What to do with London’s boondoggled Millennium Dome now that the government has decided to sell it? As of now there are three contenders to take over the billion-dollar bust: a Japanese-backed company that would continue the current programming, the BBC, which, in partnership with Tussaud’s, would turn it into a theme park based on BBC TV characters, and a business group that wants to “strip out the current content and turn the site into London’s silicon valley.” – BBC
Category: issues
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
“Our ability to generate information has outpaced our ability to comprehend it. We’re driven to make sense of it all, to shape and sort and classify information into systems we can use. From the days of writing on cave walls to the creation of XML, we’ve tried to do a better job of comprehending the information at hand. The thing is, we’ve become so good at creating information that it’s piling up faster than promises in a political campaign.” – *spark-online
NO-BROW CULTURE
What really sustained the old distinctions between good taste and bad, high culture and low? What sustains them now? They can be, and have been, criticized. Were the cultural distinctions of yore merely “an upstairs downstairs affair … arranged to protect the real artists from the ravages of the commercial market place?” – Boston Review
THE EVILS OF GLOBALIZATION
The globalization of culture is accelerating at an alarming rate. “Through globalisation, people lose their local cultural identity and political autonomy; but sometimes they rid themselves of local fascists and thugs, isolation, poverty and ignorance. With good and bad homogenised thus, globalisation seems to negate all moral conscience. Globalisation also puts a new twist on critical terms like cultural imperialism, orientalism and colonisation.” – The Age (Melbourne)
ARTS AT ANY COST
The price of going to an arts event went up 10 percent over the weekend throughout Australia as the country adopted a GST tax. But the sudden increase doesn’t seem to have affected ticket sales. – Sydney Morning Herald
THE PARIS OF THE MIDWEST?
Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daly has been traveling to Europe. And thinking that what his city needs is a little bit of Europe. He’s proposed a London-style theatre district downtown, borrowed the downtown art cow idea from the Swiss, and proposed Venetian gondolas for the city’s waterways. What’s next? – Chicago Tribune
CALIFORNIA ARTS COMMISSION GETS BIG INCREASE
Legislature gives arts commission $12 million increase. The additional funds raise the council’s annual budget from $20 million to $32 million and bring California’s state arts spending to 92 cents per capita. The increase propels California from 42nd place into the top 25 states in the nation. – Los Angeles Times
REBUILDING ART AFTER WAR
“Croatia remained largely peaceful during the second half of the 1990’s, but the earlier Balkan wars left a mark on the nation’s cultural life. Its once-lucrative $4 billion-a-year tourist industry and vibrant artistic scene – almost destroyed through the mobilization of a large part of the male population, emigration and civil unrest – have only recently shown signs of recovery.” – New York Times
MUSIC BLOCKADE
A young Cuban band was supposed to play in the Montreal and Toronto Jazz Festivals this week. But when the Halifax musician who organized the tour tried to wire money for plane tickets to Havana, the bank accidentally sent the funds through its New York office, where the money was seized. “American law demands any funds going to Cuba must be held by the Office of Foreign Assets. The bank tried to correct the error, but it was too late to pay for the airline tickets.” – CBC
LOOK AT ME
Maybe we’re too sophisticated or jaded or cynical to appreciate them in this world of hyper-media. But the good old-fashioned publicity stunt, designed to bring out an audience and tilt credibility, is an honest-to-God artform. – London Evening Standard