London’s Design Museum is censoring one of the shortlisted finalists for its top design award. A violent video game was shortlisted, but the museum does not want to show it in its galleries. “A spokeswoman for the Design Museum said yesterday that visitors to the competition exhibition, opening in March, would see an explanation of the Grand Theft Auto design ethos, and be able to play other games designed by the Rockstars team, but not Vice City.”
Tag: 01.10.03
Vienna Philharmonic Hires Its First Woman Player
The Vienna Philharmonic has hired its first-ever female member, after decades of refusing. “Ursula Plaichinger, a 27-year-old viola player, has caused a sensation in artistic circles by appearing unannounced at the 158-year-old Philharmonic’s traditional new year’s concert in Vienna. The performance was seen by millions around the world and a recording has already sold out in Austria.”
EMI Legitimizing Old Bootleg Callas Recordings
“EMI considers itself the protector of Maria Callas’ official recorded heritage. Yet, in November, the company added four complete opera recordings and five recital discs to its Callas Collection, all pirated or quasi-legal releases from smaller labels. Why has EMI put out recordings that, not so long ago, it was trying to suppress? To remain the major player in the Callas market as recordings from the 1950s enter the public domain in Europe, where copyright protection for sound recordings lasts only 50 years. EMI has, in effect, legitimised these recordings, securing the tapes from a furtive independent label that had held them…”
HipHop At 30
“As hip-hop approaches its 30th birthday, pop culture is coming down with a serious case of nostalgia for the genre’s early days. ‘People are realising what a monumental and phenomenal force hip-hop has been, and for the first time you’re starting to really get people outside of the culture to realise it’.”
Great Architecture Requires Great Clients (Where Are They?)
Why does it seem so difficult to muster forces to create great architecture in America? “Citizens are the consumers of architecture. How are they educated to appreciate and judge what they must necessarily inhabit and, as taxpayers and clients, often buy? Primary and secondary schools rarely mention architecture or urbanism at all, except in the most elite or innovative schools. The general public’s lack of even the most basic education in architecture and urbanism makes for ill-informed, ill-prepared clients. With admittedly a few exceptions, asking members of those groups to judge inspired architecture is akin to asking people with a third-grade education to select the next winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.”
Art For Art’s Sake
So much of the impetus for artmaking is motivated by a desire to be better and better, a need to excel. But what about the craft of art, the practice of art as discipline rather than accomplishment? Maybe this kind of art practice can counter “a market-driven society in which people assign value to each other (and themselves) according to socioeconomic status. It also can be a bulwark against the excesses of America’s SAT-calibrated meritocracy. ‘There’s so much emphasis on potential. Not on what people do, but on what they might do. … The judgment of people’s potential is devastating to people who lose out on that judgment. It deprives people of hope.”