Norman Foster has designed “one of the world’s most breathtaking” bridges. “A sublime marriage of British and French architecture and engineering, the Grand Viaduc du Millau outdoes even the stirring 10-year-old Pont du Normandie that spans the mouth of the Seine between Honfleur and Le Havre. With a 2.5km span, the Millau bridge is far from the longest in the world, yet it is surely one of the most beautiful. In terms of artistry, it challenges the Garabit viaduct, which Gustave Eiffel built across the River Truyère in 1884.”
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Slatkin Out At National Symphony
Leonard Slatkin’s contract won’t be renewed past the 2008 season. “Public information was kept to a polite and restricted minimum. Slatkin’s current contract, which was to expire in 2006, will be extended two years, either as a courtesy to the conductor or to buy the orchestra more time to choose another music director — or, as seems likely, a combination of the two.”
Analysis: Arts Maintain Position After US Election
An analysis of the recent American election from an arts advocacy position suggests that the arts will neither gain or lose in the next Congress. “At the federal level, arts policy will likely remain on its current course, with no major policy shifts anticipated that would negatively impact the arts within the administration or the new 109th Congress,” states an analysis — called ‘2004 Election Impact on the Arts’ — from the advocacy group’s Arts Action Fund.”
In London – Musicals Rule
Musicals are the hot product in London’s West End. “Many top directors, designers and choreographers are moving from opera into high-risk musicals, many of which crash on landing.” But “there is no ignoring the energy that is flowing into stage musicals – to the point where the genre is fast becoming the art form of the decade.”
Revisiting Childhood Through The Arts
“Childhood has become a boundless new frontier in the arts, a terrain of seemingly infinite magnitude, emotional density and thematic complexity. Audiences may find themselves disoriented and unnerved, as the conventional views of innocence, precociousness and predatory corruption give way to deeper vistas of childhood experience and meaning. In complicated, challenging and sometimes confounding ways, children occupy an increasingly large share of our collective imagination.”
Tivo Adds Ads (No More Skipping)
By March, one of Tivo’s top features – the ability to skip ads – will be circumvented. Viewers will see ads if they try to skip commercials. “For viewers, TiVo’s new strategy means the technology famously christened “God’s machine” by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell is rapidly becoming a marketer’s best friend, proving that try as they might, consumers cannot hide from marketing.”
When Inmates Run The Encyclopedia
The Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia written and edited by its readers. As of November 2004, according to the project’s own counts, nearly 30,000 contributors had written about 1.1 million articles in 109 different languages.” While the stats are impressive, and the concept of “distributed editing” is Utopian, it’s user beware, according to a former chief editor at Britannica.
New MoMA – The Best New Place To See Art?
In many ways, the new Museum of Modern Art is the “anti-Bilbao. Notched with neat precision into the urban fabric of midtown Manhattan, it is a secret garden of the mind, setting out with dazzling clarity one of the great art collections of the world. The results can be as stupendous as they are because of the benefactors, donors and museum professionals who focused on the acquisitions along the way.”
In Praise Of…ABC’s
“We tend to take it for granted, but the alphabet was a human invention. Without it, we wouldn’t read books and newspapers or write shopping lists ande-mails. We would have to rely on recitations and recordings to transmit language. But as vital and visible as the letters of the alphabet are, they usually go unappreciated.”
The New MoMA – White, White, Everywhere…
Robert Campbell feels letdown by the new Museum of Modern Art. “It isn’t bad, it’s just uninteresting. It’s the old MoMA all over again, only bigger. Here are the same-old same-old white walls and ceiling track lights, and then more white walls and more ceiling track lights. You feel like a lab rat in a snow maze. There’s no attempt to create memorable architectural space for the artworks to inhabit. Instead, seeing them spotlighted on these placeless, anonymous white walls is like seeing isolated images on a screen in an academic slide lecture.”