“For the blogosphere represents an enormous democratic opportunity. In the past, those 71m bloggers would have had to wait for a publisher to deem their work worthy of distribution. Now everyone has a platform. Those who want to challenge tyrannies, or even corporate misbehaviour, can do so directly. Whether it’s the Baghdad Blogger or the public service workers highlighted in today’s Society section, free expression is now just a click away. But this freedom has a downside.”
Tag: 04.12.07
The Open-Source Car
“OScar is taking shape using a single principle as its guiding light: it’s an open source car. The open source idea is borrowed from the software industry that makes its code freely available under licence; the Firefox web browser and the Linux operating system being the most famous examples. In the hard, metallic world of car design this means that instead of protecting OScar designs by use of restrictive patents, as is the norm, the design is effectively open to anyone willing to contribute.”
Museums Go New Media
What did museums choose to collect in 2006? Well, there was a big increase in acquisitions of New Media art…
Actor Roscoe Lee Browne, 81
“Roscoe Lee Browne, a stage, film and television actor known for his rich voice, died early yesterday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. … Mr. Browne came to acting somewhat late, after gaining fame as a track star in the early 1950s. But he soon became part of a vanguard of leading black actors in the traditionally white New York theater world.”
Banned By School, Play Finds Friends Off-Broadway
“Students at a Connecticut high school whose principal canceled a play they were preparing on the Iraq war are now planning to perform the work in June in New York, at the Public Theater, a venerable Off Broadway institution, and at the Culture Project, which is known for staging politically provocative work. A third show at a Connecticut theater is also being discussed.”
Mellon Centenary Brings Flurry Of Exhibitions, Events
In the 1960s, philanthropist and Yale alum Paul Mellon donated “to his alma mater the largest collection of British paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, rare books and manuscripts outside the UK along with funds for a building by Louis Kahn–gifts today worth more than $1 billion.” Little wonder, then, that the resulting museum, the Yale Center for British Art, leads the charge among American and British museums celebrating Mellon’s centennial this year.
Understanding The True Spirit Of The Venice Biennale
“If the US had an organisation like the Venice Biennale–capable of staging a cycle of international festivals of cinema, art, dance and music and with an historic archive which is envied by much richer North American museums–then the European art world would have something to worry about, other than the global spread of the Guggenheim. Fortunately … there is no danger of (U.S. institutions) overshadowing the exhibition’s appeal and its almost mythical status.”
Remembering Kurt Vonnegut, Mensch
“When I was 12 years old I played chess with Kurt Vonnegut on a Thanksgiving Day in New York City. … On a whim, he suggested that we rearrange the board. Why did the pawns have to go in front, those sacrificial lambs about to be chewed up by the slaughterhouse of the front lines, those powerless vassals of the high and mighty? Let’s force the feudal lords out of their foxholes and into the hurly-burly!”
Can Lloyd Webber Up The West End’s Cool Quotient?
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s searches for stars to cast in his London stage musicals have been television ratings hits. “Even if he enjoys making the shows themselves … TV is a means to an end, not an end in itself. And that end is to make the West End cool. ‘Well, cooler,’ ” he says.
If Arts Council England Is The Parent, Artists Are …
“There is very little good news coming out of Arts Council England at the moment, particularly with the recent implementation of a 35% cut in grants for the arts – down from £83m to £54m for the year 2007-08. Now, after the catastrophic communication breakdown surrounding the announcement, comes a sign that the Arts Council is trying very hard to listen to the artistic community” — as well it should, Lyn Gardner writes. “Instead of the current relationship, which often seems like that of weary parent and fractious toddler, there must be a relationship of equals.”