#173 - The shiny new thing
Cultural Digital
Hello
Happy new year! Is it just me or does it feel like a long time since the last one of these emails? Anyway, I'm back on the case with some museum navel-gazing, digital tools, immersive round-ups, and various other things.
The evolution of European Motorways 1920–2020 is a data visualisation designed and developed by Studio Folder and Angelo Semeraro for the V&A. It ties in with their current Cars exhibition.
Museum navel-gazing
it's like trying to make a grilled cheese sandwich in a toaster "are museums better served by outside providers than in-house digital teams? There are a few different ways to look at this question". Some good observations here. I'm left wanting more discussion on which digital activities can/should be outsourced vs in-housed and how approaches might differ according the size/type/maturity of organisations. Related to this…
Somewhat related, Micah Walter on Twitter has been "Thinking about a typical “tech stack” for a small to mid-size museum or similar cultural org. What’s the minimum off the shelf/cloud based infrastructure to run an org?"
Museum 2.0: Worst of Museums for this Decade. "In this decade, instead of dealing with workforce issues head-on, we often focused on the shiny new thing".
The State of Museum Digital Practice in 2019 written, edited and published by students in “Museums and Digital Technology” at George Washington University.
Immersive
Digital Catapult - CreativeXR and the audience experience. "This research report includes in-depth audience evaluations of the final five companies from the first cohort of the CreativeXR programme, which ran from October 2017 to February 2019".
Immersive Experiences in Museums, Galleries and Heritage Sites: A review of research findings and issues. From the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre with recommendations for arts and heritage organisations, funders and policymakers.
2019 list of 50+ Immersive Things that mix storytelling, performance, play, design & code.
Digital tools
From Wetware to Tilt Brush, How Artists Tested the Limits of Technology in the 2010s. Cécile B. Evans, Jenna Sutela, Jonathan Yeo, Tiffany Funk, Luba Elliott and Anna Ridler on the impact of new tools and platforms.
AWS DeepComposer is a "32-key, 2-octave keyboard designed for developers to get hands on with Generative AI, with either pretrained models or your own".
Miscellaneous
What is Swipe Night? Back in October Tinder launched Swipe Night, "a first-of-its-kind, original interactive adventure that represents a whole new way to match!"
How easy is it to donate online? An interesting little study by Supercool.
The Future of the Art Market. By Lucy Rose Sollitt, commissioned by Creative United.
Why Big Data Has Been (Mostly) Good for Music. "The explosion of metrics and algorithms isn't just reflecting what's happening in the music industry. It's transforming it".
Jobs
There are digital-related jobs available at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Belgrade Theatre, and Town Hall Symphony Hall Birmingham.
Thanks for reading. Share things with others and, if you haven't already, then subscribe to get more every week or so.
Chris Unitt
PS: a couple of plugs - I'm doing webinars for the Arts Marketing Association on Google Tag Manager and Website Accessibility, and a workshop for London Museum Development on Understanding Online Audiences.