State of the blogosphere

Look. I'm old, okay? I'm old and I still haven't really figured out tumblr (because I can't search the damn thing from google) and I like Instagram because it's elegant and specific (i.e. lets me lazily like goodlooking photos) and I'm sad about what feels like the demise of Twitter (because my stream is full of advertising and people policing other people's supposed crimes against humanity) and I'm still keeping the hell away from Snapchat (since meeting my first real life person who sends dick pics - though not to me) and I miss the days when people (including me) blogged. Yup. I'm old.

So it's in that context that I really enjoyed this piece by Robinson Meyer on the release of Medium's* new features:

Medium’s new product bets that there’s some juice left in the old voice-driven web. It’s a testament to how much the Internet has changed that I can’t tell if that’s a solid tactic or middle-aged nostalgia.

And in the same context that I've been delighted over the last few months to see Matt Webb's Interconnected popping back up in my feedreader (yet another thing that underlines the I'm old refrain).

*Yeah. I don't fully understand Medium either, but at least this article made me feel better about that.

Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

I have vastly enjoyed our summer project to write entries for New Zealand craft artists on Wikipedia. In addition to getting over the beginner's hurdle with the site itself, and learning a tremendous amount about this facet of New Zealand's art history, I've been able to geek out on research and use all those semi-dormant art history skills I painstakingly gathered (and paid for) at uni.

But most of all I've found satisfaction in just being able to make things. For example, creating entries for New Vision Gallery and Barry Lett Galleries. At the start of the day these galleries - which were really important to how art developed in New Zealand in the second half of the 20th century - only existed in a scattered way on the internet. And then at the end of the day, I'd been able to sew that all together into a coherent - not complete, but at least findable and usable - narrative.

With the passion of the converted, I now of course want to spread the love. As part of this, on Saturday 7 March The Dowse is taking part in the international Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon events. We're hosting a free all-day event that starts with a crash course for brand new editors, and then moves into an afternoon of communal editing.

While the focus is on improving the information available about New Zealand women artists on the site (here's a list of artists who don't currently have page, or only have the most minimal of entries), we welcome anyone who wants to learn to edit on any topic, or who'd like to share their skills, or even just hang out.

We're taking RSVPs to help us plan, so if you're interested, all the info you need is up on our website.

On the radio

Today on the radio I'll be talking about artists getting agents as an intro to Billy Apple's forthcoming survey at Auckland Art Gallery.

UPDATE: We ran out of time to talk museums trends, so we'll save that for March.

Around the web

Clearing some tabs this afternoon ....

I am utterly in love with the architectural renders for Ellsworth Kelly's proposed 'chapel' for the Blanton Museum of Art (not to mention the notion that the various great modernist chapels around the States might end up in a transcendence-off). Who would make a great NZ chapel? You've got to say Kate Newby, I think - a outdoors structure strung with bells and windchimes, with careful, meditative placements of sticks and stones about the place.

NPR has been experimenting with what makes for shareable audio, and have struck on four archetypes - some crunchy ideas their for our embryonic podcast at The Dowse.

What if Kanye had never interrupted T-Swift? 

On the radio

On the radio today I'm going to be talking about the Menagerie exhibition at ACCA (until 1 March) and Immune and Implicated at Michael Lett Gallery (until 28 February).

Clearance

The returning ritual: unpack, throw on washing, re-stock fridge, clear the compost of the feedreader ...

Tyler Green interviews Melissa Chiu, recently arrived director of the Hirschhorn Museum (The Washingtonian)

The process by which the US National Gallery is absorbing (part of) the Corcoran's collection (New York Times)

Kim Knight on 'Implicated and Immune' at Michael Lett Gallery (Sunday Star Times)

Shelley Bernstein on teething problems with installing iBeacons in large gallery spaces (Brooklyn Museum tech blog)