Cultural Digital newsletter #148
Cultural Digital
Hello again
We're back for a new year. There was me thinking nothing much would happen over the past few weeks, but I'm very happy to be wrong on that score - I've got enough for three emails. Let's get started then…
Simone Vezzani loves museums, so he used a painting in Berlin's Bode Museum to test out some particle rendering techniques. I guess we all show love in our own ways.
Big funding from UKRI
Projects to demonstrate how technology will revolutionise audience experiences. £18 million of government and industry funding for projects from orgs including the RSC, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Philharmonia Orchestra, Almeida, Punchdrunk, Manchester International Festival, Marshmallow Laser Feast, and a bunch of others to "create a new generation of immersive experiences for audiences in the UK".
Living with Machines. The Alan Turing Institute, British Library, and others have been awarded £9.2 million for "a major new project. ‘Living with Machines’, which will take place over five years".
3D spaces
Claire Hentschker: the artist who recreated The Shining as an interactive 3D space. Claire is 'constantly looking for ways to misapply “digital tools towards artistic ends”'. I like that idea.
Virtual room tours - Waddesdon Manor. This was done using Matterport and there's an impressive level of detail there. Actually, a quick search for 'art' or 'museum' on Matterport brings up loads of stuff.
Bird Box
The Bird Box Effect: How Memes Drive Users to Netflix. "The circumstances under which Bird Box wormed its way into our zeitgeist explain why, in the age of direct-to-consumer streaming, quality may be more irrelevant than ever".
Bird Box's is a success story for Netflix's data-driven content. "Bird Box may not be a perfect film, but it works because Netflix is delivering to an audience that their data, in defiance of conventional wisdom, has told them exists".
Miscellaneous
Viral history Twitter threads: 2018 was the year historians embraced the platform. "Here’s your Year in Notable Twitter History Threads, with commentary, when available, from those who wrote them". Anyone up for doing this for the arts or museums?
Dancing on the pinhead of pricing: Attracting new audiences. A really interesting piece but, judging by the comments, attendees may not want to see how this particular sausage is made. Especially if you're talking about the 'need to reduce' the attendance of regular customers.
On the blockchain, anyone can be an art dealer. Ed Vaizey says "Digital trading means that more and more people can buy and sell artworks".
One year, 300,000 images, ten questions. Alice Read at the Paul Mellon Foundation runs through "the questions you need to think about before undertaking a mass digitisation project in a relatively short amount of time".
I always feel like, somebody’s watching me. Verity McIntosh's notes from "a short talk at Immersive Storytelling Symposium at Liverpool John Moore’s University as part of the Immersive Exhibition & Audience panel".
Procedur.al solves all your procedurally made-to-order wall art needs.
As ever, please share stuff with others. There'll be more where that came from 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.