Arts groups pursue tech's best features to enhance appeal

Sunday, October 22, 2006
By Timothy McNulty, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Arts organizations -- dance companies, classical music ensembles, art museums and the like -- are by their nature old-fashioned. They also depend on attracting a constant flow of ticket-buyers and other funding to survive.

Some 120 arts officials from around the nation came to Pittsburgh for two days last week to look at the cutting-edge techniques for bridging the old world to the new, and drawing new people and energy to the arts, at a Technology in the Arts conference at Carnegie Mellon University.

The question at the conference -- hosted by Carnegie Mellon's Center for Arts Management and Technology -- was not whether technology should be part of how people see, experience and support art. It already is. Instead, the challenge was how to adopt it best, given the dwindling staff and budgets non-profit arts organizations are facing nationwide.

The good news is there is plenty going on in technology to help artists create new works, arts organizations to support them and ultimately for art fans to experience them.

One of the coolest things discussed was www.chicagoartistsresource.org, a Web site launched last year that lists massive amounts of information to help artists thrive.

The site is constantly updated, often with information from artists and other users of the site -- both of those components (updates and user-generated content) are increasingly becoming keys to all thriving Web sites, tech experts said....Read More