Author: Douglas McLennan

PROTECTING THE RIGHT RIGHTS?

Seven years after it was proposed, a bill designed to protect the basic rights of artists awaits approval by the Australian Senate this month. “The bill contains three basic rights: the right to attribution, the right against false attribution, and – the most contentious – the right to integrity. This would allow artists to protest against ‘derogatory’ treatment of their work – a book published with a chapter removed, for example, or a painting hung in the wrong position.” Sounds great, but film and television groups have already expressed concern that the bill might discourage industry investment, and writers fear they’ll lose the modest bargaining power they already possess. – The Age (Melbourne) 11/13/00

ARE WE DUMBING DOWN?

“There simply is no clear evidence of any dumbing down except by the most crude and irrelevant criteria. The accusation is the final gasp of an upper-class male elite and their co-optees. They took it on themselves to define the distinction between high and popular culture and then police its boundaries. They were the high priests guarding the purity of the canon of cultural tradition. Even the language – high, low, low brow – demonstrates the snobbish elitism used to buttress their position of power. They’ve lost that, and now they’ve lost the debate.” – The Guardian 11/13/00

PARIS OF THE EAST

Shanghai’s artists are vying to recapture the city’s pre-Communist reputation as a thriving international art center – the “Paris of the East,” as it was internationally known before the Cultural Revolution. One problem: government authorities would rather showcase high-budget imports like the recent 3000-cast member “Aida” rather than allow exhibits of the controversial art of China’s politically conscious youth. – The Age (Melbourne) (AFP) 11/13/00

FUNDING ENVY

Sydney Theatre Company Artistic Director Robyn Nevin said in a recent lecture that the Australian government’s long-awaited arts blueprint – which was intended to increase funding for performing arts organizations – has in fact fallen far short of delivering enough funding to enable the theater to thrive. By comparison, “Britain’s National Theatre received 20 times the subsidy granted to the STC though its audience base was half that of Sydney’s and its average ticket prices were about 40 per cent higher.” – Sydney Morning Herald

GOT US A DANCE COMPANY – NOW WHAT?

The celebrated Jose Limón Dance Company comes to San Jose, and “only about 50 bodies filled the nearly 500-seat theater. Such a low turnout brings up the question, once again, about the status of the arts in San Jose. Is the community willing to support the best that the performing arts world has to offer? Are arts marketers willing to roll up their sleeves and promote such work? If not, why would a company like Limón bother to return?” – San Jose Mercury News

HARD MUSIC

Elliott Carter was 90 when he wrote his first opera. Some consider Carter America’s greatest living composer. Others “a mandarin aesthetic whose target audience can only be the academic analyst armed with graph paper and a calculator.” An the opera? “It boasts his perennial avoidance – as if on principle – of any hint of beauty, expressive content or sensual delight. It remains as resolutely standoffish toward the listener’s merely human sensibilities as a lump of granite.” – San Francisco Chronicle

THE JUKEBOX OF ALL JUKEBOXES

Recent developments in the digital music industry (like Napster’s partnering with Bertelsmann and announcements of enhanced security systems) spell disaster for some proponents of freely accessible downloadable music. But maybe “what’s really at stake is not whether music will be expensively secure or freely exchangeable – but simply how soon the recording industry will assemble the music delivery system that is inevitable, the ‘celestial jukebox.’ In layman terms, a networked device that will allow you to download any song your heart desires, anytime.” – Salon