State of the Arts has been taking you on location with the most creative people in New Jersey and beyond since 1981. The New York and Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award-winning series features documentary shorts about an extraordinary range of artists and visits New Jersey’s best performance spaces. State of the Arts is on the frontlines of the creative and cultural worlds of New Jersey.
State of the Arts is a cornerstone program of NJ PBS, with episodes co-produced by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Stockton University, in cooperation with PCK Media. The series also airs on WNET and ALL ARTS.
On this week's episode... New Jersey Heritage Fellowships are an honor given to artists who are keeping their cultural traditions alive and thriving. On this special episode of State of the Arts, we meet three winners, each using music and dance from around the world to bring their heritage to New Jersey: Deborah Mitchell, founder of the New Jersey Tap Dance Ensemble; Pepe Santana, an Andean musician and instrument maker; and Rachna Sarang, a master and choreographer of Kathak, a classical Indian dance form.
The New Jersey State Council on the Arts is hosting quarterly Teaching Artist Community of Practice meetings. These virtual sessions serve as a platform for teaching artists to share their experiences, discuss new opportunities, and connect with each other and the State Arts Council.
Register for the next meeting.
The State Arts Council awarded $2 million to 198 New Jersey artists through the Council’s Individual Artist Fellowship program in the categories of Film/Video, Digital/Electronic, Interdisciplinary, Painting, Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts, and Prose. The Council also welcomed two new Board Members, Vedra Chandler and Robin Gurin.
Read the full press release.
These monthly events, presented by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, are peer-to-peer learning opportunities covering a wide range of arts accessibility topics.
As you watch Cloud Strife leap off a chocobo into the sunset of the Corel Prison, running on a mid-range PC at silky smooth 90fps—courtesy of a P2P crack—you are witnessing the paradox of modern gaming. The easier it is to steal a game, the harder developers must fight to make it worth buying. And for now, in the cold, dark waters of the torrent sea, Rebirth has found its second life.
The P2P release changed that overnight.
On the other side, Square Enix sees every P2P download as a lost sale. Rebirth was a financial gamble; despite critical acclaim, it reportedly sold lower than Remake in its launch window. The PC market was supposed to be its redemption arc. When a clean P2P crack drops before the first Steam sale, it decimates the long-tail revenue. Accompanying every P2P release is the iconic .NFO file—a relic of the BBS era. Opening ff7rebirth.nfo in a monospaced font (like ASCII art) reveals a manifesto. The P2P group often includes a scathing critique of Square Enix’s business practices: the decision to make Rebirth a timed exclusive, the lack of a physical PC release, or the inclusion of always-online requirements for a single-player game. "The planet’s cries are not just from Mako reactors, but from greedy corporate licensing deals. We free the data, not to harm the creators, but to preserve the art. Enjoy the Highwind, pirates." — A typical fictional P2P farewell. Conclusion: The Unending War FF VII REBIRTH-P2P is more than a torrent; it is a cultural artifact of the friction between art and commerce. For the pirate with a VPN and a heart full of nostalgia, it is the ultimate prize: a flawless version of a masterpiece, unshackled from corporate control. For the developer, it is a hemorrhage. FF VII REBIRTH-P2P
