Category: issues

“Audiences attending a new musical called The Bookie at [Aberdeen’s] Lemon Tree Studio this week have been asked to roll a pair of dice to see how much they have to pay for their seat. Thus, if you roll snake eyes, you pay £2 or – at the other end of the scale – a double six and you pay £12.”

The filmmaker has come out in support of a Frenchman who faces €20,000 in fines for illegally downloading thousands of songs. Says Godard, “There is no such thing as intellectual property. Copyright really isn’t feasible. An author has no rights. I have no rights. I have only duties.”

Tim Etchells: “Over the last year or so I’ve done a series of related works, creating pamphlets to announce – often in overzealous capitals and small print – the dates, times and locations for imaginary, scurrilous and often impossible events.”

“Here’s some food for thought: an open letter to [UK Culture Secretary] Jeremy Hunt from Clive Gillinson, who was the respected, indeed visionary managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra before departing five years ago to take up one of the most important cultural roles in New York, director of Carnegie Hall.”

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center has unveiled a new design by Chyutin Architects for its planned Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, which will be built at an estimated cost of $100 million. … The Chyutin design replaces an earlier one by renowned architect Frank Gehry, whose estimated cost of $250m. made it too expensive to build.”

The online realm Second Life now hosts a virtual community patterned after, and named after, Al-Andalus, i.e., medieval Spain under Moorish rule. The realm includes a virtual Alhambra and Great Mosque of Córdoba, as well as a library (run by a Smithsonian librarian), theater, and (of course) mosques, churches and synagogues.

The blind singer told the U.N.’s 184-nation World Intellectual Property Organization that more than 300 million people who “live in the dark” want to “read their way into light,” and the current copyright system denies them an equal opportunity.

“Why doesn’t Denver measure up when it comes to giving to the the arts? Is it home to fewer big-muscle corporations and foundations? Is there less of a long-established tradition of arts philanthropy? Or do local arts organizations just not stack up?”

“How do we use the technologies of computation, statistics and networking to shed light — without killing the magic? This is more than a practical question. It goes to the heart of what we are after as humans.”

“A Europe-wide investigation has found that in some countries – such as Hungary, Poland and the Netherlands – every site that was checked was potentially breaking EU laws aimed at protecting consumers. These sites could be fined or shut down if they fail to correct the problems identified, which included misleading price information, unfair contract terms and – in some cases – even selling tickets for non-existent events.”