Cultural Digital newsletter #122
Cultural Digital
Hello
This week VR is back after a couple of much needed weeks sticking my fingers in my ears any time anyone mentioned it. Otherwise, there's a right mish mash of different things to dig into. I have a bit of a moan too.
A New Immersive Installation in Paris Lets You Step inside Klimt’s Masterpieces. The Atélier des Lumières is "an attempt to bring cutting-edge digital projection technology together with great art, creating an immersive experience—and, the hope is, an entirely new way of looking at paintings".
Virtual Reality revisited
BBC Radio 4: Seriously..., The Art of Immersion. "Artist and sceptic Adham Faramawy asks if virtual reality's fantastical spaces can offer new ways to make and experience art".
Eurogamer: When VR meets art, something new is created
Women of Wearables is "the global organisation and community that supports and connects women in wearable tech, fashion tech, health tech, IoT and VR/AR".
VIVE Arts is "a multi-million dollar global VR program set to advance creation and appreciation of the arts".
Romanced By Virtual Reality? Four Actual Realities To Consider For Cultural Organizations. It really is mobile apps all over again. As Colleen points out here, good things are possible with VR but, for the time and effort involved, many orgs are going to be better off sorting out the fundamentals.
For instance, right now I'm looking at a well-known London theatre's website. They have a mobile app but their entire homepage and what's on listings are made up of images containing nothing but text. Not only that, there's no alt text, poor colour contrast, and a stupid font too. It's 2018. How does this still happen?
Everything else
A full play was streamed on Twitter for the first time and it was the Old Vic's Future Conditional, as part of their 200th anniversary celebrations.
May the 4th be with you … at the movies. Book with the Google Assistant. You all saw Google's super creepy demo this week, right? This is related to that. "We worked with Fandango so you can buy tickets to the movies using your voice—just say “buy tickets” once you’ve decided which movie to see".
#CultureGeek #itsoktofail. Jo Johnson's talk at CultureGeek got people tweeting in solidarity. There are some classics here.
How your behavior has changed the way we make digital exhibition labels. This is from Te Papa. "Our User Experience team Karyn Brice and Kate Wanless share what they’ve learnt over the last year, and how these insights have helped create our most successful digital label ever".
Culture KPIs. Bristol Culture's Darren Roberts on their "recent sprint to improve how we do KPI data collection and reporting".
Childish Gambino's This is America and how the internet killed the cultural critic. This would have been perfect in last week's email.
Ikon Gallery – a light-bulb moment in lighting design and entrepreneurship. Maybe it's just me, but I found this surprisingly interesting.
Meitu Partners with British Museum to Launch Limited Edition Smartphone Aimed at Female Consumers. "The smartphone package's graceful and romantic vibe shows that it is made for the booming "female economy" across the globe". Ooo…kay then.
Napflix is where you can find "the most silent and sleepy content selection to relax your brain and easily fall asleep". Featuring the Kirov Ballet's Swan Lake and San Francisco Opera doing Aïda. Ouch.
Jobs
There are digital-related jobs available at Cog Design, the British Council, London Library, Royal Museums Greenwich, Almeida Theatre, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and more.
All done for another week. Please share the good stuff around. Unless you're too busy sharing the This Is America/Call Me Maybe mashup instead, which would be totally fair enough.
Chris Unitt
The Library is a treasure trove of arts/digital info. The latest update includes info on loads of Aus and NZ websites (who built them and which CMS they use). Find out more about The Library.