Cultural Digital newsletter #141
Cultural Digital
Hello
This week - mapping, manifestos, and magic leaps. But first, maps…
Layers of London brings together digitised historic maps, photos and other information from across London. It's a project led by the Institute of Historical Research. The old maps are matched up with OpenStreetMap - being able to change the opacity to see what's changed is a nice touch.
Strategies and manifestos
ACE - Shaping the Next Ten Years. "The business models of publicly funded cultural organisations are often fragile and generally lack the flexibility to address emerging challenges and opportunities, especially those relating to operating within the digital economy and declining public funding". That's something the new strategy should address, says this report.
European Manifesto on Supporting Innovation for Cultural and Creative Sectors. This is "the result of cooperation between 14 partners in THE ARTS+ Innovation Summit".
The RSC have been busy
How we made the Troilus and Cressida trailer. "Set in a post-apocalyptic world, our trailer for Troilus and Cressida was built from scratch using Unreal Engine, usually used to create video games".
Magic Leap Fellowships. "We are offering six students the opportunity to discover the potential future of theatre using Magic Leap spatial computing technology".
The RSC's Magic Leap project got a mention in this too: Draw & Code and Magic Leap - Post-LEAPcon Thoughts. It's interesting to see which orgs and artists the VR/AR companies are signing up to kickstart and promote their stuff. From the POV of the tech companies, I wonder what factors they take into account when looking for good cultural partners.
Tickets and what's on
Advice and Insights on Implementing Dynamic Pricing in Theatre from Aubrey Stork who works at Mirvish Productions, Canada's largest commercial theatre production company.
Improving the What’s On - background user research for a website redesign. ACMI talking about the start of the redesign process.
For any Spektrix users wanting to get more accurate data into Google Analytics, there's a new integration method on the block. It might be a bit niche, but I wrote this and am very happy about it.
Young, gifted, and BAME
Art UK - Audience Broadening Initiative Report. The full report, from the Audience Agency's Katie Moffat and Richard Turpin, has all sorts of interesting bits but if you can only find time for the exec summary then definitely read that.
Young people’s museum project receives National Lottery boost. To be delivered by Nerve Centre in Northern Ireland. "An exciting new project to connect young people with museums and their collections using a range of digital technologies and creative media has been awarded more than £900,000 from the National Lottery".
Other things
Defining digital for cultural organisations. I wrote this one too, making that point that it's useful to break 'digital' activity down into 'administrative digital' and 'artistic/mission-driven digital' (terrible names, I know) because the two categories differ in terms of routes to uptake, the need for senior buy-in, and potential transformative effect on an organisation.
Mapping Open Source in Museums. "If you work in a museum or related organization and use or release open-source code, we'd love to hear from you". The 'we' here is Greg Albers from the J. Paul Getty Trust and Aron Ambrosiani from the Nordic Museum.
6 Now-Closed Exhibitions That You Can Still Explore In Street View. Feels like I haven't mentioned Google Arts & Culture for a week or two.
Cher @ BBC Wales says "BBC Wales are making some online shorts featuring artists & art projects in Wales". If you're interested you're encouraged to get in touch. It's not that Cher, btw.
Jobs
There are digital-related jobs available at Art UK, British Museum, Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Museums Greenwich, and more.
And there we are for another week. Thanks for reading and please pass on the good stuff to others.
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.