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By James Kelly, August 17, 2009

Many will be familiar with TED – the ‘ideas’ conference which takes place annually in Long Beach, California. For those unfamiliar, the TED site is well worth a look – with hundreds of presentations on every kind of subject from becoming a buddha to the future of the electric car, there is, as the saying goes, something for everyone.

The TED site says; “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world“, so in this context it’s great to see a lot of interesting arts material to be found here. Some examples;

A talk by Brazilian visual artist Vik Muniz, (readers may have seen a solo exhibition of his work in IMMA some years back)

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an inspiring look at classical music and ‘one-buttock’ piano playing….

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Finally, poetry like I’ve never heard it performed before;

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By James Kelly, August 13, 2009

Artistshare is an interesting organistion based in the US. They provide a opportunity for those interested in the arts to provide funding for artists to make work.

Rather than looking to attract a small number of large funders, they’ve used the internet to “allows fans to fund and directly participate in the projects of their favorite artists”.

As with many traditional friends schemes, there are various levels at which a fan can engage. Depending on the project, fans can pay anything from $10 (for a download) to $5,000 (to get a producers credit / dinner with the band etc, etc.).

They mostly seem to work in the area of music, but have also support film production and literature.

Here’s Artistshare’s CEO explaining what they do:

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Could something like this work in Ireland? Maybe there are already examples of organisations working like this in Ireland already. If so it would be great to hear…