Category: issues

The arts are playing an increasingly important role in stimulating the local economies of small towns and rural communities throughout Wisconsin.

“Academic minds around the world are tackling some tough new questions about South Korea: Why do Korean soap opera plotlines seem to defy the basic principles of microeconomic theory? What can we learn about the reinterpretation of locality in Korean rapper Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ music video?”

“It is ludicrous that visitors who are paying tour operators, airlines and hotels, pay nothing to Britain’s museums and art galleries. When you visit a museum as part of a tour party, you are imposing on others. The arrival of a large crowd in front of a museum treasure is disruptive for other visitors. A group can effectively take over an entire room of a museum while the guide gives a lecture. The least you can do, if you visit a museum in this way, is pay entrance fees.”

“A call for a police boycott of the Weinstein Company’s coming film ‘The Hateful Eight’ and other works by Quentin Tarantino has gained support from the National Association of Police Organizations and the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, expanding the backlash to remarks about police violence that Mr. Tarantino made at a rally in New York on Oct. 24.”

“The centrepiece of this £850m development is a massive hotel which the developers would like to be regarded as a ribbon unwrapping a gift. Some local people, however, have bestowed on it the uncharitable appellation ‘the Turd’.”

“The overall profile of respondents gives an indication of the fragmented nature of the arts workforce as a whole. Just a third (720) of the 2,183 who completed the survey earned their entire income by working in a full-time salaried position on a permanent contract for a single employer, with the rest working either part-time for one or more employers, on temporary or casual contracts, or as freelance workers.”

“Ironically, arts funding remains one area of government that is especially closed to any suggestions of change. It remains wedded to a post-war conception of elite decision making where those that know make the choices about what the rest of the population will most benefit from having subsidised.”

“The decision has been widely panned online, news organizations including Vox Media and BuzzFeed have threatened to not attend, and the situation has been cast as a win for the angry and misogynistic teratoma of trolls that identify themselves as part of the Gamergate movement. Meanwhile, SXSW’s official explanation for the cancellations is a misdirected mess.”