It can be incredibly difficult to kill an arts company in this country and damn near impossible to simply let it die a natural death. Come the apocalypse, the only things likely to survive are cockroaches, email spammers and arts companies.
Yet finding a way to let things die is vitally important in the realm of [...]
Creativity needs Creative Destruction
June 16th, 2009 2 Comments
Tags: ANAM · Arts · Arts Funding · Creative Destruction · Creativity · cultural commentary · cultural policy · Marcus Westbury · media · the age
Age Column This Week: Creativity and Copyright
June 2nd, 2009 No Comments
For what i think is the first time, my weekly column in The Age is up and on the web site.
DIGITAL technology has created two opposing cultures. One where copyright rules are enforced by a phalanx of lawyers with no regard for artistic intent or respect for legitimate creativity, and another — in our homes, [...]
Tags: Arts · Creative Commons · Creative Commons Australia · Internet · lawrence lessig · Marcus Westbury · media · piracy · the age
I’m a newspaper columnist!
April 23rd, 2009 7 Comments
Based on the fact that i am sweating over my copy this afternoon, i think it is safe to say that I am now officially a newspaper columnist.
The downside is that “newspaper columnist” is a sub-profession of human being somewhere above politician and used car salesman and below journalist. I’m not sure that inflicting my [...]
Tags: arts coverage · Australia · columnist · cultural commentary · Marcus Westbury · media · Melbourne · melbourne arts · news · newspapers · opinion column · the age · The Age arts section · Writing
A facebook Experiment
March 1st, 2009 7 Comments
I am conducting a little experiment over at Facebook. I’m trying to work out whether it is possible to somehow round up all those people who don’t quite fit the “Art” boxes and as a result never get a seat at the table. My theory is that a relatively small number of highly centralised and [...]
Tags: 2020 Summit · Arts Funding · Arts Policy · Creative Australia · facebook · graphic design · Marcus Westbury · media · orchestras · visual arts · Writing
Perth Talk: Flotillas v. Flagships
August 1st, 2008 8 Comments
I was asked recently by the folks at the Department Of Culture and the Arts in WA to take part in a forum about “Creative People” as part of their process to develop an “Umbrella Policy Framework” for the state. I thought it might be useful to post the notes here that i made for [...]
Tags: ACMI · Arts · Arts WA · Australia · Ben Croshaw · Captain Cleanoff · Computer Games · cultural policy · Flotillas v flagships · Marcus Westbury · media · Not Quite Art · Perth · speech · Western Australia · Yahtzee