Cultural Digital #009

Cultural Digital

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Hello

Lots to get through, as always. Honestly, you'd never believe how much gets left on the cutting room floor every week.

The gif above was made by Tobias Rothe using source material courtesy of the State Library of South Australia. It's made available under a CC-BY 3.0 License. 

For more, check out Gif It Up, an annual thing from the Digital Public Library of America. To be honest the general quality is… variable. So maybe go to this Washington Post article to see some highlights.

Links

The video of my talk at IT4Arts' recent workshop is up. I spoke about how cultural organisations might ensure a good return on their investment in 'digital'. No easy answers, obviously, and I spend a bit of time breaking down what that digital activity actually is, because considering it as an amorphous whole isn't helpful. A write-up will follow (which might well be easier to digest).

The NYT's Turn Off Your Devices? Sometimes Plays Turn Them On is decent on how tech is affecting theatre: "…it is redefining how they interact onstage and, in the process, challenging playwrights, directors and set designers who are trying to figure out matters as technical as how to let theater audiences know what is being said on screens they cannot see, and as cosmic as what technological change means for human interconnectedness."

How art is making the data-driven city more liveable "As boundaries blur between the digital and the physical, artists are remaking the metropolis into a playful, human experience." [Unnecessary sidenote: I won't be upset when 'playful' falls out of fashion as a buzzword]

More good stuff from the V&A, this time talking about the results they've had from Pinterest having invested some time in the platform.

Museum Hack featured a study on engagement on art museum websites. Maria Komarova "examined the use of interactive technologies at 15 art museum websites’ to find the successes - and failures - of museums’ technology use."

A change of mentality has some reflections on the Arts Marketing Conference in Madrid, and the Cultural Marketing Conference in Barcelona. There are some digital bits and bobs in there.

Crowdsourcing in the 21st Century Library, Museum and Archive is a post by the Crowd Consortium, who I'd not come across before, but they're a group of organisations "engaged in exploring the potential for crowdsourcing for enhancing research, collections and other aspects of their institutions."

Unseen Art is a project that aims to re-create classical art paintings in 3D, partly so that people with visual impairments can experience them. The crowdfunder's not quite caught light yet though.

I found Disabled Artist Experiences in Using Eye/Head Tracking and Mid-Air Gesturing for Creative Work really interesting.

Also, the Cooper Hewitt team have been looking at using emojis on their object timelines as a way of solving some web accessibility issues.

Various video-related links
On the British Museum's YouTube account they're asking people to vote for their new series of videos on the basis of a few pilots. It's a rare example of a cultural organisation daring to make YouTube-esque content for YouTube. Will it catch on?

The Broadway production of The Lion King has recorded a 360º video which you can watch on YouTube or view as a virtual reality experience. Apparently "It took five takes of the song with all 31 cast members onstage to capture all the footage as several hundred volunteers and fans cheered in the orchestra seats."

Capacity Interactive have pulled together what they see as good examples of cultural marketing videos.

Websites
Object:Photo is MoMA's interactive feature for exploring the Thomas Walter Collection.

A couple of thoughts on the web design process and client relationships from Sam at Cog Design and Ash at Directors UK. Which leads us nicely into…

New websites for Royal Museums Greenwich, Royal Shakespeare Company, Tang Museum,and Manipulate.

And so we come to the end - well done. Thanks awfully, and please do pass this on. Subscribe here if you aren't already signed up.

Chris Unitt
@chrisunitt / LinkedIn

I work with cultural organisations on projects that involve digital strategy, content and analytics. Visit One Further or hit reply if you'd like to have a chat about that.