Cultural Digital #209
Trombones, AI, ankles, and more.
Hello
You might remember me mentioning a survey about how cultural orgs produce digital content. Quite a few of you filled it out (thanks!) so maybe you’ll want to come along to the launch of the Cultural Content Report on 20 October. It’ll be good.
Also, you should definitely find the time to watch the ankle pic video (thanks to Kathryn for spotting it). There’s so much that could be unpacked from that one.
Trombone Champ looks great. Somehow it reminded me of that person playing the 20th Century Fox intro on the recorder.
AI
Stop AI stealing the show. In the UK, Equity (the union for performers and creative practitioners) has launched this campaign to "strengthen performers' rights in response to the rise of artificial intelligence across the entertainment industry".
The approaching tsunami of addictive AI-created content will overwhelm us. Charles Arthur reckons that "We're unready for the coming deluge of video, audio, photos and even text generated by machine learning to grab and hold our attention."
Scientists Are Training A.I. to Reconstruct Long-Lost Underpaintings by Artists Including Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci. “The team has also started using DALL-E to reconstruct lost masterpieces known only through textual descriptions”.
AI-Generated Art Won a Prize. Artists Aren’t Happy. "I won, and I didn't break any rules". Well, that’s ok then.
Imagining AI: Minds, manuscripts and machines. The Bodleian Libraries have a new display that includes “manuscripts of Mary Shelley, Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage and Christopher Strachey, alongside a remarkable mechanical ‘Logic Piano’ devised by economist Stanley Jevons”.
Other
We need three people to make cultural content that isn’t crap. I’d add that sometimes you find a person who embodies a couple of the attributes Adam lists here. Very rarely you might find someone with all three. For instance…
Making an OnlyFans for Saucy Victorian Ankle Pics. (But why the historical ankle obsession?). This is just great.
Sotheby's to sell $70m of art stored at MoMA to benefit New York museum's digital initiatives. “much of the sales' proceeds will go toward establishing an endowment for digital media and technology at MoMA, as well as towards the museum's "new strategic acquisitions".”
Museum technology keynote — words from ICOM 2022 Prague. ACMI's Seb Chan with what he’s called a 'gentle provocation'. There’s a good list of some of the overarching questions for digital/tech in museums (and any other mission-focused org).
Vialma take over Student Pulse. The classical music streaming service are taking over the app-based discount scheme for concerts in London. Those with long memories will remember it came out of the old Nesta/AHRC/Arts Council England digital R&D programme.
ONEPIECE by Ilan Manouach “can be admired as the materialization of an ecosystem saturated by media”. Sure. Or as a big, unreadable comic (albeit one with ‘potential lawsuit’ written all over it).
Thanks again for reading. Please pass this on to others if you liked it. And come along to the Cultural Content Report launch.
See you again soon