“Provocative arguments about the role of faith in our private and public lives are dominating our typically secular stages right now, courtesy of playwrights and performers from Catholic backgrounds. What to make of this current run of plays with an explicitly theological bent? Not surprisingly, the subject of sexual abuse in the Church has been at the center of several productions already.”
Tag: 03.22.05
Remixing Life As We Like It
Don’t like real life around you? Increasingly, we can remix it to our own liking. “We’re remixing our TV behavior as TiVo-style video recorders let us ‘make every night Thursday night.’ We’re remixing our media by grabbing online articles from dozens of different sources—and then broadcasting our own opinions with blogs. When you get down to it, the remixing metaphor applies to almost any area you can think of. Some of the sessions at ETech bannered the remixing of radio, DNA, politics and culture.”
Advocating Hollywood
Advocacy groups are finding new voices with Hollywood producers. “Although funding pressures have recently caused several advocacy groups to scale back their efforts or completely shut down, all the buzz over branded entertainment is prompting a growing number of nonprofits to take a closer look at working with Hollywood to get their messages out.”
Newfoundland Adds Millions To Arts Budget
The Canadian province of Newfoundland is adding eight million new dollars to its culture budget and promises millions more over the next two years. “The good news for arts and culture follows a year in which jobs were slashed and projects put on hold because of government belt-tightening.”
BBC Cuts Even Deeper
Cuts in staff at the BBC are bigger than previously predicted. “The 2,050 job cuts – including 424 announced in December – take total job losses at the BBC to 3,780, saving £355m a year to reinvest in programmes. They are part of director general Mark Thompson’s plans to streamline the BBC. He told staff it was “the toughest period any of us can remember”. The National Union of Journalists said the cuts would “rip the heart out” of the corporation.
Banning Books In China (But Not Effectively)
China may be opening up, but government censors still have a firm grip. But a recently banned novella is finding alternate means of distribution around the censors. “Publishing in China is serving both the party and the people. Here, the party comes before the people. There are several forbidden topics for publishing in China, including politics, sex, the military and state secrets.”
Seattle Art Museum Embarks On Major Expansion
The Seattle Art Museum this month “begins in earnest the $86 million expansion to the 1991 building that kicked off a regional arts building frenzy. The expansion is only one part of a three-pronged, $180 million overhaul – the museum has raised $124 million to date – including a sculpture park downtown and a new roof for the Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park.” Come January, SAM closes its main building for a year to accomodate construction.
IS There Really An Audience For Quality TV News?
TV news shows continue to lose audience. But just as NPR has seen a rise in its audience, so has CBS Sunday Morning. “The leisurely paced Sunday Morning averages 5 million viewers each week, up slightly over last year and at its highest point in a decade. That’s about a million more than for the Sunday Today on NBC, with CBS’s lead more than doubling in the past year, according to Nielsen Media Research. The increase comes despite ABC’s relaunch of Good Morning America on Sunday over the past year. (It is seen by 1.9 million people a week).”
Art History As A Theory
A new history of art since 1900 is “the final ludicrous monument to an intellectual corruption that has filled contemporary museums and the culture they sustain with a hollow and boring, impersonal chatter. Art has been lost in a labyrinth of theory. If this sounds anti-intellectual, let me clarify. There is no good work of art that cannot be described in intelligible English, however long it might take, however much patience is required. And yet this book begins with four theoretical essays explaining the post-structuralist concepts the authors believe we need before we can meaningfully discuss a single work of art.”
Billionaire To Restore Henry Moore
A billionaire art collector has offered to pay for the restoration of a Henry Moore marble arch. “The six-metre tall work, given by Moore in 1980 to the people of London, was removed from Kensington Gardens and dismantled in 1996 on safety grounds. The sculpture is unevenly weighted, and soon after it was installed it began to twist. In addition, travertine, the stone of which it is made, is susceptible to damaging cycles of freeze-thaw in cold weather. The Royal Parks, which manage Kensington Gardens, have estimated that to repair it – by inserting a steel “spine” – would cost around £300,000, which they say they cannot afford.”