Reality Television and Art School collide

When I was studying fine art at the University of Washington (Proud Alum 2005) I always joked that the personal torture that was the dynamics of 65 people competing for 16 slots then competing against one another for being the smartest, most talents, most avaunt guard or whatever was the making of a reality television show. (Love triangles and backstabbing included). I loved the experience: I am an expert problem solver, can research anything including physics of black holes, representation of females/ by females, can make rather than buy many things (lumber poodle, no joke) and have endured years of critiques to make me acutely self-aware/self-deprecating. I think everyone should have to do a year of art school, really!

And I don't know how I missed this in July- but here it is, art reality shows. Do I think this will benefit art- quality or appreciation? No. I think this will reinforce already negative stereotypes of artists. Do I want more people to see how artists work, not just the Damien Hursts or Andy Warhols but the Kiki Smiths and Uta Barths. I want the practice of art to be more accessible to more, I think Reality Television may hurt the cause.

What do you think?

NYTimes article is it about theater or entertainment?

Seattle made the NYTimes spotlight as a "Permanent Theater Festival" in this weeks Escapes section. I view Seattle as a Theater town, I serve on the board of a great local theater. There are many opportunities to see great art here, and it does sway towards performance. One of my reason's for staying in Seattle is the access to the arts.

What concerns me about this article is that it is mostly about entertainment and large venues- when the richness of arts really comes from small companies. When I think of Seattle arts- it is rarely Teatro Zinzani it is the small neighborhood venues and public works supported by the city and county. Also- we have an amazing Ballet and Opera across the street from Teatro. What do you think?

Annual Museum Section of the NYTimes

My favorite annual edition in the NYTimes is the Museum's section... Go figure?! The articles this year are especially poignant in lean times- when many museums really have the opportunity to engage with their audiences, create open-community spaces and think outside the box in terms of programming.

Speaking of lean times, apologies on lean posts. Been busy, and though this is no excuse for a blogger that espouses about quality and regular content... please accept this apology- and the entire museum section of the NYTimes as my excuse until this weekend.

Yours,

Tara

On Adaptability

Last night Gmail was down... This happened in the middle of the night here in Seattle, but what happens when the technologies we rely on fail? Well, people all over the world adapted. When email fails, people turned to their facebook and twitter accounts to connect.

This is just a simple example of why we should be using multiple communications streams- sometimes one demographic prefers one channel over another, and sometimes there is a mistake or a failure and we can be adaptive by using another tool. Being flexible and planning to use multiple channels is valuable in any marketing plan.

The inauguration, everywhere...

Cannot get to a television tomorrow morning, or a radio? Use your work computer to live stream the inauguration tomorrow! You can catch it on Twitter, or Flickr or a wide array of Social Media sites. This will be the most widely attended political event (ever) and more people will be able to follow this historical moment in real-time via technology... If you are not a believer in the power of technology and the real impact on our lives, hope your opinion is changing quickly!

Check out the information at the NYTimes Bits Blog.

Facebook sues power.com

Two articles in the NYtimes bits blog expose facebook this week- the first is facebook's judgement against breast feeders. My sympathy goes out to these women, however, its not the subject of this blog.

The post of interest is Facebook's resistance to power.com. Now, I don't know anything about power.com, YET, but I will be doing my research. I have heard of it, in theory I love the idea of aggregating social networks, making it easier for the end-user, and overall enabling people to really leverage their networks- without taking all their time to do so. I am also wary. So I will be following up, until then check out the article here and the power.com website here.