Those new super-secure UK passports? Not so secure… “…we have just sucked out all the supposedly secure data and biometric information from three new passports and displayed it all on a laptop computer. [The government] are … breaking one of the fundamental principles of encryption by using non-secret information actually published in the passport to […]
Archive for November, 2006
Seeding ideas
Grow your own business card.
Pictures from the future
Siemens has released some ‘pictures from the future’.
Chariots of Ire
Rupert Christiansen ponders the future for the Arts Council.
£75 to visit your local museum
14 Nov 2006 at 19:09
David Haden
Artist(s), Creative industries, Regeneration
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A ‘Renaissance in the Regions’ investment of £40.6 million in nine ‘Hub’ museum-groups has meant an increase in visitors of just 5.3% since 2002-03. Given the post-2001 boom in history programmes on TV, and the surge in interest in family history, it’s a little surprising that the rise in visitors wasn’t higher. But 5.3% is […]
We’re not listening
14 Nov 2006 at 13:43
David Haden
Creative industries, Gaming, Teaching
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We’re not listening: an open letter to academic games researchers. Interesting reading, especially since I’ve been asked to design and deliver a new course on ‘the visual imagination in interactive spaces’.
MyCreativity
14 Nov 2006 at 13:09
David Haden
Artist(s), Creative industries, Teaching
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Just a reminder that the two-day MyCreativity conference on international Creative Industries research is due next weekend, in Amsterdam. It’s the first step to starting a planned “international research network about the creative industries”, although the organisers seem distinctly ‘politically inflected’. They’ve now stopped accepting registrations, but the live archive of mailing-list postings is online, […]
The nerd shortage
The latest PC Pro has a long and detailed article on why the UK isn’t translating ‘heavy computer use in schools’ into nerds who study computer science at age 18+… “Having been drip-fed a [school] syllabus that’s based solely on how to use a computer, students have little understanding of what university-level computer science or […]
State of the Region 2006
12 Nov 2006 at 21:43
David Haden
Birmingham, Creative industries
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A West Midlands State of the Region report has recently been published. It seems to be the usual window-dressing type of report, aimed more at potential inward-investors than at getting at the truth. But I’m blogging it here because Chapter 4 is on “Culture”. After some cursory wrestling, the definition of ‘culture’ is the ultra […]
14,842
D’log had 14,842 unique visits in October 2006.
10 x 8 x $1m
CNN Money reports on the ever-rising levels of investment in the vintage art photography market, and how collectors operate in the photography world.
New photo
(large version, 130kb)
Why did the chicken cross the road? To be photographed by Szarkowski.
12 Nov 2006 at 14:10
David Haden
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The Los Angeles Times has a short phone interview with Szarkowski… So what’s next? “Farm animals, old-fashioned ones,” he says. Dairy herds have disappeared from his rural area, but some new neighbors have brought in an assortment of animals. Nobody sees chickens anymore, except at the supermarket, he says. That’s about to change. If they […]
It’s a wrap
Back in the summer I blogged about how the main Royal Pump Rooms galleries in Leamington Spa had pulled a planned show by artist Neil Moore, on the grounds of nudity in his paintings. Thankfully it seems Leamington is not yet totally devoid of its old radical spirit, and the artist concerned was quickly offered […]
Resistance and Persistence
Just published, albeit at quite a price; a 160-page book that collects together the writings of Sean Scully on painting and the art world; Resistance and Persistence. The Scotsman newspaper has an interview.
A roof of one’s own
Should architects, in the age of Google Earth and its successors, now be making the roof into an identifier for the building?
TV turn off
An interesting conversation with colleagues at work, which shows how small elements of a commute can completely counteract the attractiveness of a town as a place for ‘knowledge workers’ to live. As university lecturers we agreed that we would never live anywhere in the West Midlands that meant we had to commute into work on […]
Dept. of the Obvious
10 Nov 2006 at 19:16
David Haden
Artist(s), Creative industries
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Well, who’d have thought it? Artists do better if there is a local arts hub in their district (Artists’ Centers: Evolution and Impact on Careers, Neighborhoods and Economies — PDF, 9mb), and artists have to undertake several jobs to make ends meet (Crossover: How Artists Build Careers Across Commercial, Nonprofit and Community Work — PDF, […]
Microsoft Photosynth
10 Nov 2006 at 18:13
David Haden
Creative software, Techie, Zeitgeist
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Microsoft Photosynth is available now, as a ‘tech preview’. That means it’s a very early public version, although it looks impressive. A previous D’log post on Photosynth, and link to a video, is here.
Creative Birmingham
10 Nov 2006 at 13:56
David Haden
Birmingham, Creative industries
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Kevin Johnson And Stef Lewandowski respond to a recent Birmingham Post ad hoc survey of how a few UK marketing managers view Birmingham.