Can Enterprising Technologists Deal with Independent Artists?
” “Funding for the arts, like most social spending in the United States, had been very heavily cut back by twelve years of Reagan and Bush conservatism. By 1992, the US art community was underfunded, heavily politicized, and to some extent, angry. During this same twelve year period (and for some of the same reasons) much of the high-tech community prospered. The cultural gap between high-tech entrepreneurs and independent artists had grown large. In 1992 I was offered a research appointment at Interval Research Corporation, a new independent research lab wholly owned by Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen. Its charter was to look five to ten years ahead into the future of computing and media, in a most general way. Unlike other tech labs I had seen, this one seemed to really believe in having artists and other diverse elements as members of the research staff. Interval’s head David Liddle assured me that art will be an integral component in this new lab. I could continue t
