internet media or representations of it in productions and what this could mean to Broadway theater.
Will there be whole shows that revolve around the internet and more multi media production in mainstream theatre works? Multi media elements are common in dance and experimental thatre, and it seems that there could be more of it used in larger productions. Could this be the new way Broadway finds its talent, similar to how music and TV industry find talent through YouTube and MySpace,will producers and directors look to YouTube to find their next star?
Theater Talkback: YouTube on Broadway
Well, Broadway has recently found a way to integrate YouTube into productions.
Two shoes, Everyday Rapture and Sondheim on Sondheim, feature scenes inspired by or clips from You Tube.
Sondheim on Sondheim features a YouTube montage of different people singing Send in the Clowns.
Everyday Rapture has a scene where the star interacts with a fan she discovered on YouTube lip syncing to one of her songs. The scene tries to translate the interactions by having the actor playing the fan in a "computer screen".
The article facilitated a great discussion on using internet media or representations of it in productions and what this could mean to Broadway theater.
Will there be whole shows that revolve around the internet and more multi media production in mainstream theatre works? Multi media elements are common in dance and experimental thatre, and it seems that there could be more of it used in larger productions. Could this be the new way Broadway finds its talent, similar to how music and TV industry find talent through YouTube and MySpace,will producers and directors look to YouTube to find their next star?
Theater Talkback: YouTube on Broadway
Who excatly is following you?
With all the talk about Twitter being a method to market your organization, who excatly are you marketing to?
Well acording to this L.A. Times post, it is not the youth of America:
Twitter: No matter what Hollywood thinks, its totally uncool for kids
Well acording to this L.A. Times post, it is not the youth of America:
Twitter: No matter what Hollywood thinks, its totally uncool for kids
NEWPLAY TV
As part of Arena Stage's New play Institute, the NEWPLAY TV channel was created on livestrem. The purpose is to showcase the new work that is being done at Arena and other theatres around the country. Check it out!
Watch live streaming video from newplay at livestream.com
Will Internet Art Displace Tradition?
The National Endowment for the Arts' (NEA) Survey of Public Participation in the Arts shows clearly that adults are accessing the Internet for a significant portion of their arts experiences. The Survey summary lists that approximately 30% of adults are accessing the Internet on a regular basis. If you have not checked out this survey, the summary is available at (www.arts.gov/research/NEA-SPPA-brochure.pdf).
What I find particularly interesting in the changing nature of artistic participation is the desire for participants to be actively involved in the artistic process itself. It appears that the "age" of the passive audience model is waning. When you drill down to the basics this does make sense, and is quite healthy, as engagement in the artistic process itself allows for the fullest impact to be felt and understood.
In the live arts venues we have seen a number of creative and effective participant involvement efforts in the visual and media arts, and some rare examples in the performing arts, although the latter here are generally found mostly in cutting edge, not mainstream organizations. On the Internet there is an example of participant engagement that I find particularly provocative. It's (www.artistshare.com). Here you can engage actively in the creation of musical works. You can offer ideas and participate in a discussion with composer/artists. You can become so deeply involved as to be listed on resultant recordings. There is a "pay-to-play" fee at raked levels, allowing you access according to the level of your membership.
Given the two factors listed above, of increasing adult participation on the Internet, and increasing demand for active participation in the art formation and performance itself, it's fun to speculate that a fundamental transformation in artistic organizational structure is already underway. Following the trends of exceptionally lower passive audience participation, especially in iconic genres and organizations, plus these two other trend items, what will the "live" arts world, especially the performing arts world look like in 5 years?
Now is the time for emerging leaders to grasp these dynamic trends and shape them for the benefit of all.
from http://www.artsjournal.com/state/2010/03/does-internet-art-displace-the.html
What I find particularly interesting in the changing nature of artistic participation is the desire for participants to be actively involved in the artistic process itself. It appears that the "age" of the passive audience model is waning. When you drill down to the basics this does make sense, and is quite healthy, as engagement in the artistic process itself allows for the fullest impact to be felt and understood.
In the live arts venues we have seen a number of creative and effective participant involvement efforts in the visual and media arts, and some rare examples in the performing arts, although the latter here are generally found mostly in cutting edge, not mainstream organizations. On the Internet there is an example of participant engagement that I find particularly provocative. It's (www.artistshare.com). Here you can engage actively in the creation of musical works. You can offer ideas and participate in a discussion with composer/artists. You can become so deeply involved as to be listed on resultant recordings. There is a "pay-to-play" fee at raked levels, allowing you access according to the level of your membership.
Given the two factors listed above, of increasing adult participation on the Internet, and increasing demand for active participation in the art formation and performance itself, it's fun to speculate that a fundamental transformation in artistic organizational structure is already underway. Following the trends of exceptionally lower passive audience participation, especially in iconic genres and organizations, plus these two other trend items, what will the "live" arts world, especially the performing arts world look like in 5 years?
Now is the time for emerging leaders to grasp these dynamic trends and shape them for the benefit of all.
from http://www.artsjournal.com/state/2010/03/does-internet-art-displace-the.html
Theater Talkback: YouTube on Broadway
Some stranger new moves in the evolving dance between venerable old Broadway and new technology, YouTube has become a supporting player in two recently opened shows (both, as it happens, Roundabout Theater Company productions): “Everyday Rapture” (at the American Airlines Theater) and “Sondheim on Sondheim” (at Studio 54).
full article:
Monday, May 10, 2010
The everything exhibition
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/arts/11iht-birch.html?ref=arts
The article above shows how art exhibitions have become a forum where we now feel that all of our senses have to be stimulated. "Hope and Glory," a multimedia exhibition was of the largest shows to open in Hong Kong, costing $2 million. And it had everything, including a mirrored skate ramp for the kids to skate on (which sounds awesome!), a giant 13 foot silver sphere, repeated videos of circus freaks, and a 3-D fairy tale film about a white horse at the epicenter of the piece.
What I liked about the article is how it shows artists embracing technology to create their art. Many artists include videos or even create their own music for their exhibitions. "Hope and Glory" would be completely different if the artist did not feel the need to include the videos and the 3-d film. It's also great because with the desire to include technology, artists either learn to create within the media, or work with other artists to create that piece (as is the case with "Hope and Glory," which had works from architects, photographers, designers, and filmmakers).
The article above shows how art exhibitions have become a forum where we now feel that all of our senses have to be stimulated. "Hope and Glory," a multimedia exhibition was of the largest shows to open in Hong Kong, costing $2 million. And it had everything, including a mirrored skate ramp for the kids to skate on (which sounds awesome!), a giant 13 foot silver sphere, repeated videos of circus freaks, and a 3-D fairy tale film about a white horse at the epicenter of the piece.
What I liked about the article is how it shows artists embracing technology to create their art. Many artists include videos or even create their own music for their exhibitions. "Hope and Glory" would be completely different if the artist did not feel the need to include the videos and the 3-d film. It's also great because with the desire to include technology, artists either learn to create within the media, or work with other artists to create that piece (as is the case with "Hope and Glory," which had works from architects, photographers, designers, and filmmakers).
The Center for Arts Management and Technology
I have stumbled across a great online resource for those of us interested in getting continuous updates about the relationship between technology and arts management. Our colleagues at Carnegie Mellon have an applied research center that deals with technology for arts managers, their website lists upcoming workshops, they frequently post blogs and podcasts, and offer they offer services for arts managers like website design, consulting, and workshops.
"CAMT investigates ways technology can improve and enhance the practice of arts management and, when appropriate, develops technology solutions and services that meet critical needs in the field."
Some of the products that can be purchased which they have designed or collaborated on include:
CueRate - expedites the panel review process for funding agencies, exhibitors, artists, and panelists. Artist applications and work samples are review through a customizable scoring interface either in-person or remotely.
DoReMe - online class registration tool that allows arts organizations to offer their constituents the convenience of online registration and payment processing.
artsnetCMS - a CAMT hosted and supported content management system (CMS) that simplifies the process of updating your Web site.
Artist Roster - systems to showcase the work of artists, allowing arts organizations and schools to connect them to the public, exhibitors, and others.
Web Hosting - no frills Web hosting through CAMT.
CultureMail - Listserv announcement and discussion email lists.
CAMT is interested in innovating and creating new tools where there are gaps for arts managers by partnering with arts organizations and their students. This is a great resource as we move forward in our careers and potentially for the next section of this course. Enjoy!
http://camt.artsnet.org/Default.aspx
"CAMT investigates ways technology can improve and enhance the practice of arts management and, when appropriate, develops technology solutions and services that meet critical needs in the field."
Some of the products that can be purchased which they have designed or collaborated on include:
CueRate - expedites the panel review process for funding agencies, exhibitors, artists, and panelists. Artist applications and work samples are review through a customizable scoring interface either in-person or remotely.
DoReMe - online class registration tool that allows arts organizations to offer their constituents the convenience of online registration and payment processing.
artsnetCMS - a CAMT hosted and supported content management system (CMS) that simplifies the process of updating your Web site.
Artist Roster - systems to showcase the work of artists, allowing arts organizations and schools to connect them to the public, exhibitors, and others.
Web Hosting - no frills Web hosting through CAMT.
CultureMail - Listserv announcement and discussion email lists.
CAMT is interested in innovating and creating new tools where there are gaps for arts managers by partnering with arts organizations and their students. This is a great resource as we move forward in our careers and potentially for the next section of this course. Enjoy!
http://camt.artsnet.org/Default.aspx
Artists vs.Google
As technology expands, the old intellectual property debate rages on. Photographers and illustrators filed a lawsuit against Google in April, claiming that the search engine displays copyrighted images in books it scans, without fairly compensating the creators. The Google Books feature allows users to read books and magazines that Google has scanned and are stored in a large database. If the book is out of copyright, or the owner has given permission, the pages can be viewed by users. Books in the public domain can be fully viewed and downloaded for print. Google claims that it is up complying with all of its copyright law.
The music industry has already seen a similar problem with possible copyright infringement, proper artist compensation etc, with file share entities like Napster, and the thousands of other file shares where users don't pay for music. The artist Prince had websites shutdown fan pages and videos that featured people singing his songs or had footage (via camera phones etc) of him performing. With the internet being such a wide resource, will intellectual property and copyright laws have to be completely re written, or will artists just have to live with knowing they may be missing out on some revenue?
This also made me think about the whole "digital book" concept, a la Kindle, etc. Is having a book on line taking away from the experience of reading. There is something to be said about just picking up a book and turning the pages. Do we really want to find all of our literature on line?
Artists vs. Google Here
The music industry has already seen a similar problem with possible copyright infringement, proper artist compensation etc, with file share entities like Napster, and the thousands of other file shares where users don't pay for music. The artist Prince had websites shutdown fan pages and videos that featured people singing his songs or had footage (via camera phones etc) of him performing. With the internet being such a wide resource, will intellectual property and copyright laws have to be completely re written, or will artists just have to live with knowing they may be missing out on some revenue?
This also made me think about the whole "digital book" concept, a la Kindle, etc. Is having a book on line taking away from the experience of reading. There is something to be said about just picking up a book and turning the pages. Do we really want to find all of our literature on line?
Artists vs. Google Here
Sunday, May 9, 2010
The typical debate
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/04/alt-text-videogames-as-art/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Reade
And so, our time-honored debate of video games being art continues. I imagine that 40 or 50 years from now, this debate will be studied how we study the Dadaists, who caused an uproar by using everyday objects, or "found objects," and declared them art.
What I found particularly interesting about this article was that Roger Ebert said that video games can't be art because they are interactive. Let's just ignore the fact that Ebert will be eating this extremely declarative sentence in some point in time, but if video games aren't art because they are interactive, then nothing created by a graphic design program counts either. Does a photograph quit being art because its brightness and exposure were corrected by Photoshop? It's an interesting debate to say the least, and one which will be argued more and more once video games become more complex.
And so, our time-honored debate of video games being art continues. I imagine that 40 or 50 years from now, this debate will be studied how we study the Dadaists, who caused an uproar by using everyday objects, or "found objects," and declared them art.
What I found particularly interesting about this article was that Roger Ebert said that video games can't be art because they are interactive. Let's just ignore the fact that Ebert will be eating this extremely declarative sentence in some point in time, but if video games aren't art because they are interactive, then nothing created by a graphic design program counts either. Does a photograph quit being art because its brightness and exposure were corrected by Photoshop? It's an interesting debate to say the least, and one which will be argued more and more once video games become more complex.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Broadway Using Foursquare to its Advantage
With new social network sites popping up everywhere, there has to be something special for one to catch on and gain national attention. Foursquare, a social networking gps game, has been slowly catching on since it started in 2009. For those who have not heard of it, foursquare uses the gps in your smart phone to locate where you are. When you log into foursquare.com it pinpoints your position and the venue you are at pops up on your screen. You then check in by pushing a button which lets all your foursquare friends know where you are at that moment. The game part of the site includes gaining badges for visiting the most places in a certain area, or becoming "mayor" of a venue for checking in the most times, etc.
The below article talks about how Broadway is using foursquare differently. Instead of having patrons check in at the theatre, they allow patrons to check in at the show itself. This creates buzz around individual shows. Once someone checks in at a show, foursquare broadcasts that person's location to all their foursquare friends, letting them know that their friend is watching "Wicked" that evening instead of just saying they are at the Gershwin Theatre. Smart way for theatres to promote their shows via word of mouth without doing anything but listing them on foursquare.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-sims/broadway-marketing-ready_b_565892.html
The below article talks about how Broadway is using foursquare differently. Instead of having patrons check in at the theatre, they allow patrons to check in at the show itself. This creates buzz around individual shows. Once someone checks in at a show, foursquare broadcasts that person's location to all their foursquare friends, letting them know that their friend is watching "Wicked" that evening instead of just saying they are at the Gershwin Theatre. Smart way for theatres to promote their shows via word of mouth without doing anything but listing them on foursquare.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-sims/broadway-marketing-ready_b_565892.html
Rapture or Ruin?
Theater Talkback: YouTube on Broadway
By BEN BRANTLEY
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Eamon Foley plays a teenager who goes by the screen name Broadwayislove09 in the musical “Everyday Rapture.”
There was a time, not so long ago, when if a Broadway diva – say, Carol Channing or Patti LuPone – wanted to watch somebody else singing her signature songs in her signature style, she had to leave her dressing room and find a drag show.
Now she need only turn on her computer and settle in at that 24-hour virtual piano bar called YouTube. There, staring into their own cameras (usually from their own bedrooms), would-be Carols and Pattis and Bernadettes and Idinas of all ages and sexes can be discovered crooning (or lip-synching) away on private clouds of narcissism, for the delectation of the general public.
Of course, such dedicated exhibitionists weren’t meant to be confined exclusively to the small screens of laptops and iPhones. This season, a chosen few of them are making – gasp! – their Broadway debuts. Yes, in one of the stranger new moves in the evolving dance between venerable old Broadway and new technology, YouTube has become a supporting player in two recently opened shows (both, as it happens, Roundabout Theater Company productions): “Everyday Rapture” (at the American Airlines Theater) and “Sondheim on Sondheim” (at Studio 54).
In “Sondheim on Sondheim” — a multimedia tribute to Stephen Sondheim that mixes live performance, filmed interviews with the composer and a variety of video clips – one of the highlights is a masterly YouTube montage of different people singing “Send in the Clowns.” The featured vocalists include Sinatra, Streisand and LaBelle. But the segment that particularly captures our attention (and is allowed to end the sequence) appears to be homemade, by a preadolescent girl who has obviously put great time into her own rendition.
Fascinating as this Sondheim compilation is in tracing the many lives of a single song via Internet tools, it’s “Everday Rapture” that takes us to a new level of identity-blurring surrealism. In this semi-memoir of the self-described “semi-, semi- semi-star” Sherie Rene Scott, the show’s heroine (played by Ms. Scott, natch) discovers she has a fan on YouTube, one with whom she kind of identifies. His nom de screen is Broadwayislove09; he is 15 years old, and he does a lip-synch to a recording of Ms. Scott singing “My Strongest Suit” (from one of her semi-Broadway hits, “Aida”), with a panoply of gestures that Lady Gaga could learn from.
Sherie reaches out to this seemingly Scott-struck lad, whom she imagines to be a misfit in school, rather as she was at that age, when she would sing to her reflection in a pie plate. But Broadwayislove09 (played with deliciously rabid self-obsession by Eamon Foley) sticks to the logic of virtual reality, in which no one’s identity is to be trusted. This leads to an increasingly bizarre exchange of e-mail messages between Sherie and her imitator that leaves her asserting “I am me,” but in a feeble, self-doubting voice. It’s as if musical comedy has met “The Matrix.”
What’s great about this scene, from a theater-lover’s point of view, is how it re-translates a mini-cyber-drama into completely theatrical terms. (Broadwayislove09 appears on a make-believe computer screen that’s rather like an old Punch and Judy puppet stage.) And did I mention that the connecting musical number in the sequence – in addition to “My Strongest Suit” – is “Killing Me Softly With His Song”?
The show is taking back the Web, as it were, for the purposes of an older form of self-expression. At the same time, “Everyday Rapture” is one of the first pieces of mainstream theater to suggest how the rules of the game of Broadway stardom – and Broadway music – are changing. The hall of mirrors that the Broadway musical has become in recent years – with its insider references and quotes and jokes and homages – has acquired a new set of reflections that may well stretch into infinity.
How do you feel about the impact of the Internet on Broadway? Is it a friend or foe? What Web-born forms and influences can we expect in the future?
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/theater-talkback-youtube-on-broadway/
By BEN BRANTLEY
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Eamon Foley plays a teenager who goes by the screen name Broadwayislove09 in the musical “Everyday Rapture.”
There was a time, not so long ago, when if a Broadway diva – say, Carol Channing or Patti LuPone – wanted to watch somebody else singing her signature songs in her signature style, she had to leave her dressing room and find a drag show.
Now she need only turn on her computer and settle in at that 24-hour virtual piano bar called YouTube. There, staring into their own cameras (usually from their own bedrooms), would-be Carols and Pattis and Bernadettes and Idinas of all ages and sexes can be discovered crooning (or lip-synching) away on private clouds of narcissism, for the delectation of the general public.
Of course, such dedicated exhibitionists weren’t meant to be confined exclusively to the small screens of laptops and iPhones. This season, a chosen few of them are making – gasp! – their Broadway debuts. Yes, in one of the stranger new moves in the evolving dance between venerable old Broadway and new technology, YouTube has become a supporting player in two recently opened shows (both, as it happens, Roundabout Theater Company productions): “Everyday Rapture” (at the American Airlines Theater) and “Sondheim on Sondheim” (at Studio 54).
In “Sondheim on Sondheim” — a multimedia tribute to Stephen Sondheim that mixes live performance, filmed interviews with the composer and a variety of video clips – one of the highlights is a masterly YouTube montage of different people singing “Send in the Clowns.” The featured vocalists include Sinatra, Streisand and LaBelle. But the segment that particularly captures our attention (and is allowed to end the sequence) appears to be homemade, by a preadolescent girl who has obviously put great time into her own rendition.
Fascinating as this Sondheim compilation is in tracing the many lives of a single song via Internet tools, it’s “Everday Rapture” that takes us to a new level of identity-blurring surrealism. In this semi-memoir of the self-described “semi-, semi- semi-star” Sherie Rene Scott, the show’s heroine (played by Ms. Scott, natch) discovers she has a fan on YouTube, one with whom she kind of identifies. His nom de screen is Broadwayislove09; he is 15 years old, and he does a lip-synch to a recording of Ms. Scott singing “My Strongest Suit” (from one of her semi-Broadway hits, “Aida”), with a panoply of gestures that Lady Gaga could learn from.
Sherie reaches out to this seemingly Scott-struck lad, whom she imagines to be a misfit in school, rather as she was at that age, when she would sing to her reflection in a pie plate. But Broadwayislove09 (played with deliciously rabid self-obsession by Eamon Foley) sticks to the logic of virtual reality, in which no one’s identity is to be trusted. This leads to an increasingly bizarre exchange of e-mail messages between Sherie and her imitator that leaves her asserting “I am me,” but in a feeble, self-doubting voice. It’s as if musical comedy has met “The Matrix.”
What’s great about this scene, from a theater-lover’s point of view, is how it re-translates a mini-cyber-drama into completely theatrical terms. (Broadwayislove09 appears on a make-believe computer screen that’s rather like an old Punch and Judy puppet stage.) And did I mention that the connecting musical number in the sequence – in addition to “My Strongest Suit” – is “Killing Me Softly With His Song”?
The show is taking back the Web, as it were, for the purposes of an older form of self-expression. At the same time, “Everyday Rapture” is one of the first pieces of mainstream theater to suggest how the rules of the game of Broadway stardom – and Broadway music – are changing. The hall of mirrors that the Broadway musical has become in recent years – with its insider references and quotes and jokes and homages – has acquired a new set of reflections that may well stretch into infinity.
How do you feel about the impact of the Internet on Broadway? Is it a friend or foe? What Web-born forms and influences can we expect in the future?
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/theater-talkback-youtube-on-broadway/
What next???
Noises off: Is the internet killing the theatre show?
Does Twittering and texting during a play mean the audience is engaged or disengaged? Some theatre-makers are embracing the new age of interactivity, while others are not so sure
Interactive ... Rider Spoke, first shown at the Barbican in 2007, is a work for cyclists combining theatre with game play and digital technology
Is the internet good or bad for the theatre? Does it provide exciting opportunities for interactivity that should be exploited? Or, as in the case of Twitter, does it only serve to further reduce our attention spans and our ability to connect with anything that needs to be said in more that 140 characters? These are the questions bloggers are exploring this week. For Lyn Gardner, the web certainly holds enormous promise and potential for theatre-makers. In a recent post on this blog, she argued that "the growth of pervasive media and digital technologies is offering theatre-makers and audiences unprecedented new challenges and opportunities".
Yet not everyone is so convinced. George Hunka recently came across this article in the New York Times by Michiko Kakutani about the effect of the web on our ability to appreciate art. Kakutani suggests that the rise of the net has helped create a culture with attention-deficit disorder in which people will "tweet and text one another during plays and movies, forming judgments before seeing the arc of the entire work". And where the constant feedback demanded by interactive technology can, in effect, become like a "giant focus group" that challenges "the autonomy of the artist".
Hunka shares this cautious scepticism towards cyber-interactivity. "Internet users," he says, "seem to be a jumpy lot, demanding the instant gratification that is denied by more complex art of any kind. It is a call for an increased shallowness in some ways, and these digital and virtual connections, it must be remembered, are digital and virtual, not particularly human."
Yet perhaps the real issue the internet poses for artists is that, as 99 Seats suggests, it forces them to work harder. "Audiences," he argues, "are smart ... They see plot twists coming a mile off. They know tropes and devices the instant they appear and are rarely fooled … Too often, in theatre, they're getting the same old slop; even when it's postmodern slop, [they] see where it's going and would rather engage in something that engages them back. If someone is texting or Twittering during your show, maybe – just maybe – it's not them. It's you."
Of course, interactive art is not just confined to the virtual reality of the web; it can also flourish in the concrete reality of the city. At its best, it can traverse the two. Theatre-maker Tassos Stevens was recently in Tokyo for the British Council's Connected festival, where he took part in a panel discussion about how we make art in the city. He posts his notes from that discussion on his blog, and they provide an excellent insight into how the real and virtual worlds can be combined.
Stevens's company, Coney, creates events that are "about the audience. We often talk to them using digital technology to bring them into the story wherever they are. Digital infrastructure means that we can bring people to work that is happening in any place." And once they have gathered people in this way they can then work to transform their audiences' view of their surroundings. To illustrate this, he describes one project that took participants on an adventure through and around the National Theatre: "By having an adventure in the building about the building, we could transform the way people felt inside that place and the way they perceived the building."
Andy Field, who also took part in this discussion, gives another example of how the virtual world can be used to transform our view of the real world. He cites the work of the company Blast Theory that "often examines our relationship to new digital technologies in the city. GPS tracking devices, mobile phones, the internet. Their art asks its audience to reconsider their relationship to these everyday technologies. In Rider Spoke, the matrix of isolated Wi-Fi networks arrayed across the city are repurposed as a way of building up a map of memories and experiences."
Arguably, in both of these examples, the audience is being asked to work much harder, and concentrate much more than they would in more traditional pieces of theatre. So perhaps, ultimately, we should avoid looking at the net as either intrinsically good or bad. Rather, we should see it as a tool, and like all tools, it is only as good as the person or people using it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/mar/31/internet-theatre-twitter-texting
Does Twittering and texting during a play mean the audience is engaged or disengaged? Some theatre-makers are embracing the new age of interactivity, while others are not so sure
Interactive ... Rider Spoke, first shown at the Barbican in 2007, is a work for cyclists combining theatre with game play and digital technology
Is the internet good or bad for the theatre? Does it provide exciting opportunities for interactivity that should be exploited? Or, as in the case of Twitter, does it only serve to further reduce our attention spans and our ability to connect with anything that needs to be said in more that 140 characters? These are the questions bloggers are exploring this week. For Lyn Gardner, the web certainly holds enormous promise and potential for theatre-makers. In a recent post on this blog, she argued that "the growth of pervasive media and digital technologies is offering theatre-makers and audiences unprecedented new challenges and opportunities".
Yet not everyone is so convinced. George Hunka recently came across this article in the New York Times by Michiko Kakutani about the effect of the web on our ability to appreciate art. Kakutani suggests that the rise of the net has helped create a culture with attention-deficit disorder in which people will "tweet and text one another during plays and movies, forming judgments before seeing the arc of the entire work". And where the constant feedback demanded by interactive technology can, in effect, become like a "giant focus group" that challenges "the autonomy of the artist".
Hunka shares this cautious scepticism towards cyber-interactivity. "Internet users," he says, "seem to be a jumpy lot, demanding the instant gratification that is denied by more complex art of any kind. It is a call for an increased shallowness in some ways, and these digital and virtual connections, it must be remembered, are digital and virtual, not particularly human."
Yet perhaps the real issue the internet poses for artists is that, as 99 Seats suggests, it forces them to work harder. "Audiences," he argues, "are smart ... They see plot twists coming a mile off. They know tropes and devices the instant they appear and are rarely fooled … Too often, in theatre, they're getting the same old slop; even when it's postmodern slop, [they] see where it's going and would rather engage in something that engages them back. If someone is texting or Twittering during your show, maybe – just maybe – it's not them. It's you."
Of course, interactive art is not just confined to the virtual reality of the web; it can also flourish in the concrete reality of the city. At its best, it can traverse the two. Theatre-maker Tassos Stevens was recently in Tokyo for the British Council's Connected festival, where he took part in a panel discussion about how we make art in the city. He posts his notes from that discussion on his blog, and they provide an excellent insight into how the real and virtual worlds can be combined.
Stevens's company, Coney, creates events that are "about the audience. We often talk to them using digital technology to bring them into the story wherever they are. Digital infrastructure means that we can bring people to work that is happening in any place." And once they have gathered people in this way they can then work to transform their audiences' view of their surroundings. To illustrate this, he describes one project that took participants on an adventure through and around the National Theatre: "By having an adventure in the building about the building, we could transform the way people felt inside that place and the way they perceived the building."
Andy Field, who also took part in this discussion, gives another example of how the virtual world can be used to transform our view of the real world. He cites the work of the company Blast Theory that "often examines our relationship to new digital technologies in the city. GPS tracking devices, mobile phones, the internet. Their art asks its audience to reconsider their relationship to these everyday technologies. In Rider Spoke, the matrix of isolated Wi-Fi networks arrayed across the city are repurposed as a way of building up a map of memories and experiences."
Arguably, in both of these examples, the audience is being asked to work much harder, and concentrate much more than they would in more traditional pieces of theatre. So perhaps, ultimately, we should avoid looking at the net as either intrinsically good or bad. Rather, we should see it as a tool, and like all tools, it is only as good as the person or people using it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/mar/31/internet-theatre-twitter-texting
UK Embraces Digital Technology
A new stage age: why theatres should embrace digital technology
Whether it's Skype or interactive websites, new media technology can hugely enhance live theatre – as a new scheme by iShed recognises
•
Facing the future ... Unlimited's The Moon, the Moon, which invites online public participation. Photograph: Robert Day
There was a time, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when "multimedia" was a real buzzword. In practice, what this meant was a few video screens dotted around a venue, merely the borrowed trappings of technology rather than a geniune attempt to make art or engage audiences in new ways. But the growth of pervasive media and digital technologies is offering theatre-makers and audiences unprecedented new challenges and opportunities. Unlike multimedia theatre, these technologies are not a passing fad; in fact they are as likely to have an impact on our theatregoing and theatre-making as the Oyster card, Facebook or mobile phones have had on our everyday lives.
Theatre Sandbox is one such opportunity. A new national scheme delivered by iShed (already responsible for the very successful Media Sandbox) is offering six companies (or artists) who wish to use media technologies in their work a chance to win one of six £10,000 commissions to create work in a supported environment and with the help of mentors. You certainly don't have to be a technology buff to apply. In fact, those who are new to digital technology will be welcomed because it's the idea that will be judged; you will be given the support to deliver it. The project is not set up to turn artists into geeks or create shows full of expensive kit, but rather to explore whether technology can help people to take creative risks, collaborate, develop audiences and enhance and extend the reach of the live theatre experience.
There are already plenty of examples of how technology has transformed theatre. Skype makes it possible for artists to collaborate across thousands of miles – and even closed borders – as projects such as Paves have proved. Research commissioned by Nesta into NT Live's pilots – in which performances are broadcast live to cinemas around the country, hugely widening the audience – has found that those experiencing the live event in cinemas had an even greater emotional engagement than those in the theatre. Companies such as Unlimited, with its show The Moon, the Moon, and Coney have explored how online engagement can enhance audiences' experience of the theatre event. Soho theatre has set up Soho Interactive, encouraging writers to engage with how storytelling can be changed and enhanced in the digital age.
As Andrew Taylor over at the Artful Manager has suggested, "participatory technology seems foreign to many, but it is also intriguing as it carries many of the qualities we value in the arts. [It] is by nature disruptive, but so is artistic expression." So rather than being scared of technology and seeing it as a threat to real-world social interaction, which research increasingly suggests it is not, why don't we embrace these new technologies, and use them to develop new forms of theatre?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/mar/23/stage-theatre-digital-technology-ished
Whether it's Skype or interactive websites, new media technology can hugely enhance live theatre – as a new scheme by iShed recognises
•
Facing the future ... Unlimited's The Moon, the Moon, which invites online public participation. Photograph: Robert Day
There was a time, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when "multimedia" was a real buzzword. In practice, what this meant was a few video screens dotted around a venue, merely the borrowed trappings of technology rather than a geniune attempt to make art or engage audiences in new ways. But the growth of pervasive media and digital technologies is offering theatre-makers and audiences unprecedented new challenges and opportunities. Unlike multimedia theatre, these technologies are not a passing fad; in fact they are as likely to have an impact on our theatregoing and theatre-making as the Oyster card, Facebook or mobile phones have had on our everyday lives.
Theatre Sandbox is one such opportunity. A new national scheme delivered by iShed (already responsible for the very successful Media Sandbox) is offering six companies (or artists) who wish to use media technologies in their work a chance to win one of six £10,000 commissions to create work in a supported environment and with the help of mentors. You certainly don't have to be a technology buff to apply. In fact, those who are new to digital technology will be welcomed because it's the idea that will be judged; you will be given the support to deliver it. The project is not set up to turn artists into geeks or create shows full of expensive kit, but rather to explore whether technology can help people to take creative risks, collaborate, develop audiences and enhance and extend the reach of the live theatre experience.
There are already plenty of examples of how technology has transformed theatre. Skype makes it possible for artists to collaborate across thousands of miles – and even closed borders – as projects such as Paves have proved. Research commissioned by Nesta into NT Live's pilots – in which performances are broadcast live to cinemas around the country, hugely widening the audience – has found that those experiencing the live event in cinemas had an even greater emotional engagement than those in the theatre. Companies such as Unlimited, with its show The Moon, the Moon, and Coney have explored how online engagement can enhance audiences' experience of the theatre event. Soho theatre has set up Soho Interactive, encouraging writers to engage with how storytelling can be changed and enhanced in the digital age.
As Andrew Taylor over at the Artful Manager has suggested, "participatory technology seems foreign to many, but it is also intriguing as it carries many of the qualities we value in the arts. [It] is by nature disruptive, but so is artistic expression." So rather than being scared of technology and seeing it as a threat to real-world social interaction, which research increasingly suggests it is not, why don't we embrace these new technologies, and use them to develop new forms of theatre?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2010/mar/23/stage-theatre-digital-technology-ished
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Natural Disaster, Internet Videos, and the Arts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjaQoOdJvI
So most of you probably know that I'm from Knoxville, TN which is about 2 hours away from Nashville. What some might not know is that Nashville was recently flooded...and I mean "flooded bad." The above video represents how the internet can help to keep us informed and show people around the world of what is going on in other parts. This catastrophe never really made the DC news as the NYC attempted bombing and the Oil Spill took top national headlines.
I found this video on Facebook and it brought the thought of how individuals can distribute information faster and more efficient than the news. As individuals we are biased, but normally we don't have an agenda. This video in particular was created to tell people about a forgotten disaster.
On another note its' a great use of video images and music to create something that "pulls at the heartstrings." Reminds me a bit of the humane society videos.
On a final note, TN is the home of country music...what will happen to the brithplace of a national arts treasure? This is going to be something for arts managers to watch to see how the arts will be and are affected by national emergencies. TN does not have great arts education programs nor is it big arts state like the DC area, but there is art and people who appreciate it. Yet art will be one of the first things to be pushed aside during something like this. I wonder if art could be something to help bring a torn and distraught area togheter.
For me this video reminds me of the complexity and emotional appeal that art can do. Pictures tell a story and music provides compassion to a situation.
Lesley
So most of you probably know that I'm from Knoxville, TN which is about 2 hours away from Nashville. What some might not know is that Nashville was recently flooded...and I mean "flooded bad." The above video represents how the internet can help to keep us informed and show people around the world of what is going on in other parts. This catastrophe never really made the DC news as the NYC attempted bombing and the Oil Spill took top national headlines.
I found this video on Facebook and it brought the thought of how individuals can distribute information faster and more efficient than the news. As individuals we are biased, but normally we don't have an agenda. This video in particular was created to tell people about a forgotten disaster.
On another note its' a great use of video images and music to create something that "pulls at the heartstrings." Reminds me a bit of the humane society videos.
On a final note, TN is the home of country music...what will happen to the brithplace of a national arts treasure? This is going to be something for arts managers to watch to see how the arts will be and are affected by national emergencies. TN does not have great arts education programs nor is it big arts state like the DC area, but there is art and people who appreciate it. Yet art will be one of the first things to be pushed aside during something like this. I wonder if art could be something to help bring a torn and distraught area togheter.
For me this video reminds me of the complexity and emotional appeal that art can do. Pictures tell a story and music provides compassion to a situation.
Lesley
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
iPhones and iPads revolutionize beatmaking, piano playing, and symphony conducting
To most people, the iPhone is a cellphone with interesting extras. But to musicians like Tom Freeman, a Bay Area producer who records as Freematik, the device is a portable replacement for a roomful of music gear. Freeman made an entire album with his iPhone. His beat-and-synth-heavy iMatik, which he self-released in March, deals in hip-hop's curt synth lines and turntable scratchings. It doesn't sound like something a cellphone could create. Freeman and other tech-savvy producers and composers say the sonic possibilities allowed by the iPhone and its larger cousin, the iPad, could revolutionize music-making.
Freeman obviously isn't alone in making music with his iPhone — other Apple devotees have used them to rock Wembley Stadium and cover MGMT with eerie accuracy. There are iPhone apps that mimic vintage synthesizers, a 12,000-year-old flute, and a Gibson electric guitar. But iMatik is currently the only known album composed and performed entirely on the iPhone.
The idea struck Freeman after he downloaded a few apps — BeatMaker, iDrum, and Jasuto — out of curiosity, and toyed with them when he couldn't use pro equipment. "There are certain times where I'll have 15, 20 minutes to work on music," he says. "At first, it was just a hobby, [but] once I listened to the sounds with headphones, I knew I could actually do professional sounds with this thing."
As cool as some music apps are on the iPhone, Freeman says they're nothing next to the creative revelations available with the iPad. The release of Apple's tablet computer has triggered a flood of new music software from designers eager to explore the possibilities in the iPad's 9.7-inch touchscreen and zippy processor. Freeman and others say the device could ignite a revolution in electronic, portable music-making.
"It just feels totally different [than the iPhone] — it feels liberating, actually," says Ge Wang, a professor of music at Stanford University and cofounder of the Palo Alto "sonic media" start-up Smule. The company created the popular Ocarina music app, which uses the iPhone's touchscreen and microphone to imitate an ancient Chinese flute. Magic Piano, Smule's first app exclusively for the iPad, turns the tablet into a virtuosic keyboard anyone can play, with configurable keys, sci-fi graphics, and the ability to jam with users around the world.
Wang has long been experimenting with music and mobile computers. He currently directs the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra, an ensemble of varying size that uses the iPhone's GPS, accelerometer, touchscreen, microphone, and networking — along with glove-mounted speakers — to perform a repertoire that includes Bach, Led Zeppelin, and the orchestra's own experimental compositions.
Wang says that the iPad's large touchscreen is perfect for making music. "I don't think I would have ever wanted to build a piano for the iPhone," he says. "But as soon as the iPad came out, it suddenly made sense to build a crazy, wacky, whimsical piano. There's suddenly a whole new class of things which we wanted to do before, but that didn't make sense."
The mobile phone orchestra recently acquired a few iPads, and its members may show off what they can do during a performance at the reopening of the Oakland Museum of California on May 1. But Wang's mobility-focused group is waiting for the release of the 3G-enabled iPad before buying more. That increased functionality will enable collaborative performances from anywhere in the country with cellphone service.
Of course, there are numerous limitations with the iPhone and the iPad that laptops — and those old-fashioned things known as musical instruments — don't have. But with a screen that responds to every touch, and a starting price of $499, the iPad makes a startling range of musical possibilities available to the mass market. The iPad "definitely has the potential to transform how music is currently made," Wang says. "But I'm also excited to see how it pushes people to do things that we don't even know we want to do."
http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-04-28/music/iphones-and-ipads-revolutionize-beatmaking-piano-playing-and-symphony-conducting/
- Wen Ting Chiu
Audiences, and Hollywood, Flock to Smartphones
It might be hard to imagine watching “The Office” on a screen no bigger than a business card. But tens of thousands of people — by the most conservative estimate — are already doing just that.
- Wen Ting Chiu
As Hollywood shrinks its films and television shows for the small screens of cellphones, its assumptions about mobile viewing are being upended by surprisingly patient consumers.
“We all thought they’d be watching video clips in the checkout line or between classes,” said Vivi Zigler, the president for digital entertainment at NBC Universal, summing up the industry’s conventional wisdom. But owners of iPhones and other smartphones are actually watching long episodes and sometimes complete films, so a growing number of media companies are vying for people’s mobile attention spans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/business/media/03mobile.html?partner=rss&emc=rss- Wen Ting Chiu
Monday, May 3, 2010
Musical Planets
The Houston Symphony recently commissioned a performance of Gustav Holst's "Planets" suite that was accompanied by images of the planets. Although it was not the first time visuals were added to this particular orchestral work, this production was an up-to-date version that used actual images gathered over time and many less than a year old. These images were all collected by the army of probes, orbiters, and rovers developed by NASA in recent years. The work has been titled "An HD Odyssey".
Duncan Copp, who created the imagery, has a doctorate in planetary geology and knew where to find the images and what sort of pictures were out there. Copp reviewed more than 10,000 images to create the film.
The concept is to create a synergy between the music and the pictures, to find a natural rhythm between the themes of each movement and the images. The images are designed to exude feelings of rationality and science. Many of them were collected from the Messenger spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, and some from the Magellan spacecraft that date back to 1989.
It is an incredible concept and bridges emotions through imagery and music. To check out the "teaser" for The Planets, you can see their YouTube clip. The teaser begins roughly around 1:40.
Duncan Copp, who created the imagery, has a doctorate in planetary geology and knew where to find the images and what sort of pictures were out there. Copp reviewed more than 10,000 images to create the film.
The concept is to create a synergy between the music and the pictures, to find a natural rhythm between the themes of each movement and the images. The images are designed to exude feelings of rationality and science. Many of them were collected from the Messenger spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, and some from the Magellan spacecraft that date back to 1989.
It is an incredible concept and bridges emotions through imagery and music. To check out the "teaser" for The Planets, you can see their YouTube clip. The teaser begins roughly around 1:40.
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