Day two of MW2008 began at 8 am this morning, with the ‘Birds of a Feather’ breakfast. Our self-created table ‘Enhanced Museum Events’ inspired an interesting dialogue with Jonathan Bowen, who is presenting Wiki Software and Facilities for Museums in the midday session. Before that, I visited talks about Web 2.0 Metrics by the ever enthusing Seb Chan, and Web 2.0 tools by David Greenfield from the Loyola Marymount Universit.

The afternoon schedule brings a much anticipated and needed discussion on openness, by ’solutions architect’ Mike Ellis and Brian Kelly. Hopefully there will be time for lunch and more in-between-the-lines-discussions about the Semantic Web, public-private-ventures and enhancing actual museum visits by means of ultranew media.

Due to rather unfortunate circumstances I have not been able to send in my paper to MW2008; however the organisation has been kind enough to give us a slot at the demonstrations on Saturday. If you are interested to hear about the Amsterdam Museum Night, physical museum events and interactive media, social networking in the context of a museum festival and other ‘interreality’ examples, join us tomorrow at 9.30 am at booth 16.

Art-loving parents around the US are encouraging their children to build their own art collections. Here’s a peek at the artworks owned by 9-year-old Dakota King from Portland (Photo: Michael Rubenstein)

Encouraged by wealthy, art-loving parents, children are collecting Warhols and even Rembrandts. A few grade-schoolers are even loaning works to major museums, including Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, a coup for a collector of any age. Kelly Crow on their kid-centered tastes, ‘art allowances’ and why auction paddles aren’t toys.

Read full article (The Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2007)

The new head of the Science Museum has an uncompromising view about how global warming should be dealt with: get rid of a few billion people. Chris Rapley, who takes up his post on September 1, is not afraid of offending. ‘I am not advocating genocide,’ said Rapley. ‘What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate - by improving contraception, education and healthcare - we will stop the world’s population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion.

‘That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into the atmosphere because there will be fewer people to drive cars and use electricity. The crucial point is that to achieve this goal you would only have to spend a fraction of the money that will be needed to bring about technological fixes, new nuclear power plants or renewable energy plants. However, everyone has decided, quietly, to ignore the issue.’

Such arguments give an indication of the priorities of the new Science Museum chief, an office that has been vacant since 2005 when Lindsay Sharp abruptly left the £150,000 post following rows about financial waste, cronyism and the ‘Disneyfication’ of exhibitions.

Read full article (Observer, July 22, 2007)

Tate has set ambitious targets to increase its ethnic minority visitors by 2010, The Art Newspaper can disclose. In 2006-7, Tate Britain had 49,000 Black and Ethnic Minority visitors (3%), and it hopes to increase this to 5%. Tate Modern had 200,000 ethnic minority visitors (4%), and it too is aiming for a 2% rise.Using MORI researchers who interview a sample of visitors, Tate monitors individual UK residents aged 17 and over, so the figures exclude children, school groups and foreign tourists. Nationwide, the proportion of the UK population from ethnic minorities is 9%, although the concentration in Greater London is larger.

Last month a Tate spokesperson explained: “It is our ambition to improve the number of Black and Minority Ethnic visitors and we are working on a strategy.” In the current funding agreement with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Tate’s Diversity Strategy is described as a “key priority”, although no statistical targets are set.

Read full article (Art Newspaper, July 12, 2007)
Tate Online