YouTube launches new Art Channel with LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art
In recent social media training, I’ve been throwing around a statistic from Royal Pingdom, informing us that the average U.S. web user (hello, generic person!) manages to chew through 186 videos online every month, or just over six a day. Locally, we’re a little less Google-eyed, averaging 70 videos per month, according to ComScore. In the vague category of “news and information”, the same report ranked the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as the top destination (due in no small part to their iView catchup service), with Yahoo News and News Ltd following suit.
The Show Must Go On – an iPhone Game from The Royal Opera House
I lived in London for six years, and during that time, it seemed that whenever the press needed to highlight negative public perceptions of the arts, it picked on the Royal Opera House. In the main, this is because it’s the biggest, fattest target in the land – by way of example, you might be delighted to hear that their CEO pockets an annual salary of $580,000.
However, the ROH often became an object of mistrust and ridicule due to its fair share of ‘own goals’, most famously (and apologies for trotting this out again) when a former CEO was quoted as saying: “We mustn’t downgrade the Opera House. I don’t want to sit next to somebody with a singlet, smelly shorts and a pair of trainers when I go to the opera. I’m a relaxed guy. I’m not wearing a tie. But there are standards”.
On ‘The Shared Experience’ – or ‘Why technology will revolutionise the way we appreciate art’
We’re a few months into this blog now, and I’ve been meaning to write a manifesto of sorts for some time – hoping to give the blog some context and share the thinking that led to its launch.
Augmented Reality brings unseen art to your mobile
Next month brings another opportunity to witness ‘augmented reality’ art in Sydney. The annual Art Month Festival is bringing us a series of tours from dLux MediaArts and Warren Armstrong, the partnership responsible for the 2011 ‘mobile augmented reality art show’ Unseen Sculptures. Four guided tours of a new augmented reality sculpture trail will be staged throughout the month in Rozelle and Callan Park in Sydney’s Inner West (BYO mobile!).
New Facebook Page for The Shared Experience
As well as reading the blog here on these pages, you can also now follow The Shared Experience on Facebook.
Like our new page at www.facebook.com/thesharedexperience.
Instagr/am/bient – A Soundtrack to Instagram
Did the recent post on Ten Australian Art Companies on Instagram inspire you to get an Instagram account? If not, this might help you on the way.
Sound Artist Robin Fox and the Bionic Ear
Robin Fox has been an artist I’ve long admired, and it’s impossible to talk about the fusion of art and technology in Australia without referencing his work. As an audio-visual performance artist, he has won many international commissions and awards, and as a musician has released many albums and collaborations on a multitude of labels. Most recently, I caught his light show at the opening night of the MONA FOMA festival – indeed, an image from a similar staging in 2011 adorned the cover of the festival brochure.
David Hockney Drawings on iPad and iPhone
Last month marked the North American premiere of David Hockey’s Fresh Flowers exhibition, originally staged in Paris in 2009. Uniquely, Fresh Flowers is made up of 200 of Hockney’s drawings, all made on either iPhone or iPad – drawn by finger, using the Brushes app.
Gamification and the Sydney Festival app
Mid-2011, when The Nest sat down with the team at the Sydney Festival to discuss the options for smartphone activity for the 2012 Festival, we were all agreed that we wanted to add an element of ‘gaming’ into the mix. Whilst some of the buzz around the concept of ‘gamification’ might be a little misplaced, there’s a lot to be said for bringing game-style activities into environments such as the Sydney Festival. After all, we’re all out at the Festival to play and have fun, so it feels like a very natural extension.
Ten Australian arts companies to follow on Instagram
It seems that the photo sharing network Instagram is experiencing a rapid period of growth, with vast numbers of users joining every day. This is particularly interesting given that the social network is essentially limited to iPhones at the current time (although cross-platform versions are on the way).