Dear audience, dear friends,
Anticipation, melancholy, hope… − with which blend of feelings do you face the end of the year and the turn of it? 2020: the year in which almost everything was different and which introduced a lot of new things. Unknown things the full extent of which we will probably only be able to outline in the next couple of years.
Until then, we need to change our point of views. Especially in the cultural and creative industries, for which due to the Pandemic 2020 will be the most bitter year in post-war history:
Source: Monitoring Report Culture and Creative Industries 2020, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy & The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
Structural change for culture
“The coal phase-out has been an ongoing process for 30 years, and the structural transformation of the automobile industry is in full swing. But as in economic policy, in culture we should no longer invest in a dying internal combustion engines technology, but in something new.”
−Dlf Kultur−
Just don’t stand still, but rethink and change habits instead − also in the case of any future use of digital-stage.org: counting in instead of breathing in together; always using headphones, otherwise there is a strong echo noise or audio feedback.
Change of shape
And there is another change: digital-stage.org is a gGmbH from now on – the non-profit status remains!
We have also launched a fundraising campaign and welcome any contribution that will guarantee the development process of digital-stage.org beyond the end of the funding period through the “Neustart Kultur” programme of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Your donation will help the non-profit initiative digital-stage.org in its third project phase to further develop the necessary software to be able to continue creating and enjoying culture despite the lockdown, and hopefully even to create entirely new art forms. Click here for the fundraiser!
Good news
Internally we are still busy rehearsing with the digital stage in the browser window digital stage web and final functionalities are being tested and adjusted, while the Berlin music school Fanny Hensel has rehearsed and tested diligently with the Digital Stage Box (OV-Box) during the last weeks. At the moment, up to six musicians − the children’s recorder ensemble and adults − can rehearse together connected via the Digital Stage Box (OV-Box). The goal is to connect up to 20 musicians.
2020 made everything new
2020 has heralded the end of many habits. In a number of respects, the end is not only right, but important and high time: At the beginning of December, UN Secretary General António Guterres drew a devastating conclusion. 2020, a year of weather extremes with forest fires and heat waves, “apocalyptic fires and floods, cyclones and hurricanes are increasingly the new normal”.
The shock to our travel and consuming habits caused by the pandemic could, however, be the very rewarding momentum for the repair of our planet. digital-stage.org would also like to contribute to this environmental opportunity with it an alternative to the worldwide journeys for rehearsals and digital-stage.org can thus also be used beyond the pandemic period.
Couch or cinema seat – that is the question!
Streaming at home or going to the cinema? This question has divided opinions for a long time, and now Warner Bros. is going one step further restricting the exclusive rights of cinemas, for the time being only in the USA. In pandemic times streaming wins the race, however, the word “death of cinemas” nevertheless sounds in the background together with this decision and with it a familiar debate: It has probably always existed, this conflict between the supporters of analog and those of digital. Records or MP3, analog or digital camera − and now the concentrated load: at the moment analog life is virtually no longer possible. So what can be digitized, and what can’t, and how is art changing as a result of the current digitization processes?
Feast of reconciliation, time for reconciliation
Perhaps the debate about analog vs. digital is a bit like the question of whether to put real or artificial candles on the Christmas tree. And perhaps a good answer to that would be that it’s first of all important for something to light up the tree at all. Perhaps, coming back to António Guterres, we should think about the tree first, instead of starting with the candles. After all, it’s not about replacing, about playing the two sides off against each other, analog versus digital, but rather about a productive complement and the question of the requirements of the moment.
Pepper can be quite charming. When you tell him, “I’m tired”, he responds, “I can lend you my charging cord”. Pepper is a robot. And right now, he’s urging people to keep their social distance in a supermarket in Ahrensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, checks that the mask is on in Düsseldorf’s shopping mile “Kö” and assists in caring for people in old people’s homes and nursing homes. For a long time now, we have been dealing with the question to which extent robots can be human. But perhaps what is more important is what human affections they can produce in us human beings. At any rate, the senior citizens are delighted with Pepper.
© Diana Lennertz/Heinrichs Gruppe
As the year draws to a close, we wish you many wonderful festive moments, whether analog or digital, and a good start into the next year!
By the way, in 2021, the organ will be instrument of the year and thus the first keyboard instrument since 2008 to be named Instrument of the Year by the state music councils. Enjoy everything new in the new year!
Net-warming greetings,
Your digital-stage.org team
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