“Computational photography takes a swarm of data from images or image sensors and combines it algorithmically to produce a photo that would be impossible to capture with film photography or digital photography in its more conventional form. Image data can be assembled across time and space, producing super-real high-dynamic range (HDR) photos—or just ones that capture both light and dark areas well.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Anti-Selfie Sentiment Is High (And Rightfully So), But Selfies Fall Into The Tradition Of Art, Right?
“It is easy access to self-portraiture, probably, that makes the educated uneasy about it. The fact that we all carry high-quality cameras and the ability to instantly exhibit our work globally has made every goofball tourist an international artist. It’s embarrassing when they don’t respect sombre memorials to serious things, yes. But resistance to self-promotion generally is mere snobbery.”
Bullish Jacksonville Symphony Extends Season, Gives Musicians A 37 Percent Raise
“With this new contract, the Jacksonville Symphony season will expand from its current 35 weeks to 38 weeks during the 2017-2018 season, 39 weeks in the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons, and finally 40 weeks beginning in the 2020-2021 season. The symphony is also increasing the number of full-time musicians from 53 to 60. Musicians’ weekly salaries will increase 19 percent over the term of this agreement, and with the added weeks, annual salaries will rise 37 percent.”
Admission Fees Make Up Only A Small Part Of A Museum’s Budget. So Why Have Them?
“The study reports museums across the country have fairly diverse revenue streams, with endowment income (22%), combined college/university and federal, state and local government support (18%) and individual and family contributions (11%) accounting for over half of all revenue. Admissions revenue accounts for just 6% of revenue, on par with Individual & Family memberships, and just behind contributions from Foundations & Trusts (7%). Corporate contributions and memberships, benefit events, facility rentals, restaurants and catering and exhibition fees all make up between 1–4%, respectively.”
That Scary Place Between Greatness And Disaster
“We want to live in futuristic betterment but at the same time dread being shot back into premodern bare want. For every promise that some place can be great, there is a parallel claim that if some people are not excluded from it, the greatness will falter and fail. Somehow, the greatness is finite.”
A Literary Magazine Produced By Homeless People
“Writers Group, as it’s known in the community, is a space for the homeless writers of downtown Boston (“homeless, transitional, or recently housed” is the rubric), and we meet every Tuesday morning at 9:30, in the basement of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul on Tremont Street. Out of Writers Group comes The Pilgrim, a literary magazine that I’ve been editing for the last five years. Large chunks of The Pilgrim are summoned into being, conjured from the chaos-state of potentiality, by Robert’s magic coffee.”
Iowa State Legislators Want To Raid State’s Culture Fund To Cover State Budget Shortfall
“The Iowa Cultural Trust fund is on the chopping block as state lawmakers strive to cover a shortfall in the state budget for the fiscal year that ends in June. A tentative budget agreement would take the entire $6 million in the fund, and use it to offset cuts to a range of state agencies. The fund was established in 2002. Lawmakers over time have appropriated money for the fund, with interest used for matching grants to artists and arts organizations.”
Karen Finley: Art Is At The Heart Of America. So How Are Going To Support It?
“Whether it’s transcribing Great Negro Spirituals, protecting indigenous Native languages, attending outdoor jazz concerts, preserving quilting by the Amish or the Gee’s Bend women, singing the Delta Blues, weaving narratives of neglected LGBTQ history, creating plays of the immigrant experience or collaborating across state lines, we are a country of expression. Art is the bridge when walls of fear keep us insulated and reactive. A society loses meaning, purpose and direction without it.”
Long-serving Mayor Of Harrisburg PA Worked On Museum No One Wanted, Then Stole Artifacts
“The fact that no one seemed to share in his dream of making a less disturbing Westworld on the banks of the Susquehanna did not deter Stephen R. Reed. Nope. He employed that coal-mining country grit in every step of his totally un-mandated, batshit quest to built another Gene Autry Museum in Pennsylvania. And then he got really carried away, and purloined more than 500 items that were slated for the non-existent institution and paid for with public funds, storing them (accidentally! he claims) at his house.”
This Year’s Oscar Best Picture Nominees – Not Exactly Box Office Winners
“For only the second time in the last 10 years, none of the best picture nominees — at the time of nomination — has grossed more than $100 million domestically. And that first time was in 2015, and that’s only because American Sniper had just opened in wide release; it would go on to gross $346.7 million in North America.”