Cultural Digital newsletter #86
Cultural Digital
Hello
I bet you thought there wasn't going to be one of these this week.
MokMok is a lovely-looking music adventure game. "Moks are living musical instruments. They move to the beat they play and together create ever-changing interactive songs".
Exploring how to order a museum’s digital collections. From Chris Pearson at the V&A "How would you categorise a museum’s collections, so that users can find what they want? ‘Average’, ‘Fair’, ‘Good’ and ‘OK’? It’s safe to say this suggestion from our remote user testing didn’t make it to our final list of categories. Here’s how we went about rethinking our online collections page".
Developing a digital museum idea should never start with the technology. Claire Bailey Ross's notes from a Digital Creative Media workshop for museums and heritage sites organised by the University of Portsmouth Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries Cultural Heritage Research Group (UPFCCICHRG for short?).
Kyle McDonald has been creating visualisations of things like common tempos in music over time, using a data set of a million songs from 1959-2011.
Emergence of Original Music Through Algorithms. A lovely discursive piece from John Supko, about wanting to build 'the ideal collaborator' and what he discovered. "far from dehumanizing art, the development of technological processes to expand the scope of human expression follows a deeply human trajectory. Works of art developed with the aid of such technology will, in turn, ever more closely reflect the frenetic, promiscuous, voracious human minds that create them".
The Surprising Things Statistics Tell Us About Fiction. "In “literary experiments” on diction, punctuation, cliffhangers, clichés, and other aspects of style and usage, Blatt uses data to probe the body of conventional wisdom that surrounds creative writing".
Taking art online reaches a new audience and enhances the user experience. CultureCase's summary of a Nesta report. "This paper sets out a conceptual framework for understanding how new technologies are changing the way in which cultural organisations work".
The 12 best affordable, pocket-sized, hackable synthesizers for "experienced studio heads and beginners alike".
Royal British Legion - Passchendaele 100. An interesting behind-the-scenes piece by Louis Hudson. "To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle Of Passchendaele several films were made by Dan Snow‘s production company Ballista Media for The Royal British Legion. These included a series of 360 videos that I was asked to explore using archive footage and interviews with soldiers who fought in the battle".
McGregor-Mayweather Fight Ticket Sales are Dead. But Why? Not artsy, but I thought this discussion about why ticket sales for this event are apparently not going so well might be of interest.
Mark Ritson: Live streaming has no impact or reach, but marketers will do it anyway. Also not arts-focused, but here's a (somewhat polemical) take on live streaming from an advertising point of view. "…offers up a potent mix of the total lack of interest that consumers have for organic interactions with brands and the lacklustre viewing endurance of digital video".
Jobs
There are digital-related jobs available at the National Gallery, Roundhouse, Young Vic, and RAF Museum.
Thanks for reading, and please do pass this email on to others who might appreciate it.
Cheers
Chris Unitt
When not writing emails like this, I run a digital analytics and user research consultancy called One Further, working with some truly excellent cultural organisations.