Cultural Digital newsletter #140
Cultural Digital
Hello
Big thanks to everyone who filled out the survey I included last week. If you didn't then here it is. It only takes a sec and it's useful to know what kind of things you're interested in. Here are some of the responses so far.
Brush Ninja is a free hand-drawn animated gif maker. You can upload background images to draw on too. It as an excellent way to waste some time.
You don't get much more arts/tech than a shredder in the frame of a painting. Well done, Banksy.
Strategy
Library of Congress - Digital Strategy. "The Digital Strategy describes how we will use each interaction as an opportunity to move users along a path from awareness, to discovery, to use, and finally to a connection with the Library through three main goals: throwing open the treasure chest, connecting, and investing in our future".
Business Strategy Leader - Libraries and Museums. Microsoft are advertising this role. "Working across the company, the leader will engage with engineering, marketing, learning and readiness, philanthropies, partner, channel and other industry teams to transform Microsoft’s approach to winning in Libraries and Museums".
Open Access, Open Data und Open Science als wesentliche Pfeiler einer (nachhaltig) erfolgreichen digitalen Transformation der Kulturerbeeinrichtungen und des Kulturbetriebes. Google Translate tells me that means "Open Access, Open Data and Open Science as essential pillars of a (sustainable) successful digital transformation of Cultural heritage facilities and of the cultural business".
Music archives
BBC 'to make classical music archive available'. "The corporation has one of the biggest classical music archives in the world, with recordings from the BBC Proms, BBC orchestras and choirs along with BBC Young Musician and BBC Introducing".
Old DJ sets resurfacing on the web reveal the true outlines of dance music history. Mixcloud and Soundcloud as archives.
Instagram
The Existential Void of the Pop-Up ‘Experience’. "I went to as many Instagramable “museums,” “factories” and “mansions” as I could. They nearly broke me".
Misty Copeland: Instagram gets more people into ballet and dance. So it's not all bad. But wait, Diana Vishneva says that young ballerinas are being ruined by Instagram. I don't know what to think now.
Instagram Poetry Is A Huckster’s Paradise. "When the most hated poet in Portland unmasked the most mysterious poetry star on Instagram, he revealed a lot more than a guy’s name". This reminded me of the Amazon romance authors' spat from a few emails ago.
Other things
Vicki Boykis has built a Twitter art bot with Python, AWS, and socialist realism art. She also has a project examining the relationship between cover art and social media response to music, although there's less documentation about that.
National Theater in London Offers Glasses With Live Subtitles. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this a while back, but it's launched now. And here's some thoughts from the AMA's Jemma Green at the launch event.
unrd is a storytelling platform that lets you "choose from multiple stories and enter someone else’s world. Get access to their phone and receive real time messages, videos, photos and voice notes".
Jobs
There are digital-related jobs available at the Crafts Council, British Museum, and more.
Here's one last nudge for the survey. Otherwise, please do the usual thing of sharing the good stuff with others and I'll be back with more next week.
Chris Unitt
The Library is a treasure trove of arts/digital info. It's just been updated with new websites, suppliers, and job descriptions. Find out more about The Library.