With AI’s ability to automatically produce content and process complicated datasets with high accuracy, museums worldwide are exploring ways in which this innovative technology can help them better achieve their missions and advance accessibility efforts. Through case studies, learn about three applications of this technology: content digitalization, language accessibility, and visual description.
October was filled with new debates on AI policies, a halt to one of the most significant AI safety bills in the United States, and a host of new AI developments in video, music, and even podcasts.
Arts and cultural nonprofits often operate in multiple markets for earned and contributed revenue. With increasing attention on data-driven decision making, effective market orientation often depends on effective data use. This fundamental collection, transmission, use, and interpretation of data within an organization collectively contributes to what can be considered an organization’s data culture.
Museums have increasingly begun to volunteer their spaces as polling places, acting as a democratic vehicle for their communities and adding to the greater fabric of America’s election infrastructure. In doing so, they can support local democratic processes and prove to their communities that they are not unbreachable temples for the elite, but open platforms for the people.
As exemplified by the Hollywood strikes of 2023, we find ourselves in a new era of Artificial Intelligence in film and television. While studios are looking to cut costs, performers seek job security, and consumers seek quality content. Through research conducted in collaboration with facial motion capture technology provider Faceware Technologies Inc., Master of Entertainment Industry Management students at Carnegie Mellon sought to gain insight on how AI-generated content will transform existing industries, including how this technology could affect employment in the entertainment industry, content development, budgets, contracts, legislation, and privacy rights.
Whether artificial intelligence, blockchain, extended reality, or other developments, technology is hitting the creative sector from all angles. Regardless of where you sit within your organization, you are likely facing questions on how this emerging technology will impact your work. This year, we will continue to share content that sparks conversation and makes you rethink what is possible.
According to the Western Museum Association, Open Access refers to efforts made by museums to provide high-resolution downloadable images free of charge to maximize the ability of the user to interact with, share, and reuse the images. In 2018, Douglas McCarthy, Collections Engagement Manager at Europeana, and Dr. Andrea Wallace, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Exeter, set out to see how many cultural heritage institutions make their digital collections available for free use, as well as how they do it. The pair created a Google Sheet survey that has listed over 1,200 international institutions, including Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Over one-third of these records name specific Museums. While Open Access encompasses numerous industries, this article focuses Open Access technology and usage in the context of Museums and Artists.
Radio Frequency identification technology (RFID) is nothing new, and many museums are already using it for inventory and security of their pieces. If organizations already have the technology, there are boundless opportunities as to how they can use it to increase efficiency and enhance the visitor’s experience. But how does this new technology work?
Connecting the real and digital worlds, beacons will prove to be excellent pieces not only for marketing and general propaganda about your specific location, but as informational tools in your local museum or performing arts company. Beacons focus on the consumer, the integral part to any organization regardless of industry. So far, beacons are most common in the retail world, but they can easily be transferable into other industries, like the arts. That’s why you’re here today. Beacons could transform your organization, and I’m here to navigate you through this process in an understandable way.
Moving the conversation around public education from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) has long beleaguered arts managers and arts educators alike. Defending the argument for arts programming and arts education can be difficult in the face of shrinking school budgets and a highly competitive grant environment. Particularly in a country that increasingly favors the hard sciences above the humanities, cultural pursuits, and artistic studies. Despite gains at the federal level with the new core arts standards, the STEAM caucus, and the first budget increase for the National Endowment for the Arts in years, it is still easy to feel defeated. The question remains, what can arts leaders and community organizers do at the local level to push the conversation in a positive direction?
