“Seven employees in the arts center’s marketing, development, programming, education, and facilities operations departments were told Tuesday that they were being let go; another position will go unfilled.”
Category: issues
Preserving Kalahari Bushmen’s Traditional Knowledge Using Tablet PCs
A team of researchers from Denmark and Namibia is working with the elders of a Kalahari Desert village “to develop a 3D visualisation of the village on a tablet computer. Their knowledge will be embedded in this virtual village to be stored for future generations. Rodil is also developing a drawing app for the tablet which mimics the way the elders draw diagrams in the sand to explain what they mean.”
J-Pop, Whose Weirdness Is Now An International Selling Point
“For more than two decades, Western media has highlighted and laughed at Japanese ‘strange’ phenomena, from Gothic Lolita fashion and pre-Tupac hologram pop stars to more deviant subjects.” Now, stars like Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (whose videos feature things like floating slices of bread with eyeballs) are cashing in on foreigners’ bemused curiosity.
Michigan State Legislator Leads Reading Of “Vagina Monologues” On Legislature Steps
A state lawmaker who says she was barred from speaking in the Michigan House because Republicans objected to her saying “vagina” during debate over anti-abortion legislation performed “The Vagina Monologues” on the Statehouse steps — with a hand from the author.
Advocates Win An Extra $4M For New York State Arts Funding
“In February, a coalition of New York City arts institutions rallied in Albany for more state funds for the arts. [The New York State Council on the Arts’] budget was maintained at $31.6 million for FY 2013, but the coalition stressed the point that in 1985, its budget was $4 million more than that. These arts advocates got their $4 million back, sort of.”
US Sues For Return Of T. Rex Skeleton To Mongolia
“The fossil of a dinosaur that roamed the earth 70 million years ago should be turned over to the United States by an auction house so that it can be returned to its home in Mongolia, a lawsuit brought by the U.S. government demanded Monday.”
Reading Racist Classics To The Kids: Why, And If So, How?
“We rewrite the past to serve the needs of the present. The clarity of history is its great advantage. The racism in Fantasia or Pippi Longstocking is overt: instantly identifiable by its noxious odor and satisfyingly dismissible with enlightened disgust. More subtle instances may provoke hedging and justification.”
The 9/11 Museum Needs More Funding, Governors Say
“Amid the seemingly interminable wrangling over financing for the National September 11 Memorial Museum, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey sent a letter to the National Park Service on Saturday seeking federal money for the project.”
Our Online Free Speech Remains At Risk – How Can We Protect It?
“Any attempt to regulate speech online — whether in service of ‘stopping piracy’ or ‘defending against cyberattack’ — must be ruthlessly interrogated for how it will be abused. Because it will be abused. Those with censorious impulses will push the four corners of the law as far as possible to silence speech they don’t like.”
Forget ‘Crowd Curation’ – We Need ‘Standards Of Taste’
Surveying the “oddly disjointed results” of the new show at Baltimore’s Walters Arts Museum (curated entirely by the public) and the “embarrassing” results of the Pittsburgh Symphony’s YouTube competition for a concerto soloist (all four finalists were rejected, Eric Felten argues that we should leave the artistic choices to the professionals.