This article explores the intersection of digital art, NFTs, and community governance through the lens of the furry fandom, a decentralized community of artists and enthusiasts. With the rise of NFTs, the ability to authenticate digital art and protect creators' work has become a critical concern. The study examines the resistance within the furry community to adopt NFTs, highlighting their reliance on community-based trust and governance over "trustless" blockchain systems. While some see potential in NFTs to safeguard intellectual property, many furries are skeptical, valuing social trust and ethics over commercialization. By studying the furry subculture's approach to art ownership and the challenges they face, the article poses larger questions about the future of NFTs and blockchain technology in creative spaces.
As technology continues to reshape the arts and entertainment landscape, our readers and listeners have shown a clear appetite for understanding these transformations. From AI's role in creative processes to the evolution of virtual reality and streaming, this year's most popular content reveals the questions on everyone's minds.
This article explores the rise of virtual production (VP) and its impact on contemporary filmmaking through the use of large-scale LED volumes that merge physical sets with real-time digital environments. Using high-profile productions such as The Mandalorian and 1899 as case studies, it examines how VP reshapes creative workflows across departments, redistributes labor rather than eliminating it, and demands new hybrid skill sets from designers, location managers, and technicians. The piece also addresses the role of labor unions and training programs in adapting to emerging technologies, alongside the economic challenges of scalability, access, and high upfront costs. Ultimately, the article positions virtual production as a transformative - yet uneven - evolution in the entertainment industry, emphasizing the need for equitable training and infrastructure as VP becomes a lasting mode of production.
This article explores how extended reality (XR) - including augmented, mixed, and virtual reality - is reshaping acting training by layering immersive technologies onto long-established methods like Stanislavski-based technique and the Method. Drawing on examples from Basrah to Juilliard and Odin Teatret, the piece shows how XR can deepen character work, expand dramaturgical research, and personalize feedback through data-driven simulations. At the same time, it raises urgent legal, ethical, and social questions around biometric data, FERPA and HIPAA protections, digital Blackface, and harassment in virtual spaces. Rather than treating XR as a magic solution, the article argues that thoughtful pedagogy, clear institutional policies, and equity-minded design are essential if these tools are to support - not replace - human-centered theatre education.
This article analyzes Ireland’s emerging position as a global cultural policy case study, focusing on the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) program and its place within the national framework Culture 2025. While Ireland’s consensus-driven political system, strong arts advocacy networks, and history of support for artist income have enabled an ambitious, research-oriented basic income pilot, the article highlights deeper tensions within cultural policymaking. Drawing on Stephen Hadley’s concept of “cultural policy realism,” it argues that Ireland’s policies—despite their novelty—remain rooted in traditional, instrumentalist views of culture as an economic engine and national branding tool. By contrasting democratization of culture with cultural democracy, the piece situates Ireland’s model between innovation and reversion, emphasizing the need for sustained experimentation, critical evaluation, and more genuinely democratic approaches to cultural support.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) has teamed up with Sydney digital media company Mod Productions to produce a new interactive “virtual orchestra” that is breaking down audience barriers in the music world. The resulting audio-visual installation, “ACO Virtual,” has created the means to bring the Orchestra outside the concert hall and into spaces where the ACO may not perform.
Last month, I introduced the Berlin Philharmonics’ Digital Concert Hall as a best-practice example of creating online audiences by a symphony orchestra. Indeed, we can find orchestras worldwide reaching out for audiences beyond the walls of a traditional concert hall. So let us inspect three of these orchestras—the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia Orchestra (UK)—and have a closer look at some of the tools they use, how these tools are being implemented, and the resulting opportunities they create.
Last month I gave a general overview of the wide variety of services that fall under the umbrella of “the cloud.” Since then I’ve focused on Infrastructure as a Service, or IaaS, one of the three major cloud subcategories and a topic that can be rather intimidating, due to the plethora of technical specifications providers use to distinguish themselves from the competition. Looming larger than the question of which specific provider to use—a topic well-covered by many expert reviewers—is the question of whether undertaking a transition from a more traditional server infrastructure to an IaaS model is a good idea for arts organizations, especially when it comes to small organizations with limited resources.
Using data to design marketing campaigns is great. Using data as an accountability tool to report back to our funders is also great. Even if we’re not leveraging it to its full potential, most of us would agree on the last two statements. It’s when we start talking about incorporating data-driven-decision making to our programming that things start to get complicated.
San Francisco Opera's (SFO) general director David Gockley came to the company in 2006, bringing with him the legacy of free "plazacasts" that he had done at the Houston Grand Opera, his former home. During his first year at the San Francisco Opera, 8,000 people turned up at Civic Center Plaza near the Opera’s home at War Memorial Opera House to watch a simulcast of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. However, Gockley was concerned that there was no method of tracking the conversion of simulcast attendees to ticket buyers, so at the suggestion of a staff member, the simulcasts were moved to the AT&T ballpark.
In 2012, NTEN partnered with Idealware to gauge the use of data by nonprofit organizations. Among arts organizations, only 26% reported that their decision-making processes are generally informed by data. What metrics are relevant for each department to make smart business decisions, whether they be about marketing or ticketing or development? How does an arts organization decide what metrics to use and why?
Harvard Business Review found that 43% of companies that use (or are planning to use) social media believe they are using it ineffectively. Do those companies think social media is a passing fad? Or, do they just not know what to do with it? When implementing a social media plan, several questions arise: Who will update it? When will they update it? How will we keep track of our company’s reputation on a medium that never sleeps?
Susie has just accepted a job at an arts organization that she has always admired. But on her first day of work, Susie notices that things seem a little off. She is already trained to use their CRM system, a major reason she was hired, but many of the features that distinguish this system are not being utilized at all. Moreover, she realizes that many constituents have multiple accounts within the system, limiting the CRM system’s ability to integrate in the first place. How can Susie change the technological behavior of the organization she now finds herself in, let alone that of her boss, so that it operates more efficiently and is better able to carry out its mission?
According to a recent report from the Consumer Electronics Association, a stunning 96% of U.S. adults use cloud services. However 36% of those surveyed couldn’t define the cloud, and only 19% said they “know a lot about the cloud.” Cloud computing has become quietly ubiquitous, and almost everyone has daily interaction with cloud services, even if they don’t know it, in the form of social networks, webmail, and content providers such as Netflix and iTunes.
As a frequent concertgoer and prospective arts manager, I am intrigued by the question of how to create online audiences for symphony orchestras. What does it mean to create such an audience? And moreover, how does an online audience for an orchestra differ from the audience that comes to the concert hall? Or does it?
Just when we thought photos was the new rage in social media, video steps into the mix. I’m not talking about the typical YouTube video providing “how to’s”, news clips, music, or hilarious propaganda, I’m talking about the 30 to 15-second video applications now available through Instagram and Vine. I’m a huge photo sharer on Instagram, especially when I’m attending a cultural event; I love sending photos to my followers from my seat before a performance begins. Video, however, is becoming more and more prominent in our everyday social media lives. What does this mean for the arts?
To tweet seat or not to tweet seat; that’s the question on everyone’s mind. After a rather engaging conversation at the Theatre Communications Group Annual conference in Dallas, I went home thinking about the pros and cons of new technology and how it can be used to engage today’s audience. If our audiences are evolving, why are we still connecting with them in the same manner as the previous generation of administrators?
Mapping and networks feel modern and hip. In today's increasingly connected world, we assume that social networks are real-time, technologically relevant, but networks of influence far precede our internet-focused era. Significantly, mapping networks offers an understanding of how ideas travel. Visual and performing art historians, professional dramaturgs and curators all know that mapping people, objects, or ideas across time and space can broaden an understanding of an art piece or process. Administrators can also benefit from studying networks.
Last week's Theatre Communications Group conference presented a changing perspective on audience engagement that uses technology. Tweet Seats are definitely on the outs. This 2 post series, however, focuses on the more immersive experience with two organization's successfully engaging their audiences. Their audiences must engage in some if not multiple forms of technology to partake in the theatrical story itself. The two organizations are Dog and Pony DC based in Washington DC and Rude Mechanicals based in Austin. Both use technology before, during and after the show. Dog and Pony DC's company member, Colin K. Bills, presented as part of a panel led by David J. Loehr of twitter handle @2amt (and 2amtheatre.com).
I don't know if you know but Technology in the Arts has a Twitter account - it's true! And @TechInTheArts has reached its goal of 10,000 Twitter followers! Huzzah! Break out the champagne! We're going to dance all night, such an achievement has never been reached by mankind before!* Unless, of course, 10,000 is an arbitrary number that just seems important. Sure, it's a milestone, but what does that really mean for an organization? What does that mean for Technology in the Arts?
So far in this series, we've examined some of the strategies that non-arts nonprofits are using to engage and promote participation among their constituents, as well as their implications for success in the arts. To wrap up, we'll look at Charity: water, a nonprofit that aims to bring clean and safe drinking water to the 800 million people in developing nations who do not have access to it yet. Charity: water operates with a distinctive funding model: 100 percent of public contributions are used to directly fund mission-based projects, while operating costs are funded by other sources such as foundations and private donors.
