When a web site encourages users to share old college exams with the world, is it cheating, or an example of the truly democratic online world, in which information rules and ethics are malleable?
Tag: 09.16.08
The DVD Is Dead? Not Hardly
A new report from market researcher NPD Group shows that $8 out of every $10 spent on movies goes to buying and renting DVDs.
The Historical Precedent For Damien Hirst’s Auction Moves
“Much has been made of the commercialisation of art and Hirst’s tilt of the status quo – his decision to bypass the 50% cut of the dealer in favour of 15% at the auction house. The tacit position of dealers as unquestioned conduit of new works was, as Hirst has commented, established in the 19th century. That change, pioneered by Holman Hunt, required an act as audacious as Hirst’s, and far more significant: the circumvention of the Academy.”
Cate Blanchett and Philip Seymour Hoffman Form Globe-Spanning Stage Venture
Blanchett’s Sydney Theatre Company, Hoffman’s LAByrinth and the Ambassador Theatre Group of London have formed a partnership (“not monogamous… but special”), to “create, produce and exchange work that might not otherwise get produced in our different cities.”
A ‘Step-by-Step Guide’ to Merce Cunningham
“Cunningham is much more interested in effects than intentions. That’s a good credo for audiences too.” As Merce himself said, “It is hard for many people to accept that dancing has nothing in common with music other than time and the division of time.”
Tony Kushner Wins New $200,000 Playwriting Award
“The unusually generous prize, named the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, …was created with an eye toward attracting talented playwrights and bolstering the status of their profession. … ‘We wanted to create something that was really significant, like the Pritzker Prize in architecture or the Pulitzer in journalism.'”
A Dance Festival Focusing on the Practical
The two-year-old program “Crossing the Line” at New York’s Alliance Française gets resource-starved New York dancers and choreographers together with French presenters who have facilities and funding: “I see it as a production air bridge. It’s like flying artists to where the space and the money are.”
Lehman Foundation Was Major Arts Funder. Now It Won’t Be
Last year Lehman Brothers Foundation gave $39 million to more than 200 non-profits, including many arts groups. But with the Lehman bank closing, the foundation must close — eventually — because it no longer has a corporation sustaining it. Yet its assets are protected from creditors.
Our Genetically-Wired Sense Of Math
“Whenever we choose a shorter grocery line over a longer one, or a bustling restaurant over an unpopular one, we rally our approximate number system, an ancient and intuitive sense that we are born with and that we share with many other animals.”