Cultural Digital newsletter #71 - dark history
Cultural Digital
Hello
Happy weekend to you. Thanks to everyone who filled out my little survey about pay-per-click advertising last week (feel free to do it if you haven't yet). That was very kind of you all.
This week there are a lot of pieces talking about how tech is integrated into cultural organisations. Plus there's another fun drawing thing, and the usual events, jobs, and so on.
But first, this pic is from Xavi Bou's chronophotography project 'Ornitographies'. I like this sort of thing.
Cultural organisations adopting new technologies
Evidence review: The adoption of digital technology in the arts This was commissioned by Nesta and is well worth a read, drawing together lots of different threads to give an overview of how tech is being and could be used.
Leveraging Machine Learning for Better Efficiency. This is from Brooklyn Museum and their ASK project, the key point being "We don’t have anyone at the Brooklyn Museum who’s an expert in machine learning, but because of the improvements in machine learning tools, we don’t have to be". I've linked to quite a few examples of machine learning and AI being used in a creative context, but it's just as interesting to see how these things are coming to be incorporated into the more 'everyday' tools used by artists, museums, theatres, etc.
Speaking of which, AutoDraw is this week's creative Google thing. It's quite good fun, but I definitely preferred some of my shaky drawings over the boringly sterile ones they suggested.
ScholarSpace at University of Hawaii at Manoa: The Dark History of HathiTrust The language in the synopsis is a bit 'academic' (and not in a good way), but honestly this is good, and surprisingly candid. It's about "the various and sometimes surprising ways that values, power, and politics are implicated in digital infrastructure development".
Confronting the “Shocking” Virtual-Reality Artwork at the Whitney Biennial - The New Yorker "Jordan Wolfson’s virtual-reality installation at the new Whitney Biennial, “Real Violence,” is the rare art work that comes with a trigger warning as well as an age restriction". Everyone's still figuring out how to treat this stuff.
Other stuff
How an auction house added Facebook Live to its digital strategy "A regional auction house might not sound like the most obvious example of digital transformation. However, Simon Charles Auctioneers has demonstrated how being digital-first can generate big results - even for the smallest of companies".
We Are Now Festival 2017 is looking for "submissions from performers, installation artists and sensory practitioners to feature in our next festival, 1 & 2 September, 2017 in East London".
Objects in Focus: Museum Visitors and Instagram "This article draws on a case study of one exhibition using visual content analysis to frame, explore and interpret visual and text based posts by visitors using the social media application, Instagram, as part of their experience".
Exploring the data behind Peoples Collection Wales. Mike Jones has created lots of different visualisations of the content uploaded to the site.
The Best Art is "an ongoing artistic collaboration between the computer (MacBook Air, 13-inch, early 2015), and the human (Nicole He)".
New websites
Graeae, Lichfield Festival 2017, LUX, Motionhouse, Royal College of Music.
CultureGeek (sponsor)
CultureGeek is a conference that brings together leading organisations from around the world to share how they're adapting to the changing cultural landscape.
Find out more and use discount code 'CulturalDigital' to get a 20% discount.
Jobs
There are digital-related jobs available at Tincan, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Tate, The Photograhper's Gallery, Christies, Conway Hall, Scottish Ballet, and Glyndebourne.
Events
28 April 2017, Leicester: Panel discussion: Copyright as Frame and Prison
21-24 September 2017, Castleton, Peak District National Park: AND Festival 2017
Thanks for reading, and please do the world a favour by passing any choice links on to your friends, colleagues, and associates.
Cheers.
Chris Unitt
@chrisunitt
When not writing emails like this, I run a digital analytics and user research consultancy called One Further, working with the finest cultural organisations.