“Dance” illustration by Flickr user Luciana Ruivo

Quickly advancing technologies are altering reality in ways that, not long ago, were the stuff of science-fiction movies. Computer scientists have developed a Photoshop-like tool for video, allowing users to paste audio files into a video and manipulate the subject’s lip movements to depict speeches that never happened, or took place in a different context. The algorithm was developed by researchers at the University of Washington, who claim that the lip-synch technology could improve communication and be a boon for the film industry – for example, by enabling editors to save on reshooting already filmed scenes. But there are obvious concerns that the tool might (umm, will) be used to create deceptive videos or propagate hoaxes. Still, investors like Samsung, Google, Facebook, and Intel see the the new technology’s potential in the realms of artificial intelligence and augmented reality – which have themselves seen lots of new developments this month. Apple is developing augmented reality salsa dance lessons with its new ARKit, which allows aspiring dancers to practice their technique at home, with or without a partner. Bots for poetry and art are producing work that’s competitive with human creations. And neurologists have created an instrument that can be played – wait for it – with your mind. The breakneck pace of bot and AI technologies has sparked discussion of the best practices for using these tools, as well as potential ethical and regulatory guidelines that will need to be implemented as humans and machines increasingly live side-by-side.

Things are looking up for the NEA and NEH. Nearly level funding for the major federal arts and culture agencies has been approved by the House of Representatives appropriations committee. The committee’s proposed insignificant cuts stand in stark contrast to those in President Trump’s budget proposal, which would completely have defunded both agencies. Trump first touted widespread cuts to federal arts and humanities funding in January, which some saw as more of a symbolic gesture than a genuine effort to balance the budget. Nevertheless, a call to action among arts advocacy groups and constituents has put pressure on Congress, which has demonstrated support for the arts from both sides of the aisle. The ultimate fate of the NEA and NEH won’t be known for some time: while the House could vote on the bill as soon as the summer recess ends, it likely won’t reach the Senate until the end of the year. Nevertheless, with the most conservative arm of Congress having already taken its turn, it seems likely at this point that the Endowments are safe for another year.

Arts funding for the 2%. Five years ago, Holly Sidford’s research report “Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change” shook the arts funding world to its core, revealing that top 2% of arts organizations (in terms of budget size) received 55% of charitable contributions to the sector. Now, “Not Just Money,” a follow-up study from Sidford’s Helicon Collaborative, reveals that the gap has actually widened among 41,000 arts organizations nationwide, with big-budget institutions increasing their take to 58%. “Not Just Money” further traces the majority of funding to 925 culturally non-specific groups whose work centers around Eurocentric art forms and reaches predominantly white audiences. Helicon reports that communities of color are represented by a quarter of nonprofit arts organizations, but they only get 4% of the funding; meanwhile organizations representing LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and rural or low-income communities are similarly underserved by funders. The trend raises questions about whether ethnocultural organizations must concentrate efforts on collaboration with bigger institutions in order to remain sustainable, and whether continued efforts to close the gap are actually making a difference. Speaking of such efforts, as part of New York City’s newly released cultural plan – which made diversity, equity, and inclusion a top priority – mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed linking future city funding to cultural institutions’ staff and board demographic makeup. Although de Blasio declined to specify target goals, the move has raised concerns of “class warfare” over arts funding between established institutions and smaller ones in disadvantaged neighborhoods, along with predictable pushback from the conservative press.

Fixing the arts education crisis in Detroit schools. Detroit’s public school board seeks to address a yawning gap in arts instruction in the city’s public schools, of which nearly half offer no formal education in music or visual arts. Detroit’s decline in arts education stems, in part, from the public school system’s exclusion from the city’s reorganization after filing for bankruptcy. (The situation is not restricted to Detroit: In 2012 a reported 108,000 students across Michigan were lacking arts education despite the State Board of Education’s mandate that students earn at least one arts credit to graduate high school.) After Detroit’s new superintendent Nikolai Vitti started in June, a freshly elected school board has allocated $500,000 for Vitti to hire art and music teachers who will travel between schools and begin to fill the gap, which is most prominent in elementary and middle schools.

Separation of church and retail? Controversy surrounding Washington, D.C.’s proposed Museum of the Bible has come to a head regarding the museum’s Green Collection. Scholars have long expressed concerns about the Green family, which began acquiring extraordinary numbers of biblical artifacts in 2009. The evangelical Christian family also owns Hobby Lobby, a U.S. chain of retail arts and craft stores, which received shipments containing ancient clay cuneiform tablets in 2010 as packages marked “tile samples.” The artifacts have now been seized as part of a federal investigation claiming that the items were smuggled from historical sites in Iraq. Hobby Lobby’s failure to verify the artifacts’ origins means the company is facing a hefty $3 million fine, on top of relinquishing a majority of the 5,500 pieces, which were bought for $1.6 million. Controversy is not new to Hobby Lobby, which in 2014 won a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the company’s right to refuse contraception coverage to full-time employees, but the new probe also casts a cloud over the Museum of the Bible – for which Steve Green sits as chairman of the board. Museum leaders claim they were not aware they were smuggling artifacts into the country, despite obtaining legal advice from an expert in cultural properties law warning against the 2010 purchase.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS:

• Ted Russell has been appointed associate director of arts strategy and ventures at the Kenneth Rainin Foundation in Oakland, CA.
• Karen Mittelman has been appointed director of the Vermont Arts Council. Mittelman was previously at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation has appointed Jessica Solomon as its new senior program officer overseeing arts and culture.
• Arts research and strategy consultant Victoria Plettner-Saunders has joined WolfBrown as principal.
• The International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies has appointed Magdalena Moreno Mujica as executive director.
• Dennis Scholl, former vice president of the Knight Foundation, has moved to Miami’s ArtsCenter as its new president and chief executive.
• Former NEH chairman William Adams and Spencer Foundation’s Michael McPherson have been appointed senior fellows at the Mellon Foundation.
• The arts management program at George Mason University has announced a new director: alum Aimee Fullman.
• New York magazine has named theater director Sara Holdren as its lead theater critic.
• DataArts seeks a new president and CEO.
• Dance/USA is accepting applications for director of programs through August 18.
• The Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at USC is seeking a part-time professor specializing in Dance Leadership.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE:

• Consumers are spending more on the arts, according to data collected between 2000 and 2014 by the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account. The trend is particularly strong for opera and musical theater.
• Research by British publication The Stage indicated a nine-to-one ratio of male to female writers in books, lyrics, or musical scores across musicals presented in the West End over the last decade. Howlround looked at designers and directors within the League of Resident Theatres and similarly found a staggering gender gap in all areas except costume design.
• On the heels of the successful Wonder Woman film, a new report analyzes the gender expression and representation of female comic book characters.
• In the UK, jobs in creative industries are growing as a faster-than-average pace compared to the general workforce.
• A data analysis from Know Your Own Bone suggests Generation X citizens and Millennials will not “grow into” caring about arts and culture as much as previous generations.
• R&B and hip-hop are the top music genres in the U.S. this year, while classical music registers last with just 1% of sales so far. Research in the Journal of Popular Music Education has tried to get to the bottom of why millennials aren’t into classical music, citing length of concerts, restrained audience behavior, and lack of emotional attachment as barriers to appreciation.
• New York City is still king for artists, says a CityLab report, but artists are increasingly moving out of neighborhoods traditionally considered to be “artsy.” With work space at a premium, some artists are looking to school facilities as a potential resource.
• A report from the Creative Industries Federation offers policy recommendations on how governments can provide support to the creative freelance economy.
• Results for All recently published the Global Landscape Review, which aims to understand approaches governments take in using data to make decisions.
• New online tools provide insight on the arts and culture sector. GEOLOOM co>map visualizes cultural activity in Baltimore, neighborhood by neighborhood, and the National Center for Arts Research has created a visitor-to-staff index for comparing performance among similar sized organizations.
• Two reports looking at creative placemaking as a driver for community development show promising results in Cleveland and Washington, D.C.
• A new monitor provides comparable data on European cities across multiple domains related to culture and creativity. Meanwhile, an index published by the Joint Research Centre identifies the ideal European locale as a combination of eight cities.
• A new report makes a case for funding amateur choirs at the same level as sports teams.
• Survey data confirms that Australians place high personal and societal value on the arts.
• The Asia Europe Foundation has released the Indonesia edition of its series of guides looking at the connection between art and sustainability in Asian countries.
• A report of pilot projects by the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation evaluates a framework by which social issues might be positively impacted by indigenous artists’ work.
• Digital tools are reducing opportunities for kids to create original artwork. The trend is not exclusive to the U.S. and recently supported by research from the Netherlands.
• A University of London study reports that one in three professional musicians have suffered from an eating disorder at some point in their lives.
• Two years in the making, the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing has released findings on the potential benefits of arts participation.
• The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies has published its annual report forecasting arts funding at the state level.
• GrantCraft’s paper on theoretical frameworks shaping private foundations offers tools for aligning purpose, public benefit, and action.
• In a survey of 3,200 donors, women gave differently and more generously than men.
• A Grantmakers in the Arts report offers proposals on how funders might reshape their strategies to better reflect the cultural landscape in the 21st century.
• Writing for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Megan O’Neil and Joshua Hatch’s analysis of 1600 organizations shows that many big nonprofits are stockpiling cash, with more money coming in than goes out.
• Art hung above eye-level is perceived by most to be aesthetically inspiring.
• Surprise! Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on whether the impact of the news media on society is positive or negative.

“Artificial Intelligence” by Flickr user GLAS-8

Each year since 2009, Createquity has offered a list of the top ten arts policy stories of the past twelve months. And let’s be frank: some of those years are a little…what’s a polite way to put this? Boring. (Looking at you, 2013.)

2016 was not one of those. When the fifth-largest nation in Europe decides to give the equivalent of a year’s allowance to every 18-year-old in the country to spend on culture, and that only barely cracks #10 on the list, you know it’s been a consequential year. (To be fair, it also reflects the global perspective we take in our methodology for ranking stories, described more fully last year.) Amidst all the uncertainty, one thing is for sure: 2017 is going to tell us a lot about our collective future.

As has been the case for the past few years, creation of this list is distributed amongst our editorial team. Authorship of individual items is noted at the end of each story.

10. The Italians launch a cultural voucher program

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who resigned this month after a bruising referendum, may not have achieved everything he had set out to accomplish, but his government did leave one cultural legacy for the country’s young people. Beginning this year, Italian teens will receive a €500 “cultural bonus” from the Italian government along with their right to vote on their 18th birthday. The money will be available for a full year, and, yes, keeping to its millennial audience, is administered entirely through an app. In its first year, a total of €290 million in government money will be apportioned out to some 574,000 teens–both Italian natives and foreign-born residents. The program is intended to foster affinity between the country’s youth and its arts sector by providing Italy’s youngest adults with incentive to consume culture on their own terms, and is part of a larger package of programs aimed at “fighting terrorism through culture” that was initially announced in November 2015. Though vouchers are viewed as efficient ways to provide social benefits (Brazil implemented a cultural voucher program in 2014; Canada and Finland are experimenting with broader programs), critics of Italy’s program question the wisdom of its launch in a struggling economy and its ultimate ability to empower workers in arts and culture. It’s unclear what will happen to the program under the new administration, though Paolo Gentili, tapped to succeed Renzi, seems, for now, to be following in Renzi’s center-left footsteps. –Michael Feldman

9. The era of Peak TV is upon us

2015 was the year that the number of original scripted television series available in the US surpassed the 400 mark–coming in at 409 shows, up almost 9% from 2014 and nearly double that of 2009. FX Networks CEO John Landgraf dubbed it the year of “Peak TV,” and assured us the decline was nigh (a welcome thought for many). He was, by his own admission, wrong. By his new accounting, the peak will hit in 2017, and possibly carry through to 2019, with the tally soon to cross 500. Netflix is primarily to be blamed (or congratulated) for the push; the streaming video industry as a whole is projected to earn nearly $7 billion this year. The business of too much TV is a complex one, with numerous winners and losers: short-term boosts in salaries and profits don’t necessarily translate to long-term profits; more scripted shows means more room for voices in the writers room but also fierce competition for crew and equipment. And the irony is it’s more expensive than ever to produce a TV show: according to Landgraf, the price for making and marketing an hour of television has gone up about 20% in the past 5 years, to $4-$5 million an hour. Beyond the benjamins (and the fear the good times will come crashing down around us), there’s another side to consider: with the explosion of scripted shows from small producers aimed at niche audiences, it’s becoming increasingly easy to create our own television bubbles, creating a narrative space populated with characters who look and think exactly as we want them to. As we look towards a Trump presidency, fake news, and filter bubbles, it will be imperative to keep an eye on the role of television. We watch as much as five hours a day, after all. –Clara Inés Schuhmacher

8. Ghost Ship brings underground artist spaces into the light of day

Described as one of the worst U.S. structure fires in over a decade, the tragic Ghost Ship warehouse fire took at least 36 lives in Oakland, CA on December 3. The warehouse, whose owner had an industrial permit (but not a residential or event permit), served as the illegal residence of some 25 artists, and was the site of an electronic dance party the night of the fire. The tragedy has pulled back the curtain regarding the crushing cost of rent and inavailability of safe spaces in which artists can afford to live and work, in Oakland and beyond. It has also triggered a flurry of investigations into code and permit violations across the country that has resulted in heavy scrutiny of similar spaces, and the subsequent closings of DIY event venues and live/work spaces in Nashville, Denver, Los Angeles and Baltimore, with more likely to come. Sadly, the issue has become politicized: as of December 24, the East Bay Times reported that the so-called Right Wing Safety Squad, an extremist group on the anonymous message board 4chan, was claiming at least partial responsibility for 16 closures after a call to action December 7 to “Make America Safe Again” by alerting authorities to potential code and permit violations in DIY artist spaces. A counteractive push from foundations is aimed at recognizing that urban artist communities operating in spaces like Ghost Ship are in desperate need of affordable real estate, and artists from marginalized communities are especially affected. Three days after the fire, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a statement regarding a coordinated response to the Bay Area’s real estate problem, involving three local foundations in a $1.7 million grant initiative aimed at “preventing displacement, growing the capacity of the city’s artists and cultural organizations, and enhancing municipal resources for the cultural sector over the long haul.” –Lauren Warnecke

7. Impact investing and equity crowdfunding gain ground

Interest in impact investing–taking a financial stake in ventures designed to create social, economic, cultural or environmental impact–is growing: the 2016 U.S. Trust Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy and the First National Benchmark Survey of Family Foundations found that fully one third of those surveyed are interested in impact investing. The arts have been latecomers to this game, largely because it’s tricky to create a competitive return on investment in many areas of the arts sector. Despite $2.4 billion annually in corporate impact investing, the arts’ best chance may be with individuals, and many are working on making the arts appealing to folks with deep pockets. Upstart Co-Lab, a startup nonprofit headed by former NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Laura Callanan, has forged an agreement with the Calvert Foundation to create a Community Investment Note for impact investment opportunities like low-income artist housing developments. Another way for corporations and foundations to “make an impact” with their investing, of course, is to choose who they don’t invest in. Such divestment movements have been floating around for some time now, but the Brooklyn Community Foundation has taken it further than most, committing to divest all its interests in corporations or initiatives that, in its judgment, harm communities of color. Upstart and Calvert’s Community Investment Note, however, is primarily aimed at individual investors, who now have even more options than before thanks to 2012’s Jumpstart our Startups (JOBS) Act. The JOBS Act lifted regulations on capital investments that kept average Americans from seeking a financial stake in new companies, and this November, the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo announced a new partnership with Microventures to provide vehicles for regular folks who want to invest in new companies. –MF

6. Turkey continues its crackdown on artists and intellectuals

We first wrote about Turkey’s alarming trend towards artistic censorship in 2014 (the story made our Top Ten), and–unfortunately–the news continues to worsen. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was first elected as prime minister in 2003, was once considered a relatively moderate leader. Over the past decade he has gradually manipulated the political system to remain in power, increasingly targeting journalists, artists and intellectuals in his continued drift toward authoritarianism. A “culture war” that began in 2012 when Erdoğan felt his daughter was disrespected during a theater performance has since spurred attempts to exercise control over the state arts funding apparatus, attacks on public art and television, and going after satirists and museums. Erdoğan used an unsuccessful coup attempt earlier this year as an excuse to crack down even more on free speech, shutting down and seizing the assets of 29 publishing houses accused of aiding the enemy, imprisoning more than 120 journalists, blocking social media networks, silencing writers, closing universities, shutting down TV and radio stations, charging the editors of a Turkish daily with espionage, jailing academics on charges of promoting terrorist propaganda, and forcibly overtaking Zaman, Turkey’s largest-circulation newspaper. Freemuse claims that Turkey, along with Russia, China, Iran, and Syria, belongs to “a special league of countries that systematically repress freedom of expression,” with more than half of the recorded violations against artists worldwide originating in those nations. As Ian noted in his recent article on the Trump presidency, artists and media are often among the first to be singled out when an authoritarian government seeks to impose itself on the people. We can only hope that Turkey’s creative class continues to resist. –CIS

5. Audiobooks and podcasts break records

Books and radio, whose death has alternately been heralded and bemoaned for years, are making a comeback–in scrappy start-up form. No longer just the stuff of road trips and bad jokes, audiobooks are the fastest-growing format in the book business today. Fueled by the ubiquitous smartphone, revenue from downloaded audiobooks grew 32.3% in the first half of 2016 compared to last year. By comparison, hardcovers and paperbacks grew by 0.9% and 8.8%, respectively, and e-books revenue declined 20% in that same period. Some 35,574 titles were published as audio in 2015, up from 7,000 in 2011. Edison Research found that 43% of Americans over the age of 12 have listened to an audiobook, and some audiobooks are even outselling their print counterparts. Everyone is looking to get in on the action: publishers are hiring high profile actors, and testing out original dramas; authors, such as Stephen King and Fred Armisen, are writing new work specifically for audio. Meanwhile, the conditions and format advantages that are propelling audiobooks forward are likewise helping podcasts, which are finally breaking into the mainstream after first debuting more than a decade ago. By a recent iTunes count (which does not host all the podcasts out there), there are some 200,000 podcasts in the iTunes library, 40% of which are active, and one-fifth of which are not in English. Edison Research estimates that 36% of the US population over the age of 12 has listened to at least one podcast–21% in a given month. Legacy media organizations including the New York Times, WNYC, the Wall Street Journal and the Des Moines Register have all announced podcasting investments, and media startups are getting in on the frenzy, including Slate, Buzzfeed and Gimlet Media. As with audiobooks, podcasts are still a small sliver of the pie, representing but 2% of the total time Americans spend listening to audio, and some say we’re approaching a glut. Still, the field shows no signs of slowing down yet. Even Createquity has jumped on board–we launched a podcast in collaboration with Fractured Atlas in March. –CIS

4. Virtual reality and augmented reality establish themselves as new art forms

By most accounts, we are living in the future. You can now teleport to a helicopter flying over the Swiss Alps, then back in your living room just by strapping a cardboard box holding your phone in front of your eyes. You can sit on stage, smack in the middle of a live performance by an orchestra, ballet or play, without ever entering a hall. You can experience the Tate Britain’s iconic collection alongside real-time news cycle without traveling to London. You can even walk down your own street and battle it out with your favorite Pokémon characters via Pokémon Go, downloaded to your smartphone. It’s the era of augmented and virtual reality, and, in reality, we’re just scratching the surface of possibility. Interest in virtual reality rose exponentially this year, while the popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go broke through to the mainstream with 100 million downloads worldwide, 30 million daily users, and extensive media coverage. The medium’s potential impact on the arts is far-reaching: arts organizations are putting audience members in the middle of the action, radically challenging notions of interactivity, narrative and site-specificity. Visual artists are pushing the boundaries of their work (see here, here, here), and VR experiences are making their way into film, making a splash this year at Sundance. VR is even changing how news stories are told, with the New York Times leading the charge. It’s changing the world of gaming, too: in South Africa, you can book a spot to play video games in virtual reality at the VRCade, and fend off zombies approaching you from your periphery. With Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard putting VR in the hands of the masses, it will be interesting to see how the medium continues to evolve. The Onion may just turn out to be right–on some counts, anyway. –Benzamin Yi

3. China expands holdings in (and censorship of) arts and entertainment

As Clara predicted, China dominated the news again this year, finding itself on this Top Ten two years running. The country’s economy continues to grow at a breakneck pace, and is predicted to overtake the United States as the world’s largest by 2018. China can thank the entertainment industry for much of this growth, including plans for a new $2 billion film studio in Chongqing, homegrown worldwide blockbusters, and buying up big players such as Dick Clark Productions, Legendary Entertainment, and Dalian Wanda (the Chinese conglomerate that now owns AMC Theatres.) This rapid entertainment biz expansion has raised some concerns in Congress about the potential of Chinese nationalism and socialist propaganda infusing American arts and entertainment. Those concerns are not without merit. China ranks 176 out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index–a report by Reporters Without Borders which calls President Xi Jinping a “predator of press freedom”–and the government’s grip on content continues to tighten. Its airtight Great Firewall includes bans on most social media networks and news sites that report a negative image of the country (notably including the New York Times and Bloomberg); this censoring led Google to pull out of the market in 2010. This year, the government passed a law promoting Chinese nationalism in films, updated restrictions on television content, and scaled down relationships with Apple and Disney (despite these companies’ unbridled popularity in the country). It has also continued its intimidation of neighboring Hong Kong: the disappearance of five prominent booksellers in 2015 has virtually everyone in Hong Kong’s publishing industry scared they will be China’s next target. Still, it appears the lure of an enormous untapped global market is hard to turn down. American filmmakers have started producing films that obey the country’s strict regulations regarding content, thus dodging its quota on the release of foreign films, and gaming console manufacturers like Sony and Nintendo are getting back in on the game after a fourteen year ban was lifted last year. Corporations and media companies are adopting an “if we can’t beat them, join them” approach too–even Google is preparing for its return to China and is prepared to follow the government’s rules. Of course, it’s anyone’s guess how things will change once the Trump administration is in the White House, and we find ourselves once again with a case of wait and see on the China front. –LW

2. The United States elects Donald Trump

No top ten list for 2016 would be complete without mention of the election and the now certain inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. As the entire nonprofit sector holds its breath waiting for the effects of a Trump presidency on its business and constituents, predictions about what will come to pass in the coming years run the gamut from apocalyptic to status quo. There are few clues as to how Trump and his Republican majority in Congress might address the arts sector. His responses to Alyssa Rosenberg’s questionnaire about arts policy in March suggest a free market approach, similar to other policy areas like healthcare and education. The delegation of major decisions to Congress, and the recent proposed appointment of Sylvester Stallone to the top arts position in the administration, underscore Trump’s habit of relying on others (often supportive friends with little government experience) to figure out policy details, especially when they fall outside of the core issues that defined his campaign. While tensions between Congress and the National Endowment of the Arts have eased significantly since the culture wars of the 1990s, there is nevertheless a risk that the Republican Congress may revive attempts to defund the NEA in the context of a larger effort to rein in government spending. Meanwhile, the GOP and Trump administration’s promised policy adjustments to the Affordable Care Act (which provides insurance for many independent artists), and planned tax reforms (including the possibility of a rollback of the tax incentive for charitable giving) could both have immediate effects on the financial security of individual artists and small to mid-sized arts organizations. Most concerning of all is Trump’s threats to freedom of the press and his authoritarian impulses, which could expand constrictions on freedom of expression in a country that has prided itself on being one of the safest places for speech in the world. While the likelihood of overturning a mountain of legal precedent protecting the first amendment is relatively slim, Trump’s attempts at intimidation (like lashing out about flag burning or lecturing Mike Pence at a Hamilton curtain call), not to mention the ease with which his supporters can be goaded into threats of violence against vulnerable individuals and populations, are worrying to say the least. The bizarre and uncharted landscape we’ve found ourselves in has inspired much reflection, from calls to action and lessons learned from the campaign, to the role of the arts in promoting fantasy over fact. One thing is clear–artists will play a role in public discourse over the next four years, and we’ll be right there with them. –Rebecca Ratzkin

1. Artificial intelligence comes into its own

Wait, what?! Donald Trump in the Oval Office is not the top story of the year? Amazing as it may seem, events of 2016 make clear that the march of technology promises greater long-term disruption for our society than even our Tweeter-in-chief can muster. Chief among these developments was the March tournament victory of AlphaGo, a computer application developed by Google’s DeepMind team, over Korean Go grandmaster Lee Sedol. While it was expected that an artificial intelligence would eventually topple a human in the ancient Chinese game, the milestone was achieved nearly a decade earlier than anticipated when AlphaGo bested Lee in four out of five matches. To understand how consequential this is, consider that the number of potential positions in Go is exponentially greater than the number of atoms in the universe, putting the game beyond the power of the brute-force computational approach that has enabled computers to defeat humans at games like chess. Instead, the DeepMind team trained AlphaGo to learn from past games in order to develop new strategies for itself in real time–not unlike what a human would do. Google has used similar techniques, more recently, to have its Translate product churn out translations of literature that are almost indistinguishable from human efforts.

The implications for the arts are at least twofold, both enormous. First, the accomplishments of machine learning are directly tied to the accelerating trend of automation pervading all aspects of society, manifesting most recently in self-driving vehicles and fast-casual spots that replace cashiers with iPads. As more people’s jobs become redundant with what machines can do, unemployment rates could rise substantially, creating far more collective leisure time–and far more opportunity for creative expression. (How exactly that leisure time is spent will, clearly, depend a lot on what we decide to do about our social safety net, which is why many people in the tech community favor a universal basic income.) That could be amazing for the cause of art, though perhaps not so great for professional artists, who are already facing competition from the likes of Jukedeck and Google Brain itself. A grimmer view of artificial intelligence’s advances points to the specter of AI as, essentially, a new life form that could compete with humans for dominance of the earth. Given the rate at which machine learning applications are developing, a lot of smart people have begun to conclude that this isn’t just science fiction–to the point that increasing resources are flowing toward the cause of ensuring that the development of an artificial superintelligence, if and when it happens, won’t destroy the human race. Lest you get too freaked out, be reassured that this worst-case scenario is still considered a low-probability outcome by most observers…but perhaps now you can understand why we think this outranks The Donald. –Ian David Moss

Honorable Mention:

• The Pulse nightclub shooting targets social dancers
• Brexit shakes up the landscape for UK artists and organizations
• Google Books ruled to be fair use (and Stairway to Heaven is not plagiarized)
• Artistic quality metrics controversy at Arts Council England
• Canada Council holds grantees accountable for diversity (and other changes)
• Black Lives Matter and US Department of Arts and Culture release policy platforms

Best wishes for 2017 to all!

Black Lives Matter by flickr user Gerry Lauzon

As controversial political stands go, “black lives matter” should rank pretty well near the bottom of the list. In any reasonable world, it would be the sort of sentiment that is so obvious it doesn’t even need to be stated. And yet statements of support are exactly what Kickstarter and Creative Capital felt compelled to offer the world after yet another series of horrifying deaths of African Americans at the hands of police last month – one of whom was selling music and DVDs when the cops were called.

Long-simmering racial tensions in the United States have been spilling out into the open for at least the past several years, but until quite recently conversations about race in the arts have been largely limited to subjects like diversity on stage, on screen, and behind the scenes; cultural appropriation; and the distribution of funding to arts organizations that serve communities of color. But at a time when the American public seems to be simultaneously running out of both tolerance and patience, more basic and urgent concerns are rapidly coming to the fore. It’s hard to have a healthy arts ecosystem when people fear for their physical safety, which can start to happen when actresses receive death threats while performing in a Shakespeare festival or get drowned in racist taunts for taking part in a movie. The convergence is happening in the other direction as well. Just this week, the Black Lives Matter movement released its much-anticipated policy agenda, the Movement for Black Lives, and arts and culture are all over it. The “list of demands” includes items such as “an immediate end to the…dehumanization of Black youth across all areas of society including…media and pop culture,” “funding to support, build, preserve, and restore cultural assets and sacred sites,” “programming and partnerships to support Black-owned and operated media organizations,” and “full access to technology including net neutrality and universal access to the internet.”

Pokémon Goes. July 2016 will forever be remembered–within some circles–as the month of Pokémon Go. The free-to-play, location-based augmented reality game was released in the United States on July 6. As of this writing, the app has topped 75 million downloads worldwide. There are currently 4,158,765 posts tagged #PokemonGo on Instagram. Daily usership has outpaced twitter and facebook and retail is cashing in. It’s getting people to exercise. It’s given rise to the Pokémon Sherpa. It is, by all accounts, a global phenomenon–but it’s not really just about the Pokémon. Augmented, or mixed, reality has the potential to be one of the most significant and potentially disruptive trends of our generation. (AR/VR investment hit $1.1 billion this year–in March.) The disruption piece is clear, and response has been swift. Saudi Arabia renewed the fatwa–originally from 2001–which explicitly bans the game (it’s allegedly pro-gambling and pro-Darwin). Other countries have also warned against is use, though for different reasons: Bosnia is concerned about users running onto land mines, Egypt is concerned posting photos poses a security threat. Its significance is yet to be fully realized, although the potential for augmented reality as it intersects with cultural organizations is already beginning to emerge. For one, it’s been a boon in the audience-quest. The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas has encouraged Pokémon Go users to catch Pokémon at the museum, noting a significant correlation between the launch of the app and visitorship. (On the other hand, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC has asked Pokémon players to stay away, out of respect.) Will AR be the engagement silver bullet some organizations seek? Time will tell, and maybe quite quickly.

Books on tape are making a comeback. No longer just the stuff of road trips and bad jokes, audiobooks are the fastest-growing format in the book business today. Fueled by the ubiquitous smartphone, revenue from downloaded audiobooks in the U.S. grew 38% in 2015. (By comparison, hardcovers and paperbacks grew by 8% and 3%, respectively, and e-books revenue declined 11%.) Pretty much everyone is looking to get in on the action. Publishers are hiring high profile actors, and testing out original dramas; authors, such as Stephen King and Fred Armisen, are writing new work specifically for audio. Audiobooks may only represent 3% of the overall global trade book industry, but their flexible, shareable nature works well with millennials, and their future, for now, is bright and voluminous: Audible, the biggest producer and retailer of audiobooks, says its customers are on track to listen to 2 billion hours of programming this year. Curious? Here are the 20 best-selling audiobooks of 2016 so far.

Google (tries to) buy Europe’s love with $450 million. Google and Europe’s relationship is rocky at best. From three rounds of antitrust charges in one year to investigations into allegations of tax shortfalls and accusations that it does not fully protect European’s “right to be forgotten” online privacy rights, things are not going well. So the company (which rejects all aforementioned claims) is doing what many have done before it in such a situation: it’s throwing money at the problem. It has earmarked some $450 million for European projects from 2015-2017 in an unprecedented effort to fix its reputation among Europeans–and sway the opinion of policy makers who have the power to halt its progress on the continent. The money is largely concentrated on arts, culture and education–$75 million towards training Europeans in digital skills, half a million to test immersive journalistic videos, money for museums to digitize collections (as with the British Museum), and for co-working spaces to support tech hubs. Google is even cozying up to its fiercest opponents (publishers) with $167 million to help them adapt to the digital world. The money is sure to do some good, though whether it does good for Google is yet to be determined.

Bands and fans unite against UK ticket scalpers. This past May, in response to growing indignation against ticket resellers, the UK released a report acknowledging that secondary ticketing sites were “falling short” when it came complying with rules instated in May 2015 to protect consumers. The report called for further investigation, and lists nine recommendations, including stronger penalties and the possibility of court proceedings for platforms that continue to break the law. This month, a consortium of music industry folk–including the managers of One Direction, Ed Sheeran, Chvrches, Iron Maiden, Mumford & Sons, Arctic Monkeys and PJ Harvey–launched FanFair Alliance to lobby the government to do more to protect fans and artists, and thus reclaim a piece of the purported $1 billion in revenue it is estimated the secondary market nets in a given year. The Alliance is calling for better enforcement of the 2015 Consumer Rights Act, more transparency about where tickets came from, increased corporate responsibility, and control of supply. It’s not just the managers who are upset. Artists have spoken out against the reselling practice which keeps their ardent fans out of seats; One Direction even turned down a hefty sponsor opportunity when they found the sponsor was a reseller. The movement is young, if the rancor is not. All eyes now are on the industry’s biggest stars, and their fight for their fans.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Carla D. Hayden has been confirmed as the 14th librarian of Congress. She is the first woman and first African American to hold the position.
• Michelle Boone is stepping down as commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events after five years in the position; she will be replaced by Mark Kelly, the vice president for student success at Columbia College Chicago.
• The Mozilla Foundation seeks a Vice President, Advocacy. Posted July 8; no closing date.
• The Nile Project is hiring a tour manager for its 2017 US tour. Posted July 14; no closing date.
• Ideastream seeks an editorial manager to lead its Arts and Culture programs across multiple platforms. Posted July 16; no closing date.
• The Arts Education Partnership at Education Commission of the States is hiring a Policy Researcher. Closing date August 18.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• The Foundation Center took a look at what the middlemen in philanthropy are doing, and published their findings in their newly launched Intermediaries Knowledge Center.
• A new brief from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies forecasts state arts council funding for FY17. Meanwhile, Arts Council England asked the arts and culture sector how it should invest its funding from 2018 onwards and published a report of the consultation findings, which outlines the agency plans to make as a result.
• Professor Ethan Mollick of The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School published a study on the broad impact of Kickstarter on the creative economy.
• A study by the European Economic and Social Committee released this month explores the role of culture for sustainable economic growth, its potential to reconvert cities, and its capacity to enhance social integration and to build shared a European identity.
• According to new figures out of the UK this month, the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic arts workers is up 60% since 2011.
• New research suggests that, while most people are biased against other races, some odd psychological interventions can help.
• An Ofcom review of public service broadcasting (PSB) has found that television watching among the 25-and-under has dropped 27% since 2010.
• A study commissioned by Ontario’s Ministry of Labour shows widespread problems with enforcing basic employment rights and leaving vulnerable workers exposed.
• California Lawyers for the Arts released a study exploring the feasibility of establishing a national network to support arts in corrections.
• And finally, new research out this month suggests investors should buy paintings only if they like looking at them–and not to make money.