Wiki what?

Wiki is a new term for me, and the following article was very helpful in providing insight to one of many mysterious internet terms: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71733-0.html?tw=wn_culture_3

If you, too, have not yet decoded this and other internet terms, join us in Pittsburgh this Fall! Erika Block will present the session, "Demystifying Technology Buzz Words", on Saturday, October 21 at 4PM on the Carnegie Mellon University campus.

Please continue to visit our Web site, www.TechnologyInTheArts.org to view the updated schedule of events and speakers.

Pittsburgh in Top 25 Brainy Cities List...

Pittsburgh recently ranked 19th on a list of smart cities based on the percentage of its population age 25 and up with bachelor's degrees or higher. CNN.com featured a column today citing the recent U.S. Census Bureau rankings, released this month.

Read the full article.

Call us "blue collar" all you like, but this city has brains to go with its brawn.

Tessitura to exhibit at Technology in the Arts

Thank you Tessitura Software for reserving a table in the Exhibitor's Fair. Tessitura offers a variety of services and software specifically tailored to the needs of performing arts organizations. Please visit their website or better yet, visit them in person October 20-21 at Technology in the Arts! We still have room available for organizations and business to showcase products and services. If you have a product you want to share, go to the Exhibitor section of the Web site or contact us for more information.

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Starting a Podcast, Part 1

During the conference, I will be strategically located at a table or booth with a laptop and a couple microphones. If you're attending the conference, I may just grab you for a 10-15 minute interview. I plan to then offer up a series of 20-30 minute podcasts in the weeks following the conference. I will also be documenting the development of the podcast on this blog site as a basic guide for arts organizations interested in using the technology for further engaging their audiences.

To find the best podcasting software and hardware to meet my needs, I decided to do some online research. By Googling terms like "podcast," "podcast software," "podcast hardware," and "podcast microphones," I was able to find countless product reviews and general podcast articles.

What most people don't realize is that an individual with a decent computer can start a podcast for next to nothing, because most of the best software is open source (aka free) and a basic laptop or desktop microphone will serve a lone podcaster with no real audio quality demands.

For the TitA podcast, I decided to go with Audacity, a free podcast recording and mixing software. Audacity lets you record multiple tracks and then overlap them creatively. In order to convert the audio files recorded with Audacity to podcast-ready MP3 files, you will need to set up LAME MP3 according to these instructions.

Once you have Audacity with the LAME MP3 encoder properly installed and configured, you will be ready to record your first "podcast." I use the term podcast loosely here, because an effective podcast requires planning. Click below for my first test podcast, for which I broke my own rule and refused to plan. This is simply to prove that podcasting can be extremely cheap.

Click to hear me rambling while a presumably deceased man sings the blues in the background.

If this were a real podcast, I wouldn't simply link to it; I would also submit it as an RSS (see my recent post about RSS feeds) so people could subscribe. But I'll discuss that process in a later edition of my podcast blog series.

Because I want to set up my podcast area at the conference in an interview-friendly fashion, I decided to go with an external mixer and two standard microphones. The mixer and mic setup will provide higher sound quality and the ability to adjust interviewer/interviewee levels on the fly. Based on affordability and favorable online reviews, I opted for the Behringer UB802 mixer and two Shure PG48 microphones.

Mood Affecting Artwork

This article, details how computer scientists from the U.S. and Britain have created an artwork whose palette will correspond to facial cues of an observer.

Oddly enough, the painting will turn somber when a frown is perceived or become playful when smiles are observed. I think they got it backwards; they should have made gruesome scenes when a face is observed to happy and vice versa... Just to keep the observers on the edge. Plus, do we always have to reinforce that happy is red and yellow, and sadness is blue and purple?

What I am waiting for is the ultimate marketing gimmick: the painting that changes all the time until it picks up on a smile, upon which time it stays stagnant. That way- the painting will be individually pleasant to everyone.

Music on the Brain...

I read a great article on Wired.com today about a new book by neuroscientist Daniel Levitin called This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. The book discusses our neurological reaction to music and examines why humans have loved music since cavemen were banging stones together. (Okay, I'm just assuming cavemen banged stones together for musical entertainment... that's not necessarily scientific fact.)

Read the full WIRED article.

What a Line-Up!

CAMT is honored to have two very engaging and accomplished keynote speakers scheduled for the Technology in the Arts Conference. Faith Ringgold is a celebrated African-American artist and author whose work is featured in the permanent collections of some of the world's foremost museums, including the Guggenheim and the Met. Read more about Ms. Ringgold on her personal Web site.

Donald Marinelli is a professor with Carnegie Mellon's drama department and a major proponent of the linkage of technology and the arts. Read more about Mr. Marinelli on CMU's Entertainment Technology Center staff page.

Visit Artsplash at the Exhibitors Fair!

A huge "thank you" goes out to the folks at Artsplash for reserving a table at Technology in the Arts. Artsplash is a web-based curriculum tool for teachers and students supported by the Graduate School of Education at Portland State. Please take a minute to browse their excellent Web site!

Let us not forget the artists...

As we concentrate on the many ways arts managers are using technology innovatively, we should not ignore the fact that artists are also taking advantage of technology. A recent 'Wired' article features the Edgetone Music Summit, a four-day San Fransisco Bay event dedicated to experimental sound.

This might be my inner old man talking, but I'm wondering if a lot of technology-based "music" isn't just noise.

Read the full 'Wired' article.

What is the cost of saving art?

In 2001, the Taliban destroyed two 1,500 year old stone Buddhas in Bamiyan. Five years later, UNESCO is proposing to rebuild the statues at an estimated cost of $30 million each. In case you are not familiar with this story, you can read more in an article featured in the Washington Post earlier this week. Several thoughts and emotions ran through my mind as I read this article. First and foremost, I was disgusted at the violent destruction that took place in the Bamiyan valley. It is beyond my comprehension to understand how humans can completely disregard the sanctity of a site and crush the culture and religion of a group of people. But there are far worse crimes against humanity happening all over the world, and so I continued to search for more articles on the stone statues.

My disgust quickly turned to despair. There are two sides to every story, and Mullah Mohammed Omar, then leader of the Taliban, has his own reasons for destroying the statues. He claims to have ordered the destruction of the statues after he was refused foreign aid for food and medical attention. Instead, money was offered solely for the conservation of the statues. You can read more about the Taliban side in an article posted by the Asia Society on Asia Source.

We may never know or understand why the statues were destroyed, however I think the bigger issue is figuring out where the people of Afghanistan go from here. I wonder if spending $30 million dollars to try to put the pieces of a statue back together is the smartest and most favorable decision. My opinion is that the money would be better spent on food, agricultural tools and medical facilities. Rather than funnel millions of dollars into the preservation of an object, why not prepare the people of the Bamiyan valley for a more stable future? I understand the need to preserve art, particularly that which reflects cultures long gone. At this point, however, the residents in the Bamiyan valley are also on the verge of disappearing. And I think preserving their lives is more important than putting back the pieces of a statue.

Music Video for Net Neutrality

Do your part to spread the word about net neutrality! Visit www.wearetheweb.org.

Guess What Else is Turning TEN!

Flash is turning ten, just like CAMT! Flash is an animation and graphics software product used to create movies and animation for web pages. Flash can be used to create advertisements, games, or other eye-catching elements to make a web page more interactive.

Originally Flash was developed by Macromedia, but was acquired by Adobe in 2005.

Read the article here from wired.com, or visit Adobe's microsite commemorating Flash's tenth birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

Thank you, Pair Networks and N-TEN

I am pleased to announce that Pair Networks has joined the PA Council of the Arts as a sponsor of Technology in the Arts, and that N-TEN will have a table at the conference.

Pair Networks is a Web hosting firm based in Pittsburgh that houses thousands of Web sites from all over the world. We are delighted to be included amongst the prestigious Web sites and organizations sponsored by Pair.

N-TEN is a service organization for the non-profit technology field. In addition to their fabulous annual conference, they offer seminars, webinars, online affinity groups and more. Another N-TEN connection with Technology in the Arts: executive director Katrin Verclas will be speaking at the conference on Beth Kanter’s panel about IT resources for small non-profit arts organizations.

We are very appreciative of the generous support of these organizations. Thank you.

Diary of a Server Move

As many of you know, CAMT moved most of its servers and upgraded systems over the weekend to provide a more sustainable network. We strive to offer our partner organizations nearly 100 percent uptime, and co-locating our servers so our hosted sites are accessible in the event of a power failure is a major step towards achieving that goal. The following is my log of the day's events:

7:05 AM - Guillermo and I arrive at the CAMT offices on the campus of Carnegie Mellon. It is one of those beautiful Saturdays that are rare to Western Pennsylvania... no rain, no humidity, blue skies. You know, perfect weather for sitting inside and staring at computer screens all day.

Melody was at the office until 8:30 PM last night, and she came in at 4:30 this morning to get a head start. She looks cranky. She needs coffee.

7:30 AM - The CMU IT reps show up to move our servers. This process is complicated by the fact that Melody has to set up a router in our office and make sure the servers communicate with us once they're in their new home. Otherwise, the servers would have to be assigned new IP addresses, which would mean days or weeks of downtime for our clients.

8:00 AM - There is still no coffee. Somehow, I had expected it to magically appear, but it doesn't look as though that's going to happen.

"Gosh, in the four hours that you've been here already this morning, I would have thought you could at least get some coffee," I joke with Melody. She is not amused. I head to Starbuck's to feed the corporate monster and our caffeine addictions.

8:45 AM - Everyone's computers are able to connect to the network but mine. I complain to Melody and Guillermo that I'd really like to read celebrity gossip Web sites while I drink my coffee and eat my donut. My cries fall on deaf ears... or maybe they're just ignoring me.

9:10 AM - As is to be expected of all technology endeavors, there are a few snags. We run afoul of several of Murphy's Laws, and the servers are hiding from us. If I had a time machine, I would travel back in time and smack Murphy. Unfortunately, the building of the official CAMT time machine has been postponed until after the server move.

Melody and Guillermo are talking about Spanky, Alfalfa, Pickle and Porky. I think they've lost their minds, but it turns out that these are the nicknames for some of our servers.

9:30 AM - I still cannot connect to the Internet. Melody informs me that I am not today's top priority. I am simply flabbergasted.

10:15 AM - My computer is finally connecting to the Internet! Paris Hilton is up to no good, as usual.

11:30 AM - Guillermo is configuring DNS settings for our servers. For those who don't know, DNS is short for Domain Name Server/System/Service. DNS translates domain names into IP addresses and vice-versa. While everyone is most familiar with URLs like www.google.com and www.yahoo.com, these domain names are all associated with IP addresses, such as 198.105.232.4.

Noon - When routers attack! We experienced a brief moment of panic when the router at CAMT and the router at the new server location were refusing to communicate. I quell everyone's panic by blowing bubbles. This is the extent of my contribution thus far, but let us not downplay the importance of bubbles during a crisis.

Pretty bubbles ease the stress.

12:45 PM - Eureka! It seems that one tiny, miniscule setting was incorrect, and it was the root of all our problems. I blow more bubbles, but the novelty is beginning to wear off.

Note to self: Do not blow bubbles directly into the eyes of the systems administrator.

Fortunately, we were able to correct the routing issue quickly, but it's often the case with technology projects that the smallest mistakes cause hours of agony.

1:20 PM - Once again, my expertise pays off in a big way; I am the only one equipped to handle the intricacies of our lunch order. Very important - Guillermo does not want mayo. If this step of the server move is botched, we could lose precious time waiting for him to scrape his bun clean.

Guillermo hates mayo. Is this absolutely clear?

While we wait on our lunch delivery, Melody and Guillermo settle in to spend the next hour or two configuring our new routers to allow the appropriate traffic into and out of our network, while blocking unauthorized access.

2:00 PM - Uh oh! The entire Carnegie Mellon network is down because of a water leak at the institution's Internet Service provider. Unless it comes back up soon, we will have no way to test our settings and changes.

3:00 PM - Just in the nick of time, the CMU network is back up and Melody and Guillermo have finished modifying the router settings. We have started our testing of client sites, and it appears that everything is up and running.

It was a long and hectic day, but we learned a little about ourselves, a lot about each other and nothing about dinosaurs or hydrogen fuel cells.

My Computer is My Best Friend

An article, reporting on a survey by the woman friendly Oxygen network, shows some very interesting and long overdue trends with woman and technology. ”Diamonds are no longer a girl's best friend, according to a new U.S. study that found three of four women would prefer a new plasma TV to a diamond necklace.” More and more women are buying and using technology. Read the article here.

Although I must question if owning a technological device is the same as understanding how to utilize the device and how the device works. Using a computer to write email and to surf the Internet is very different then writing code or designing web pages.

Even though a plasma screen TV is tempting, I think I would pick the diamond necklace. I have to think about the long-term benefits. While the plasma TV is more entertaining, it will almost worthless in twenty years. Technology advances so fast that my new plasma TV will soon be ancient technology. On the other hand, the diamond necklace will not wear out and retain its value for years. Unless, they find a cheap way to mass-produce diamonds, which is possibility, again the endless technological advances.

Arts and culture boosting local economy

Lately there seems to be an abundance of attention focused on the impact of arts and culture on local economy. I thought I would share a couple of articles I found on the Cultural Commons Web site: Think tank promotes arts as an economic draw Detroit Free Press, 7/23/2006

Creativity seen as economic key Toronto Star, 7/25/2006

This is a trend I saw in a couple of Texas cities. In 2003, the city of Dallas announced plans for the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, an amazing collection of venues in the Arts District of downtown Dallas. Indeed 2003 was a great year for Dallas as it also marked the opening of the Latino Cultural Center and the Nasher Sculpture Center.

The sleepy town of Marfa in West Texas credits its economic revival through arts to Donald Judd. You can read more about it on TravelandLeisure.com.

Finally, I must mention Austin, my favorite city to visit in Texas. Earlier this year, the Blanton Museum of Art celebrated the grand opening of its new building with an incredible attendance of 13,000 people. Thousands of visitors also flock to the capital city every spring for South by Southwest (SXSW), an annual film and music festival in its thirteenth year. If you are looking for something off the beaten path and have some vacation time, I highly recommend visiting any of these cities.

Interpreting Culture, part 1

When I think about the skills required to “read” artistic messages I always go back to the late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of “cultural capital.” Bourdieu’s notion is essentially that in the marketplace of identity, individuals build up a kind of capital that enables them to be understood by and communicate with other members of their “class." His long-term qualitative and quantitative study of the French has led him to several conclusions around this idea, especially as it relates to education and parents’ vocation as a predictor of cultural capital. Bourdieu holds that all cultural taste results from “the unintentional learning made possible by a disposition acquired through domestic or scholastic inculcation of legitimate culture.” In other words, “legitimate culture” or “high art” can only be taught and conveyed through proper socialization. Bourdieu’s idea is in line with empirical studies like Richard Orend’s 1989 study for the NEA that draws statistical correlations between arts attendance and socialization in the arts.

Bourdieu argues that as cultural taste develops, viewers become increasingly able to digest abstract ideas and symbols. An individual who has high “cultural capital” will not only be able to interpret and understand the kinds of artifacts and experiences available through the mediation of cultural institutions but will also enjoy them more. Again, Bourdieu: “The generalizing tendency is inscribed in the very principle of the disposition to recognize legitimate works, a propensity and capacity to recognize their legitimacy and perceive them as worthy of admiration in themselves.”

In the Knowledge Age, the relationship between production and consumption is shifting. Ease of communication has broken down barriers such that two folks in an Indiana can start a business, be in touch with a manufacturing plant in Guangzhou, China, and then have their products delivered directly to clients in Berlin, Germany.

As production of consumer goods becomes increasingly decentralized, so, too is the production of cultural goods. How do we determine what, in Bourdieu’s terminology, is “legitimate” and what’s not? What is the role of cultural institutions in creating these distinctions? How do we maintain our relevance in the face of relativity?

What exactly is RSS?

Often when people talk about RSS, others simply nod knowingly but have no real idea what they're nodding about. I've discovered that a great deal of people are lost when it comes to RSS and how the technology works. It's actually quite simple (and very cool), so I thought I'd break down the barrier by providing some info and a few helpful links. RSS - or Rich Site Summary - is an easy way to distribute news and other content on the Web.

For instance, if you have eight blogs and three news sites you follow regularly, you can download an aggregator to follow all your favorite content from one convenient digital location.

Getting started:

1. Download a news aggregator. Most are free, and here is the one I use and like for its simplicity.

2. Visit your favorite blogs and/or news sites and find their RSS addresses. For instance, here is CNN's RSS page.

3. Subscribe to the RSS URL by following the instructions provided by your aggregator.

Here is a very helpful page with a nice overview of RSS and aggregators.

You can use the Technology in the Arts blog RSS URL to test yourself. The URL is: "http://technologyinthearts.org/?feed=rss2." Copy the link and subscribe to our blog using your new RSS reader.

PDA Gambling in Vegas

Here is another way for-profits are cashing in on creative uses of technology. Read this article posted on wired.com about how The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas plans to implement handheld devices for gambling anywhere. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71466-0.html?tw=wn_culture_6

Hexagram

I came across Hexagram while searching for arts and technology related material. Lucky them, they just won a fat grant from their mother state. Hexagram reaps rewards and recognition

Check out some of their projects. Hmmmm... Maybe they would be interested in presenting a session on technology based art???