Tag: 05.14.20

Canadian Government’s Efforts To Help Artists Shows Problems In Defining Artists’ Income

In mitigating the impact of the COVID19 crisis, the federal government swiftly responded with economy-wide measures as part of its immediate relief. It is in this roll out of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) that officials discovered the many gaps in addressing the labour force in the arts—the artist. More than the employment of the labour, it was what constituted their income that became the challenge and eluded the fit for an artist. – Georgia Strait

Making Art On Instagram During A Shutdown

The Strip may be closed, but Las Vegas is so much more than gambling – or at least that’s what its chroniclers show. “In the absence of take-my-hand influencers, creative control of Instagram is free to return to the first group who adopted it: artists and photographers. If you give an artist a tool like Instagram and a bunch of idle hours, he or she will find a way to build a project.” – Las Vegas Weekly

More Thoughts On Museums And Their Endowments

Some directors say they’re not truly created for stressful times. “Calling an endowment a ‘rainy day fund’ is ‘grossly inaccurate,’ said Brent Benjamin, Saint Louis Art Museum director and AAMD president. Endowments are not cash reserves that can so easily be tapped. You shouldn’t spend the principal, and unrestricted earnings are typically committed to annual budgets in advance.” – Los Angeles Times

Report: We’re Reading More In Lockdown (And Our Taste Is Changing)

According to the nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults, surveyed from 29 April to 1 May, the nation has also increased the amount of time it spends reading books from around 3.5 hours per week, to six. Just 10% of adults said they were reading less. Readers also revealed their tastes have changed since the outbreak of Covid-19. – The Guardian

Fall TV Is Going To Look Very Different

Now — when yearly upfront presentations would normally take place — networks are instead deciding whether to move forward with or completely scrap prospective shows, despite having barely any other finished product to consider. Some networks are requesting more scripts and approving straight-to-series orders, while others are delaying summer releases so they can be used as fresh content in the fall. – Huffington Post

Interest In Disaster, Dystopian Stories Is Soaring. Why?

Global downloads for Plague Inc, a 2012 video game that encourages players to spread a disease around the world before a cure is found, increased by an annual 123% from January to March this year, as the spread of Covid-19 began to gather speed internationally. Its UK-based developer Ndemic Creation addressed the game’s popularity: “Whenever there is an outbreak of disease, we see an increase in players as people seek to find out more about how diseases spread, and to understand the complexities of viral outbreaks,” the company said. – BBC