“Caminar, cruce, gancho, ocho. The dance steps are not usually associated with the South Caucasus, but thanks to a prolonged period of stability following Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution the country is increasingly connected to the outside world – and starting to enjoy pastimes that come from afar.”
Category: AUDIENCE
Study: Internet Tops Friends, Family As Sources Of Information
“In a report we issued this afternoon, we found that for a cluster of problems with government connections more people turn to the internet than to experts or family members. This preference for the internet isn’t the case for every person’s every problem. But it was interesting to see how much the internet has moved from the periphery of people’s lives a decade ago to the center of their information environment now.”
Should Museums Be Forced To Disclose Everything About Where Their Money Comes From?
“No clear distinction can really be made between money that comes from ‘good’ sources and money which comes from areas that some people consider ‘bad’. Public funding itself is far from pure. It often comes with strings attached.”
The Death of the Artist – And the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur
“Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional – the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it?” William Deresiewicz, who caused a stir this past summer with an essay arguing that Ivy League colleges were overrated and their undergrads were timid “sheep”, lays out the problem as he sees it.
Why Uber – The Idea, Not The Actual Car Service – Crossed A Cultural Barrier In 2014
‘”Like an Uber for’ is shorthand for describing an item or service delivered wherever you are and whenever you want it, but the phrase also hints at a much larger shift in people’s expectations about their interactions with the world. It turns out one of the most hackneyed phrases in tech this year may also be one of the most profound.”
Fan Fiction Is Not A New Thing – But It *Is* A Great Way To Engage With Stories
“Shipping may have achieved prominence in the burgeoning world of Internet fan fiction, but the phenomenon, if not the expression, goes back at least a hundred years, when Sybil Brinton, a wealthy Englishwoman in her forties, wrote the first known work of Jane Austen fan fiction, ‘Old Friends and New Fancies,’ in 1913.”
How Democracy Spreads (And Why That Spread Sometimes Fails)
“For Fukuyama, the great challenge of state-building is creating and sustaining an institution of collective rule that cuts against the grain of human nature: we are designed to favour friends and family, and a patrimonial tribal order is ‘hard-wired,’ he argues, into our neural circuitry.”
Prince Charles Thinks His Ideas About Architecture Are ‘For The People’ – And He Couldn’t Be More Wrong
“Charles and his friends like to portray themselves as the underdogs, as victims of a leftie conspiracy of inhumane modernism, but they couldn’t be more well connected, and their polemics in favour of twee cottage architecture resonate strongly with a public taste for the picturesque and sentimental, and the spurious notion of What People Really Want.”
How Do Iraqi Arts Students Get U.S. Dance, Music, Or Art Instructors?
Skype, of course. “For the pianist Hersh Anwer, 24, of Erbil, the visits meant access to trained professionals. ‘After they’re gone, there is no piano teacher,’ he said.”
China Struggles To Grow Arts Audiences
“A lack of suitable venues, with the West Kowloon Cultural District still being developed, left the cultural sector struggling to expand, despite government funding of HK$3.5 billion per year.”