Non-Photographic
American Museum of the Moving Image
It makes sense that the American Museum of the Moving Image is based not in Los Angeles but in that old east cost movie Mecca, Astoria, NY. Housed in the 1920s buildings of the Astoria Studio, the Museum has a critical distance from the Hollywood fantasy. Its exhibitions, collections and programs focus on the moving image, a theme that encompasses material from photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s 19th century studies of locomotion to modern video art and computer games – and let us not forget movies and television. The Museum’s calendar is a fascinating mix of how-it-works demonstrations (film and sound editing, animation and video game design) and showings of rare prints of American movies and television shows. It's online exhibitions mirror the Museum's wide-ranging interest in media, with shows on presidential campaign adds, classic video games and the technology behind movies and television.
Americans for the Arts
Through research, education, promotion and advocacy, the nonprofit Americans for the Arts has been advancing the cause of the arts in America for a half-century. Partnering with governments at all levels as well as community groups and individuals, provides an impressive range of services aimed at keeping the American arts scene vital. Initiatives ranging from arts education in public schools to arts and business partnerships are supported by the organization’s wealth of policy-oriented research and professional development programs., Americans for the Arts has been amazingly successful in this pragmatic and wide-ranging approach to promoting the arts.
Arts and Letters Daily
The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes this daily gift of articulate and challenging reviews, articles, opinions and essays culled from newspapers and magazines around the world. The simple and elegant newspaper format displays intriguing teasers that link to full articles, as well as links to major media sites, columnists, classics, favorites, weblogs, and a welcome list of “Diversions.” Always thought provoking, and occasionally, just plain provoking.
Broadcast Live
With the simplest sort of site design, Broadcast Live manages to make the wide world of international live radio and TV clear and searchable. There are loads of great links here.
Earthcam
A site that builds on the current fashion of installing web cameras where ever possible and streaming the images online. Earthcam has organized an index of links to webcams providing live feeds from all around the planet, with subject matter ranging from vistas and entertainment to education and information.
Encyclopedia of Life
Truly a reference tool of the 21st century, the Encyclopedia of Life will eventually document, in detail, every single species of the 1.8million that inhabit earth. The project is the desire of E.O.Wilson, renowned biologist, humanist and environmentalist. The realization is possible through a global web of allies formed following Wilson's TED Prize.
Fora TV
By gathering the web's largest collection of unmediated video from live events, lectures, and debates at the world's top universities, think tanks and conferences, FORA.tv helps intelligent, engaged audiences get smart. Fora TV presents provocative, big-idea content for anyone to watch, interact with, and share - when, where, and how they want.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive was assembled to address a serious issue: because there are no artifacts in the digital world, all its discoveries risks disappearing into the past without a trace. The break-neck speed at which digital information and culture is produced and discarded has left many fearing a “digital dark age,” where there is no means or will to collect and preserve work produced on the internet. Aided by the Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress, the Internet Archive has taken on the seemingly impossible job of building an Internet Library, open to all. Its mission, “protecting our right to know” and “exercising our right to remember” underlines the vital nature of this Herculean endeavor.
The Moth
The absolute magic of “True Stories Told Live” is brought to us by The Moth, a not-for-profit project that presents regular podcasts and a show on National Public Radio, all based on the live, unscripted storytelling events that are held across the country. It’s on the live stage that amateur and seasoned raconteurs tell their own true stories – without notes. There is nothing like the intimacy, humour and revelation of a true story told by the one who lived it.
Procrastination Equation
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." This is just one of the wonderful quotes that Procrastination Central has assembled to help consider the question of procrastination. Make no mistake, this site is not another invitation to waste ones time; it is the University of Calgary Haskayne School of Business’s comprehensive investigation of the phenomenon of procrastination. These well-designed pages offer recent scholarly research on the history, theories and treatments for procrastination, but also mix in a dose of humor in the form of poetry, stories and links to fun sites. This is web surfing you can congratulate yourself on.
Sound Portraits
Founded in 1994, Sound Portraits Productions produced the ground-breaking work that later forged the way for StoryCorps, the national oral-history project that has done a great deal to enrich American’s sense of themselves. This site is a library of the absolutely fascinating and truly compelling audio portraits that reveal the lives of people living on the margins of society, so often misrepresented or ignored by the general media. Although Sound Portraits has ceased production, the legacy of the Portraits continues, as works such as “Flophouse” and “Ghetto Life 101” have been published in print and/or broadcast in thousands of classrooms in collaboration with the national education outreach organization Facing History and Ourselves. To dig through the Sound Portraits site is to discover the cutting-edge style and humanist content that has influenced much of the best radio documentaries and audio art projects around today. Essential listening.
Space Weather
Solar flares with a chance of meteor showers, Space Weather reports on what is happening above and how it impacts on us down here. Covering fascinating phenomena such as green snow in the north caused the Aurora Borealis, the trajectories of asteroids, up to date reports on sunspots and the transit of the of International Space Station, the Space Weather site offers up a variety news and information from observatories and other space watchers all over the world.
Talks@Google
Talks@Google brings together talks from several initiatives. It includes speakers from Google's authors and womens lecture series, featuring newsmakers, artists and bestselling authors. Past speakers have included Barack Obama, Condoleeza Rice and Neil Gaiman.
TED Talks
What started in out 1984 as a small annual gathering of cutting edge thinkers and doers from the worlds of Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) coming together to exchange ideas, has become an ever more ambitious and influential event, as these often ground-breaking talks radiate out over the web. Today, the TED site features over 500 hundred of these talks, offered free and unabridged on video. A sampling of these presentations reveals a cash of surprising, provocative and fascinating subjects... real mind candy. The archive of talks and TED Prize presentations is searchable by theme, talk-title or speaker, and recently, talks have been rated for qualities such as “inspiring, funny or jaw-dropping.” There is plenty of great arts-related content to be mined here.
TEDx Talks
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.
The Great Courses
Producing audio recordings of outstanding classes from some of the most highly rated teachers in America’s great universities, The Great Courses aims for excellence in continuing education. New Ivy League caliber classes are regularly added to Great Courses' list of wide-ranging subjects, engaging the minds of “lifelong learners” without homework or exams.