Richard Florida, who spoke on Monday as part of ACAD's Stirring Culture series, referred to culture using biological metaphors at least twice. Once talking about DNA components of culture and again drawing Darwin into the discussion. It's a apt analogy and one that seems to always be referenced sooner or later when trying to understand a system of meaning. There is much talk of memes on the internet which are ideas that get transmitted through culture that undergo Darwinian style natural selection and evolution. The Lol cats phenomenon is one of my favourite examples.

Biomimicry is a buzz word that you may have heard circling around the idea flowers recently. The concept of modeling after nature is often used a in scientific context. Using the design of termite mounds to create passive climate control in modern housing is a good example. This approach has worked very well with engineering endeavors and there is the added bonus that naturally occurring systems usually have some kind of built in sustainability. There is no reason that biological systems can't be used to understand any naturally occurring system of organization. Having sustainable, fully integrated cultural systems is becoming increasingly important. Ad hoc, organically forming systems tend to be more resilient and adaptable. What ways can we learn from nature in how we approach culture?  read more »

If you don't already use and love RSS we've created an option to turn pull into push but before you sign up to have yet another piece of bacn (it's like SPAM only you asked for it) delivered to you inbox, let me extol the virtues of RSS.

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is an information delivery method that all of your favourite websites employ.  In order to view this content you need aggregation software that will pull in all of this RSS data and will give you options to organize, search and read at your leisure.  This is why RSS is pull media; you have to fire up the aggregation choose which feeds you'll subscribe to.

Pull media is great when you've got time and inclination to search out information. Having information pushed towards you will more likely grab your attention. I signed up all the CADA staff for this email because we are all sometimes too busy to pull even the low hanging information fruits (I've also started bombing everyone with bacn from our project management software).

You can sign up for a daily email of the RSS feed for all of the new content that goes onto our site below (you can also use the user account subscription feature for more tailored emails):

This just in - you may want to tune your radio dial to 102.1FM in Calgary before you read.

The Calgary Girls Choir has just won the CBC Radio Choral Competition in the Youth Choirs Category! The choir performed this afternoon as part of a "live-to-air" broadcast today, April 30. If you were unable to attend in person, tune in to CBC Radio Two tonight at 7 p.m. MST or listen via the internet (see below).

A huge congratulations from all of us at Calgary Arts Development to the Calgary Girls Choir, artistic director Elaine Quilichini and all the hard-working parents and volunteers behind the scenes!

Internet Listening Instructions

1. Go to http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/  read more »

Edmonton Journal arts reporter / Alberta novelist Todd Babiak published an article today titled "Don't spin oilsands, deploy artists." In this piece he comments on a $25 million provincial advertising campaign aimed at improving perceptions about oil sands development among U.S. policymakers and poses an alternative: investing in a cultural diplomacy program instead as a way to bolster the province's reputation. Here's a brief excerpt and a link to the full article:  read more »

The government of Ontario is stepping up to the plate in an impressively strong way.  Funding the shortfall of many of the city's large capital projects for the arts and re-defining seed funding through a new $15 million legacy grant for the one year old Luminato Festival.  Check out this article published in today's Toronto Star.

OK Alberta, the bar is set.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending two incredible musical events. The first was Mystic Signs a concert by the Renaissance Singers with guests Calgary Men's Chorus and EnChor. This amazing concert of ancient and contemporary choral music was presented in the dome theatre of the Telus World of Science. It was a selll out show with audience ranges from eight years old to seventy eight years old. After the concert I went over to MacHall to see Guitar Mania, a presentation of the Calgary MidWinter Blues Festival just in time to catch blues legend Hubert Sumlin. It was an amazing show, transforming MacHall for one night into one of the best Blues clubs in North America. Another sell out with an incredible range of audience, I even ran into Marge our favorite elevator operator from our office building.  read more »

We are in the midst of the Arts Space Assessment Process, the Calgary Arts Development led process to identify strong community led arts space proejcts to reccomend for municipal funding or land. Much like developing space, our process sometimes inches forward and sometimes takes a giant leap. Lately we have been leaping along. The Arts Space Assessment Process has brought forward amazing projects that, when completed, will change the city's sky line and bring creative life into many Calgary nieghborhoods.  read more »

Somehow the first month of my work term with Calgary Arts Development has flown by without a blog post. Not a single one. As a public relations student at Mount Royal College, I understand the importance of communicating with the public, so I figured it was time for me to jump on the blog train with reckless abandon. And there's no better time to start than now.

The other evening I had the good fortune of attending the dress rehearsal of Alberta Ballet's Dangerous Liaisons. I was pleasantly surprised. Take everything you thought you knew about the ballet and throw it out the window. Dangerous Liaisons pushes the boundaries by having a play and a ballet going on simultaneously. The choreography was visually stunning as dancers held poses that at times were painfully beautiful to watch. This truly is a must see, even if you don't think you like the ballet. Go. I promise you won't be disappointed.  read more »

Memories are powerful. If you look at some current pop cultures trends it's easy to find evidence of the power of nostalgia. The fact that we have an orange Care Bear in the office is a good indicator. 80's revival has been in full swing for some time now and I've got my plaid shirts and doc martins on deck for a 90's grunge revisit. For many of us around the triple decade mark conversations often turn to the music, movies, and television we experienced when we were younger. Those of us who grew up in the 80's were really the first generation to grow up in such a media saturated environment and we can easily relate our media experience with just about anybody the same age in North America.  read more »

It's been a rush. Since today is my last day at Calgary Arts Development, I thought I would attempt writing a blog. I have to admit I've been sort of afraid of blogging (even though blogging dates back to 1983 and I still haven't tried it). How does one write about something in a way that is interesting to read; conversational, yet not silly? But, like Terry says when referring to accepting new technologies, “jump on the train”.  read more »