U.S. TV Abandon The Arts
Arts and culture coverage on the three major U.S. TV networks has shrunk from an annual 521 minutes a decade ago to 319 minutes, according to a National Arts Journalism Program study. But that's only if you include mainstream music, films and TV programs as arts; the other visual and performing arts were virtually ignored. The report also noted the ubiquity of nostalgia newscasts "with obituaries providing a steady diet of past artistic accomplishments."
From Arts Wire Current
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Separate But Not Equal
Culture-jamming cyber art clashes with conservative museum culture in the Tate Gallery's first online art commission: the aptly named "Uncomfortable Proximity" by Harwood@Mongrel. The work mimics the Tate Web site, but with satiric, class-based readings of this expansion-minded institution's history and collections. After much intra-museum controversy about whether the work would be placed prominently enough to confuse visitors a la other recent parody sites, "Uncomfortable Proximity" now resides in its own, relatively safe Web-art portion of the museum's site and remains up through June 2001. You decide whether the museum is opening debate or neutralizing criticism. From Newsgrist - where spin is art
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White Wash?
Austrian right-winger Jörg Haider has ordered the removal of propagandistic, Nazi-era frescoes which decorate the walls of parliament in Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinithia, the southern Austrian province where he is governor. (The mural of jubilant Nazis annexing Austria will be restored and transferred to a provincial museum.) Change of heart or publicity stunt? From Guardian Unlimited
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Beauty And The Beast
For "The Bomb Project," Joy Garnett dazzles viewers with declassified images of atomic tests. They range from views of gorgeous mushroom clouds to grisly pix of nuked dogs and remind us, yet again, of the precariousness of après-Cold War life. The sociopolitical context and meanings of these visions, however, remain to be explored in this work in progress. From The Bomb Project
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Post(ing) Office
It's axiomatic that old media never die, although in McLuhanesque fashion they sometimes assume new forms and uses. Deadletters.com publishes a sometimes fascinating amalgam of everything from returned literary manuscripts to one-sided corporate correspondence; a passionate series of letters to Amazon.com and an epistle about a severed head stand out. Postmaster Patti Lyle Collins wants us all to celebrate the rejected writer within. From Dead Letters
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The Good Life
You're never too old to learn — or to enjoy the financial benefits of a student ID card. Mejor Vida Corporation, a Mexico City-based site that offers free "premiums" and "products," wants you to have one. By sending your picture via snail mail, you can obtain an official ID card signed, according to MVC-ers "by Carmen Macazaga Valencia, the University Extension Coordinator, who was elected to this charge by searching for the M.V.Corp. initials in the Mexico City's White Pages." From Mejor Vida Corporation
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Muzzle Mania
A slim majority of Americans favor restricting public speech offensive to racial or religious groups, curtailing potentially offensive public art, allowing prayer at school-sponsored events and posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms. The bad news for free speech and church-state separation advocates was announced by the First Amendment Center, which annually conducts a "State of the First Amendment" survey. From Freedom Forum
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AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE
MEDIA.
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