Posts Tagged ‘Art & Community’
Short takes: different types of “creative metropoles”
Interesting project winding up in September 2011 looks at the different strategies taken by eleven European cities to develop and support their creative industries. The Creative Metropoles project is based on a premise I share and would like to see shared in the U.S.: “a facilitator of innovation, creative industries are essential for the development of other sectors.” The cities (as different as Berlin and Riga, Amsterdam & Warsaw) will each identify their own best practices and learn from each other’s experiences — “the ambition is not only to present the good practices but also deal with current problem issues and generate new knowledge and approaches.” The project is working in 5 policy areas:
1. structure of the public support for creative industries
2. business capacity and internationalisation of creative industries
3. space for activities by creative industries and creative city districts as creative incubators
4. funding schemes for creative industries
5. demand for the outputs of creative industries, including municipalities in the role of consumers.
The final report, particularly the appendices (Good Practices from European Cities) offers an interesting view of the diversity of approaches to developing creative industries that have had significant success and point to the need to both localize (i.e., collaboration for mutual benefit among Berlin) and reach across national boundaries (i.e., relationship building between artisans and designers in Fes, Morocco and Amsterdam). There’s a lot of material and I’ve just been browsing but my first impression is there’s a lot to learn.c
The Art of Agency 3 (Asian Improv aRts @ SF State)
From March 2 through March 5, Asian Improv aRts (AIR) and SF State’s World Music and Dance Program are holding a “collaborative presentation of public dialogue, workshops and performances exploring the intersection of traditionality and hybridity in the formation of community.” It is an interesting mix of events, culminating with “Sounding Asian Improv aRts (AIR),” the keynote session of the Annual Meeting of the Northern California Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology.
ImprovisAsians 2011! – The Art of Agency 3March 2nd – 5th, 2011San Francisco State University College of Creative ArtsAll events are free and will take place at San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue
Wednesday, March 2ndDiaspora Tales #2 – An interdisciplinary work featuring music by the Francis Wong Unit, spoken word by A.K. Black, dance by Lenora Lee and media design by Olivia Ting. “1969” reflects upon the Third World Strike at UC Berkeley and Wong’s family history from the period.
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Related Articles
- The Northern California Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology – Call for Papers (popculturetransgressions.com)
“Every Life Has a Story” — Employee Education meets Art meets Responsibility
I’m blown away by this video, reportedly produced by fast food chain Chik-fil-A as an employee education tool. The company wanted to encourage its employees to see customers and co-workers as people first. Many companies state their commitment to making life better for their employees and their communities but then fall short. Chik-fil-A may be the real deal. The blog of company President and C.E.O. Dan Cathy, LIVE, LOVE, LEAD is worth checking out. Here’s a sample:
Jun 22
It’s All Personal
“It’s just business, it’s not personal.” You hear that sometimes when people have to make unpleasant decisions or do things that are a little uncomfortable. And it’s a nice phrase to make things feel a little better, but I’ve learned over the years, as both an employee and an employer, that it’s simply not true. There’s nothing in life that is “just business.” Everything we do is personal on some level. Any decision that involves people is by nature personal.
Keeping things personal is one of my biggest jobs as a member of the Chick-fil-A leadership team. As fast and as full as life gets sometimes, it’s tempting to break things down to “just business.” It’s a lot less messy to deal in Excel spreadsheets and categorize employees and customers as numbers. They’re just data. You just need to get XX amount of employees to serve XX amount of customers XX amount of food each day. End of story.
But that’s not true. Those employees aren’t numbers. They’re not just data. They’re moms and dads. They’re college students with dreams. They’re high school kids learning the value of hard work. They’re people just like me with hopes and fears and goals and friends and family. Same with the customers.
The customers are never numbers. They are dads taking their daughters out to dinner on date night at Chick-fil-A. They are moms who need a playground and a healthy meal for kids on the go. They are friends who camp out with me overnight for the grand opening of a new Chick-fil-A.
There are a lot of ways you can keep things personal at your business, but my favorite is to get out from my behind my desk. I like to be behind the counter. I like to serve someone a sandwich or help an employee make a milkshake. I find that dirty hands make it hard to see people as just numbers.
If you’re looking for me on most days, you’ll find me at a Chick-fil-A. Because it’s not just business. It’s not just data.
It’s personal. It’s all personal.
Watcha Clan performs at the Jewish Music Festival
From East Bay Express
Watcha Clan
Sun., July 18, 8 p.m.$23, $25
The final night of this year’s Jewish Music Festival features performances by two groups that stretch the usual definitions of diasporic music (Jewish or otherwise). French “world & bass” group Watcha Clan is dedicated to making music that advocates for nomadic peoples, for whom national boundaries are an inconvenient detail. It’s roots music where the roots intertwine with each other, creating a technologically enhanced vision of a world of unfettered movement. In that context, the idea of a “pure” music, or culture, is an anomaly. Sephardic and Ashkenazi music are integral parts of the mix, brought to the band by vocalist Sistah K (daughter of an Algerian Berber Jewish father and a Lithuanian Jewish mother). Opening the night is the San Francisco-based punk/funk/Balkan/Jewish band Charming Hostess, presenting their own take on diasporic music. Sunday, July 18 at YerbaBuenaCenter for the Arts (701 Mission St., San Francisco). YBCA.org
— Jeffrey Callen
LeBron pulls the plug on Cleveland
from Live Journal
Some may argue that writing about LeBron James’ decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers to play for the Miami Heat is stretching the theme of this blog. His decision will significantly impact the community but do sports belong in the same category as art? An argument could alway be made either way but, since at least World War II, sports stars have been entertainers (and with Vince McMahon’s brilliant creation of sports entertainment the blurry line between sports and entertainment has become almost invisible). And to belabor the point, Charles Barkley rightly stated that he shouldn’t be held up as a role model to other people’s children but he never maintained that he wasn’t an entertainer — Sir Charles knew better. But back to LeBron and Cleveland. Much has been written over the years of the negative impact of cities’ frantic efforts to attract sports franchises and the debts incurred, but this is the first occasion I remember of calculations of the detrimental effect of one athlete moving on. MSNBC estimates that the city will lose $100 million per year (Cleveland’s financial reasons for loving LeBron. Worries downtown renaissance might ebb is Cav’s star free agent leaves). However, the loss goes far beyond economic concerns and, according to Please Don’t Leave 23 (a site dedicated to a campaign to keep No. 23 in Ohio) far beyond the realm of sports:
LeBron James’ impact on Ohio goes far beyond basketball. LeBron will have the option of leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers at the end of the 2009-2010 NBA season. This campaign is dedicated to keeping LeBron James in Cleveland for the betterment of all Ohioans. We believe, if we show LeBron James that his greatest supporters are right here in Ohio, that it will have a significant impact on his decision. Now let’s get to work!!!
Unfortunately they failed but we all saw that coming, didn’t we.
LDN24 — data visualization of a day in the life of London
FIELD, a London-based graphic design studio, has created LDN24, an installation at the Museum of London that “draws filmic impressions and the facts and figures of London life into a picture of 24 hours in the life of the city.” Working in collaboration with the Light Surgeons (Production), FIELD (Data Visualization) has created what it labels an “immersive, interactive experience” — an engaging simulacrum of quotidian life in London. One of the more creative applications of data visualization.
From Nathan Yau on Flowing Data: Facts and figures of London life (nice video clip too).
LDN24
A “REMIXhibition” experiment — online media as social objects
Andrew Dubber of the Interactive Cultures research centre at the Birmingham School of Media at Birmingham City University in the U.K. is inviting bloggers and creative artists to take an image, slogan or sign and respond to it. Based on the idea that people use online media as “social objects” upon which to base online conversation, Dubber is posting photos and video online to spur dialogue. Dubber’s article Fight the Power: The Art of Protest and the Theory of Social Objects is well worth reading for its access to this “remix” experiment, its theoretical exposition and its discussion of the Fight The Power REMIXhibition of Punch Records at the Custard Factory in Birmingham (in the heart of that city’s new arts & media quarter).
The internet is not a broadcast medium – and nor is it a ‘revolutionized’ older medium. It is instead a conversational space – and there are two main categories of object within that space: the conversation, and the things about which the conversation is taking place. By repositioning exhibited works and media artefacts that spring from that exhibition as individual and decontextualised social objects, the aim is to provoke conversation within that space. (to read the rest).
David Byrne reflects on The Architecture of Fear
In his Journal, David Byrne reflects on how the architecture of cities helps shape human interactions. Motivated by the irony of attending a New Urbanism conference in Atlanta, Byrne writes insightfully on planned communities, urban sprawl, the history of urban planning, and the ongoing transformations of the American urban landscape. The Architecture of Fear is well worth reading — check it out.
New patterns of cultural infrastructure: the “creative economy” model
Interesting article from Community Arts Network on new forms of cultural infrastructure that are developing in formerly marginal cultural centers
Something Different Is Stirring: DIY Culture in Silicon Valley
By Tom Borrup
The SoFA District (South First Street in Downtown San Jose) on a Friday night. Photo by Joshua Santos …we can now treat culture not as one big blanket, but as the superimposition of many interwoven threads, each of which is individually addressable and connects different groups of people simultaneously…. In short, we’re seeing a shift from mass culture to massively parallel culture. –Chris Anderson[1]
Many have written on the social impacts of new technologies, globalization, the shift to the knowledge-based or creative economy and DIY or do-it-yourself culture. Various theories have been advanced as to how such change has begun to redefine work, the nature of cities and the role of arts, culture and education, especially with regard to economic growth and sustainability. However, there has been little discussion of how these changes impact the evolution of what we might call the cultural infrastructure – the networks of organizations, facilities and practices that have evolved in both older and newer urban regions.
Richard Florida, best-selling author and creative-economy guru, predicts in his latest book, “The Great Reset,” that radically new ways of living and working will emerge over the next two to three decades – changes that will exceed any of the social and economic paradigm shifts experienced since the mid-1800s. What this portends for the cultural sector as we know it is a question worth examining.
What I’d like to suggest in this article is that the bulk of what we understand to be the formal cultural infrastructure in the U.S. emerged with and was patterned after Industrial Age, or Industrial Economy thinking and models along with a Eurocentric cultural focus. Corporate structures that are hierarchical in form, centralized in their management and monocultural (or monolithic) in their product and/or interpretation reflect the norm. The realities of the emergent creative or knowledge economy, together with globalization and technologies such as the Internet and social media, have begun to suggest a different model. (to read more click here)
Deciphering Culture
Deciphering Culture 