Blog

States Supersize Copyright Laws

Numerous US states are introducing their own “enhancements” of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The new laws may make using a number of digital devices illegal. “By and large, the state bills don’t lay out specific devices that would be deemed illegal. Most follow along the lines of the proposed Tennessee statute, which would criminalize “any communication device which is connected in such a manner that would permit the unauthorized receipt, interception, acquisition, description, transmission or re-transmission of a communication service.”

XXX On A London Stage

A play billed as the “most sexually explicit ever to open in London” has made its debut. “The two-hour multi-media show involves naked actors performing simulated sex acts in front of video screens depicting further explicit sexual activity. Based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade, the performance ‘aims to challenge boundaries of what is acceptable without a moral judgment’.”

Museums: Coping With The Crowd Problem

“Museums love blockbusters and, judging by the lines, so does the public. But the lines themselves signify the difficulty museums have solving the blockbuster math: let too few people in and the show becomes impossible for everyone to see; let too many people in and the art becomes impossible to see. To some extent, museum officials regard gallery traffic as a problem to be coped with, not cured.”

Art Anxiety: What If I Don’t Get It?

The democratization of the American art museum has in some ways increased the visual insecurity of viewers. You’re standing there judging the work, but instead it feels like the work is judging you. If you’re stumped, you are less likely to blame the artist than yourself. You may even assume you are an indolent person who has failed to make the requisite intellectual effort, which in turn can unleash a chain of negative thoughts about straying from your diet, neglecting to send a sympathy card and other unforgivable failures of will.”

Reform Needed For UK’s National Trust

The UK’s National Trust has a management problem, says a new report. “The report says it is unrealistic to expect a body of 52 council members, meeting only four times a year for three hours at a time, to run an organisation with an annual expenditure of £251m, hundreds of properties, land holdings of 248,000 hectares (612,808 acres), 3 million members and a staff of 6000.”

Iraq Art – Where’s The Loot?

Two weeks after Iraq’s National Museum was looted, some observers are wondering where all the art ended up. “Despite scattered rumors of artifacts turning up from Tehran to Paris, not a single one of the 90,000 or 120,000 or 170,000 plundered artifacts – no one knows for sure how many – is known to have been offered for sale anywhere in the world. And investigators and legitimate art dealers think they know why.”

Repairing Cultural Bosnia

Bosnia’s National Museum was at the center of heavy fighting during the civil war. “The National Museum, a quadrangle of four Italian Renaissance buildings surrounding a quiet botanical garden, is wedged between what was the war’s front line and the broad avenue that became a target for snipers. But the staff that stayed on during the war stood guard at night. They hauled exhibitions to the basements and bulwarked bigger pieces with planks and sandbags. Ultimately, the museum was among the few cultural institutions in Bosnia to survive relatively intact. Now, more than seven years after the war’s end, the museum is struggling to reclaim its position as a showcase of Bosnia’s history.”