Ten Best Arts and Culture Blogs

May 31st, 2010

While you smarter arts and culture bloggers may choose to stick to Arts Research Digest, our ethos of knowledge sharing and partnership working means we like to spread the love around. So here are ten other arts and culture blogs we like to look at.

Click through and let us know your preference!

1. Their main site might be famous for innovative twists on cultural and economic research, but follow the Mission Models Money blog to see what cultural doings those researchers get up to after closing time at the library…

2. For innovative thinking, research and experimentation both within the arts and cultural sector and broader socio-economic questions, the TED prize is a constant eye-opener. Prize winners are listed on the home page, while the TED blog followers likely candidates.

3. From social policy to molecular biology – everything the big brains are thinking is pulsing onto the internet in micro beats from the Intute blog.

4. Vizthink is packed with innovations from “visual thinkers” around the globe – from the Eyewriter to animated data. For more visual data sites check out the Arts Research Digest blog post “Ten Best Visual Data Sites“.

5. The video game industry is sector-leading in its exploitation of online resources, interactivity, and new business models. Trust the bloggers at Educational Games Research to give you the inside line and sound information about the latest developments from the smart side of gaming.

6. Clear, clean and uncrowded Canada’s Arts Alliance Blog sets a high standard for listings, events and information sharing for the arts and cultural sector online.

7. Manchester goes it alone on the Creative Tourist blog - showcasing artists’ work, local events and even a ‘top twenty-five’ rundown of their favourite listings blogs.

8. Art in Liverpool offers fair competition with a similar mix of artworks, commentaries, listings and  reviews.

9. The New York Times’ ‘Culture and the Arts’ blog keeps up with leading figures, events and news stories relating to the sector nationally and globally. It’s homepage ‘blogroll’ gives a useful list of other sector-leading blogs.

10. Giving the national picture through a fish-eye lens on London, Will Gompertz blogs for the BBC on the capital’s big arts and culture news.

Audience Participation – The Standards of the Circus?

May 17th, 2010

Has the emphasis on audience participation in our galleries and museums replaced aesthetic experience and philosophical enquiry with “fun and explosions”?

Has the Tate Modern been a “spectacular success” in terms of audience participation, but “a disaster in terms of culture and meaning”?

Have we come to judge exhibitions by their “ability to keep [our] kids happy”?

Is curatorship, as a result, now moderated by the “standards of the circus”?

According to Waldemar Januszczak’s article in this week’s Sunday Times, arts participation has gone too far.

Does he have a point? Give us your view here!