Starting as a pilot project next month, Vienna’s “Culture Token” will track users’ movements—and their chosen mode of transit—across the city via an app. For each car-free kilometer the user travels, the app stores up credits. Once the user has stored up 20 kilograms of carbon savings—possible with about two weeks of car-free commuting—they get a token they can exchange for a ticket to various arts venues, including Vienna’s most respected concert hall, theater, and contemporary art venue. – CityLab
Author: Douglas McLennan
A 37-Year-Old Standard For Digitizing Music Is About To Change
Though MIDI has done an exceptional job of digitizing music for the last 37 years, it hasn’t been perfect. MIDI quantizes music, meaning it forces music components into a particular value. In MIDI 1.0, all data was in 7-bit values. That means musical qualities were quantized on a scale of 0 to 127. Features like volume, pitch, and how much of the sound should come out of the right or left speaker are all measured on this scale, with 128 possible points. This is not a lot of resolution. – Quartz
New Post-Brexit Visa Rules Could Keep Artists Out Of The UK
Currently, skilled workers from outside the EU need to have a job offer with a salary of at least £30,000 to work in the UK. EU citizens are not bound by such restrictions and do not need a permit to work in the UK due to freedom of movement. – The Stage
What The Font You Use Says About You
“The font you use is a form of non-verbal communication. If you meet in person, tone of voice, clothes and body language carry a huge amount of information. If you write someone a letter you have all these tools available in your handwriting. But as soon as you sit down at a computer, especially if you’re working in a program that defaults to Times New Roman, we suddenly become identical and we don’t like that.” – The Guardian
It’s Official: MoviePass Files Bankruptcy To Go Out Of Business
Unlike Chapter 11, where companies can be reorganized and survive, this gang is dissolving, shutting its doors and everyone has resigned. Four months after the MoviePass service closed down it’s clear it’s not coming back. – Deadline
Simplifying And Minimalizing Our Lives: What If It Doesn’t “Spark Joy”?
It is rarely acknowledged, by either the life-hack-minded authors or the proponents of minimalist design, that many people have minimalism forced upon them by circumstances that render impossible a serene, jewel-box life style. Nor do they mention that poverty and trauma can make frivolous possessions seem like a lifeline rather than a burden. Many of today’s gurus maintain that minimalism can be useful no matter one’s income, but the audience they target is implicitly affluent—the pitch is never about making do with less because you have no choice. – The New Yorker
BBC To Cut 450 Jobs From Its New Operation And Reduce Number Of Stories It Reports
“Never in my career have I felt this organisation is quite under the threat that it currently is. There are many that believe that how we are funded is no longer appropriate when consumers seem to prefer to pay just for what they use.” – The Guardian
Openings Of Norway’s New Munch And National Museums Are Delayed
The handover of the building from a contractor to the constructor has been delayed due to incomplete delivery of fire and security doors as well insufficient performance and unsatisfactory operation of the building’s climate systems, the newspaper Dagbladet writes. The new Munch museum has already been the subject of criticism over its design. Architecture editor Gaute Brochmann, in comments to Dagbladet, has likened it to a “threatening black shadow, a coal-grey block looming over the Opera”. – The Local No
China Closes Down All Its Movie Theatres In Coronavirus Scare
In the wake of a coronavirus outbreak that has infected thousands and claimed more than 100 lives in China, the movie industry is grappling with the unthinkable: Nearly every cinema in the country, totaling about 70,000 screens, has shut down. – The Hollywood Reporter
Arts Council England’s New Plan Imagines A Different Role For The Arts
The emphasis on participation – on culture as something that more people should actually do – is newer. This is the difference between being in a play or a band and buying tickets to watch them, and for ACE to play a more active role in promoting the former would be beneficial. This begins in childhood, and ACE clearly hopes that the government will think again about policies that have seen music, drama and other arts subjects systematically downgraded in favour of science, technology and maths. – The Guardian