“Nearly 14 million visitors troop through Venice each year, turning parts of the 1,500-year-old former island republic into a clichéd tourist destination. Locals grumble that day-trippers have transformed the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s into an Italian Disneyland. But outlying neighborhoods like Castello see few tourists. The nearly two-hour tour, dubbed History Unwired, features five recordings by local residents – ranging from a glass blower to a ska musician – along with flash animations, maps, and movie clips, all uploaded onto a PDA. Three Bluetooth sensors peppered along the route trigger a virtual tour of a Venetian home and two art installations, one projected on a building, another on hanging laundry.”
Tag: 11.09.05
Turners By Rail
The four artworks shortlisted for the Turner Prize are being sent on a tour of rail stations. “A mini-tour of UK train stations will give travellers the chance to comment on the works vying for the big prize. Commuters will be able to write their thoughts on the work – good or bad – on a giant wall.”
Will Buffalo Theatre Lose Its Funding?
Buffalo artists are protesting a county funding plan that would cut loose one of the city’s cultural biggies – the Studio Arena Theater. “The all-volunteer county Cultural Resources Advisory Board recently came out with that surprise decision. The plan offered by the committee – which after due deliberation makes recommendations on how much and who gets funds the county sets aside for cultural organizations – is for the $3.5 million tucked away for “the culturals” to be distributed among five prime institutions, instead of six that included Studio, which was the case in 2005.”
New York’s Signature Dance Workshop Turns 40
“Dance Theater Workshop is hardly the only important center for dance in New York City – a town that, despite complaints about rents and impoverishment and the diaspora to the outer boroughs and challenges from other world cities, seems actually to be in the midst of a bustling renaissance of creative excitement. But if not alone, the workshop has become increasingly important… Week in and week out, Dance Theater Workshop has become an increasingly reliable brand name for what is new and exciting in dance today.”
Medals of Arts to Marsalis, DePriest, Duvall
“President Bush will honor authors, musicians and historians from New York and elsewhere on Thursday with the National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal. In an Oval Office ceremony with his wife, Bush will present the Medal of Arts to author Louis Auchincloss of New York, symphony orchestra conductor James DePriest of Portland, Ore., jazz musician Paquito D’Rivera of Bergen, N.J., actor Robert Duvall of Plains, Va., arts advocate Leonard Garment of New York and film animator and artist Ollie Johnston of La Canada, Calif. Also to receive Medals of Arts are jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis of New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and dancer and choreographer Tina Ramirez of New York. Singer and actress Dolly Parton will receive the medal at a later date.”
Rehabilitating The Hated Car Park
“Car parks are architectural scum, lower down architecture’s evolutionary scale than Travelodges. If your nearest [parking garage] was demolished you’d no more bat an eyelid than if you’d stood on a cockroach… Sounds like just the job for Rem Koolhaas, who likes nothing better than a bit of Modernist dystopia to turn on its head. In theory, with all those spirals, all that concrete, a car park should be a gift for an architect. Koolhaas has been busy regenerating Almere, a faded Dutch Alphaville from the 1950s, though not for the trim, cappuccino-sipping bike riders that give most modern urban planners wet dreams. Koolhaas is rebuilding his new new town around that great modern evil: the car.”
Politician vs. History vs. Profundity
When the UK’s new culture minister approached the “comments board” for this year’s Turner Prize finalists, he was surely remembering the uproar that ensued three years ago, when then-minister Kim Howells scrawled a profane condemnation of the prize and its organizers, sparking a general uproar (and quite a bit of muttered support from a public that had grown to loathe the conceptual art-heavy Turner.) There can be no question that current minister David Lammy did not repeat Howells’ mistake. But in his caution, he may have forgotten to say anything at all.
Opera’s Little Label That Could (And Does)
In an age when classical recording on the major labels is in the dumps, smaller labels are increasingly finding a niche and turning out high-quality product. But is such a thing really possible when we’re talking about opera recordings, the most mind-bogglingly complex of all studio recording enterprises? Apparently, it is. “At a time when major record labels have all but quit making full-length opera recordings, [a small, independent label called] Opera Rara has never been busier, resurrecting forgotten works and putting them on disc to exacting musical and technical standards. Small but persistent, the company is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.”
Concerns Raised Over One Of Opera’s Brightest Lights
Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is one of the sought-after stars of the classical music world, and her appearance on a concert program is a sure audience draw. But over the last year, Lieberson has become a chronic no-show, canceling engagements at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, and the San Francisco Opera. Officially, Lieberson’s representatives say that she is suffering from a “lower back injury,” but details have been few, and speculation is rampant that the cancer which attacked the singer five years ago may have returned.
Woman To Conduct Vienna Phil
It’s been nearly a decade since the Vienna Philharmonic was ordered by the Austrian government to begin accepting women into the orchestra, and after complying with the letter of the law by making its part-time female harp player a full member, the Phil has continued with its all-male hiring practices. But this weekend, an event which would be yawn-inducing to most other ensembles will make history in Vienna, when Australian conductor Simone Young will lead the Phil, the first woman to do so since Anne Manson in 1994.