The new home for the Photographers’ Gallery in the heart of London’s Soho will open to the public on 19 May, marking the conclusion of an £8.9m capital campaign. The two-storey extension will double the size of the previous exhibition space; an environmentally controlled floor will create opportunities to show more work from archives and museum collections; and higher ceilings in the top floor galleries will provide spaces for large-scale and moving image works. The Photographers’ Gallery Editions will be relaunched, with leading photographers donating limited-edition prints. The new street level café will be run in partnership with the oldest family-run delicatessen in Soho.
A new digital rooftop advertising space on London taxis London is being trialled by entertainment marketing agency aka for ‘Billy Elliot The Musical’. The iTaxitop™ has been created by Eyetease Media, adapting the traditional ‘New York’ style taxi top concept to become a new mobile digital broadcast option for mass inner-city transit. It plays time specific and geographically accurate adverts which are scheduled remotely from a computer and then deployed using 3G connectivity.
A £500,000 fund has been set up to help Scottish organisations to harness digital technologies, connect with wider audiences and explore new ways of working. The Digital R&D Fund for Scottish Arts and Culture has been established by Creative Scotland, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The aim is that research and development projects supported by the fund, will also produce new data and research insights that can benefit other organisations in the arts and culture sector.
Government proposals for making copyright rules more flexible have been put out to consultation. Under the proposals, rules on copying for educational uses, for people with disabilities, for quotation and reporting current events, for preservation by libraries and archives, for research and private study, for text mining for research, for parody and for public administration could all be relaxed. The regulation of copyright collecting societies is also suggested. The consultation closes on 21 March.
An ‘interactive blog’ aiming to stimulate discussion across the cultural sector on the theme of cultural value is being hosted by the DCMS on behalf of Dr Claire Donovan, an academic who has been commissioned by them to report on whether the value of culture can be measured by the Government in monetary (or other) terms. Eight themed discussions will take place over 12 weeks, exploring issues including the idea of measuring cultural value, the difference between public and private value, and the rules that should apply to cultural sector funding decisions. The aim of the blog is to consult with the cultural sector on issues surrounding the measurement of cultural value, especially the public value of the arts, heritage, libraries and museums.