Cultural Digital #221
Social media, AI, farewells, and more.
Hello
Long-time subscribers might be aware it’s been a while since the last one of these. What can I say? Busy times. But here we are, with a huge backlog of wonderful things to post, along with some newer delights.
So let’s get back into it, shall we?
Ingenium (Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation) have built an interactive version of the Electronic Sackbut - one of the first synthesizers.
You can play with it and make bleepy noises, which makes it a winner in my book.
Social media
Social media backlash: how (and how not) to respond when your art organisation comes under fire. With comments from Louise Cohen (from One Further), Alec Ward, and Sierra LaDuke. As Louise says, "the ones who take no risks are often the ones who aren’t getting very far".
Museum Social Media Cultures is a research network that aspires to “understand the transformation of behaviors, practices and values in and outside museums developed by the use of social media”. It’s more interesting than that makes it sound.
Want to sell a book or release an album? Better start a TikTok. “So you want to be an artist. Do you have to start a TikTok?” Let’s hope not.
Why all museums need an in-house TikToker. The Peabody Essex Museum hired two dedicated creators in residence.
AI
Project Announcement: HAZEL, a pilot generative artificial intelligence (AI) guidance assistant for Historic England. It’s being developed to assist authors of Historic England's guidance literature.
Holly Herndon’s Infinite Art. A profile from The New Yorker. "The artist and musician uses machine learning to make strange, playful work. She also advocates for artists’ autonomy in a world shaped by A.I."
How we use generative AI tools from Cambridge University. Quite a few of these are coming out. This one feels nicely measured. Unless you’re against the whole darn thing, in which case…
This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI. “The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models”.
Other
NeedleDrop. Guess the movie from the song.
Face/Off: Changing the face of movies with deepfakes. This is fun. “We observed an average false memory rate of 49%, with many participants remembering the fake remake as better than the original film”.
What happened to the cancelled game from the makers of Pokémon Go and Sleep No More. “Niantic and Punchdrunk spent years designing a gamified theatrical experience that never happened”.
The Puzzle of Putting Video Games in a Museum. The New Yorker referencing the Barbican, MoMA, V&A and Computerspielemuseum.
MoMA Postcard is “an interactive NFT adventure waiting to be unlocked”.
Finally, Mar Dixon and Diane Ragsdale are no longer with us and are missed.
Thanks for reading. With a little luck and a fair wind, there might be another of these in your inbox before too long.
See you soon