Fluxus Artist Geoffrey Hendricks Dead At 86
"The Flux Divorce" - a famous public ceremony he staged with his wife, artist Nye Ffarrabas, to mark their split - "was just one of many adventurous artworks and art events he created or participated in during a career that also included teaching art at Rutgers University for 47 years. Mr. Hendricks literally looked to the heavens for inspiration for some of his art; he was known for paintings of the sky, which he would render on traditional canvases and assorted other surfaces. (A fellow artist, Dick Higgins, gave him the nickname Cloudsmith.) But, like other Fluxus artists, he went far beyond the boundaries of painting." … Read More
How Doctors Learn To Be Doctors… In Humanities
"As a philosophy major in college before medical school, I believe I learned what it means to be a good doctor equally from my humanities classes as from my science classes. Studying the humanities helps students develop critical-thinking skills, understand the viewpoints of others and different cultures, foster a just conscience, build a capacity for empathy, and become wise about emotions such as grief and loss. These are all characteristics that define a good doctor." … Read More
Taylor Swift Is Experimenting With Anti-Scalper Ticketing (But It’ll Cost You)
Swift’s team is undertaking an experiment that lists her tickets on Ticketmaster near prices they believe the market demands — much higher than what it usually costs to see a stadium concert. It’s a competitive play aimed directly at pricing scalpers and online bots out of the business, and it could keep large quantities of tickets off the secondary market. The bold move also helps Swift pocket a larger profit from face-value tickets by attempting to eliminate a middleman that legislators have struggled to erase. … Read More
Graphic Violence In Video Games – What’s The Moral Relationship To The Real World?
Virtual sexual violence and virtual murder are alike in that they don’t involve real victims, and both would be uncontroversially wrong if done in real life. This creates what philosopher Morgan Luck called ‘the gamer’s dilemma’: how can we be so sanguine about virtual bloodletting, but react with appalled horror to the idea of simulated paedophilia or sexual violence? … Read More
How Do You Determine Whether An Artwork Is Really A Leonardo?
To find a new Leonardo is to strike the purest vein of artworld gold. But only a few dozen of his works exist worldwide, and one of them sold recently for more than any other artwork in history. Leonardos have become a cultural currency, so to have discovered a once-lost drawing is a position of enormous potential power. If it is authentic, of course. The French seem to think so, but are they right? And how can they be sure? … Read More
Research: These Seven Moral Values Seem Common Across The Globe
"These seven moral rules – love your family, help your group, return favors, be brave, defer to authority, be fair, and respect others’ property – appear to be universal across cultures. My colleagues and I analyzed ethnographic accounts of ethics from 60 societies (comprising over 600,000 words from over 600 sources). We found that these seven cooperative behaviors were always considered morally good." … Read More
Bloomberg Philanthropies Is One Of The Few Remaining National Arts Funders. Here’s How They Did This Year
Through initiatives that include facilitating collaborations between artists and local governments to address civic issues, capacity-building for small and mid-sized cultural institutions, and increasing visitor engagement through the use of digital technology, Bloomberg Philanthropies works to improve quality of life by strengthening the arts in cities across the globe. … Read More
How Social Media Is Engineered To Hijack Your Attention
Scientists have been at this question for several years, studying people’s activity online and revealing interesting trends as to what makes content eye-catching and more likely to go viral. Emotional arousal is one key determinant. After analyzing 7,000 articles from the New York Times, Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman from UPenn found that one of the main factors driving readers to share a story via email was how much it stirred them up. … Read More
Ira Glass: I Have A Particular Set Of Skills, He Says In J-School Commencement Speech
"I am very aware that I make my living with a weird grab bag of skills that probably shouldn’t add up to anything. My primary skill is that I’m a good editor. That’s the main thing I do all week. From the start it was the one thing in journalism I had a natural talent for … an easy command of. I also have a bunch of showbizzy skills that go into packaging material into a program – pacing and flow and humor and emotional arcs. Stuff I learned basically in high school musicals and as a teenaged magician at children’s birthday parties." … Read More
Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong, And How To Teach Machines To *Really* Think
"We read about computers that can master ancient games and drive cars. [Turing Award-winning researcher Judea] Pearl is underwhelmed. As he sees it, the state of the art in artificial intelligence today is merely a souped-up version of what machines could already do a generation ago: find hidden regularities in a large set of data. ... The key, he argues, is to replace reasoning by association with causal reasoning" - that is, teach machines to process cause and effect. … Read More
Time Inc. Was Once A Colossus. Now It’s Been Brought Low
The flush times went on for a while. But then, starting about a decade ago, the company began a slow decline that, in 2018, resulted in the Meredith Corporation, a Des Moines, Iowa, media company heavy on lifestyle monthlies like Better Homes and Gardens, completing its purchase of the once-grand Time Inc. in a deal that valued the company at $2.8 billion. The new owner wasted no time in prying the Time Inc. logo from the facade of its Lower Manhattan offices and announcing that it would seek buyers for Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated and Money. The deadline for first-round bids was May 11. … Read More
Rambert Premieres Its First Full-Length Story Ballet In Nearly 40 Years
"Choreographer Kim Brandstrup's new work was inspired by Pedro Calderón de la Barca's 17th-century play [Life is a Dream] about a prince imprisoned in a tower by his father. ... Inspired by the play’s themes of ‘the longing for authentic experience, and the need to dream’, the Olivier-winning choreographer has transposed the action to a rundown 1959 rehearsal room." (photo journal) … Read More
How Did Performance Art Get Into Pop Music?
In the past several decades, performance art—or at least the evocation of “performance art”—has somewhat unexpectedly wormed its way into popular music. The union began, perhaps, in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, with Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s bed-ins for peace, and reached a sort of apex with Lady Gaga arriving at the 2011 Grammy Awards inside a giant egg. … Read More
As The Podcast Boom Continues, Can Audio-Only Fiction Catch On?
"Gimlet Media, the podcasting startup based in Brooklyn, tapped the valve of radio drama in 2016 with Homecoming, the fictional thriller podcast brought to life by Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer." And more high-profile fiction podcasts are coming, with the likes of Kristen Wiig, Ethan Hawke, John Cameron Mitchell, Glenn Close, Cynthia Erivo, and Patti LuPone involved. But there's one problem: "a vast majority of the audience is not listening in a concentrated way, like they would at home while watching a Netflix drama. Successful podcasts need to reach audience that is not 100% 'with it' the whole time, who get distracted. And that's a real challenge when you're dealing with fiction." … Read More
Three Thoughts About The Publishing Business
The publishing business, like all businesses, can be summed up in the words of William Munny, life coach: “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” People “succeed” in publishing based on whether their books sell, and whether their books sell really has nothing to do with their character or their intellect or whether the actual book is any good or not. … Read More
Premium Classifieds
The Walden School seeks Development Manager
We are seeking a dynamic fundraising professional to join our award-winning music organization's San Francisco administrative team. The Walden School (waldenschool.org) seeks a Development Manager to … [Read More]
Associate Director, Arts Everywhere at UNC Chapel Hill
The Associate Director for Arts Everywhere reports to the Special Assistant to the Chancellor for the Arts and plays a vital leadership role in the development and implementation of UNC Chapel Hill’s … [Read More]
Calgary International Film Festival is seeking a visionary new Artistic Director
Building on its established success and history, the new Artistic Director will ensure that Calgary Film continues to be one of the most important film festivals in Canada, while enhancing its … [Read More]
Take Creative Expertise to the Next Level with Classes in Finance, Marketing + Leadership
Northwestern University’s MS in Leadership for Creative Enterprises program develops leaders in business, innovation, and entrepreneurship across Entertainment, Media and the Arts. Earn your Master’s … [Read More]
Mumbling Isn’t Sloppy Or Careless Speaking – It’s Data Compression (Science Says So!)
"[Data-compression] algorithms trim down the space needed to digitally store sounds and images by throwing out information that is redundant or doesn't add much to our perceptual experience — for example, tossing out data at sound frequencies we can't hear, or not bothering to encode slight gradations of color that are hard to see. The idea is to keep only the information that has the greatest impact. Mumbling — or phonetic reduction, as language scientists prefer to call it — appears to follow a similar strategy." … [Read More]
Plan For New $136 Million Home For Nobel Prizes Blocked By Swedish Court
"The 1.2bn krona (£100m) brass-clad structure, designed by the British architect David Chipperfield, would harm the capital's picturesque waterfront, a cultural heritage site, the land and environmental court ruled on Tuesday. The scale of the building 'would affect the readability of Stockholm's historical development as a port, shipping and trading city', the court said, and cause 'significant damage' to the preservation of the old harbour site." … [Read More]
This Is America: Donald Glover Fans Take Over Pro-Donald Trump Reddit Group
"The takeover began on Monday when fans began posting photos and memes of the acclaimed actor and recording artist. 'The One True Donald,' one user posted on Monday, along with a black-and-white head shot of Glover. ... 'Not a racist. Not a rapist. Can read. Was never bankrupt. Likes Mexicans. Talented. Pays his taxes. Handsome. Loves immigrants. Not a puppet for Russia. Doesn't want to [redacted] his daughter. Must be the real one true Donald,' another posted above a picture of Donald Glover. Others posted artwork of Glover and calls to vote for Donald Glover for president." … [Read More]
Another Advantage Of The Conductorless-Chamber-Orchestra Model: No Lecherous Maestros
"In his classic book, The Maestro Myth, Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power, first published in 1991, Norman Lebrecht described how 'sexual rapacity' added to the mystique of many conductors. ... As though the touchy-feely nature of the performing arts, with that odd sense of a creative imperative for artists, is actually an entitlement, especially for those who are socially inept or nerdfully ignorant. ... Moreover, the hierarchical nature of symphony structures insures that, even with a code, the allocation of power remains unchanged. And so this all becomes another argument for the kind of horizontal structures that you find with the likes of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra." … [Read More]
Why Doesn’t Great Opera Singing Get The Cheers In New York That It Gets In Barcelona, Munich, Or Vienna?
Fred Plotkin recalls the rapturous reception he's seen terrific performances get - not just at the final curtain calls, but at the ends of acts and even after arias - and offers an idea or two as to why he so rarely sees such excitement from the audience at the Met. (It's not just because they have trains to catch.) And, by the way, he thinks the Met should make more use of its fabulous gold curtain. … [Read More]
Why Is The Taj Mahal Deteriorating? Smog, A Filthy River, And Massive Amounts Of Bug Poop
"Insect slime is only one of the problems facing the monument ... The once mighty Yamuna — after being dammed upstream to provide electricity for the region surrounding India's capital, New Delhi — now runs low and thick with trash and untreated waste, and blooms with insect-attracting algae. Auto emissions, deforestation and crop burning have contributed to heavy smog that experts say has dimmed the tomb's pearly exterior to a jaundiced yellow." Says one environmental activist, "The Taj Mahal has never looked as fatigued, pale and sick as it does now." … [Read More]
That Jesus Painting In The Museum Basement Turned Out To Be A $30 Million Mantegna
"A painting that spent more than a century in the storerooms of a provincial Italian museum will be attributed Wednesday to one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance. The attribution to Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) has the backing of Keith Christiansen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the world's leading expert on the artist. It means the painting, a wooden panel depicting Jesus's resurrection, may be worth about a thousand times more than was previously thought: between $25 million and $30 million." … [Read More]
It’s So Disgusting Backstage At British Regional Theatres That It’s Become Dangerous, Say Actors
"Mould, loose tiles, leaking drains, hanging wires, rats and a lack of disabled access are just some of the issues cited by performers and creatives. Actor Daniel Page, proposing the motion on behalf of the West and South West London Branch [of Equity], said: 'I've seen gaffer tape holding up wires, gaffer tape holding up dressing-room mirrors, and I fear that we will lose these palaces that are our working environment if we don’t do something about it soon.'" … [Read More]
Philip Roth, 85
"The big one – the Nobel prize in literature – eluded him, but there can be few American literary careers so richly laurelled, early and late. He was a bestselling writer only once in his career, when Portnoy's Complaint (1969) sold 420,000 copies in the first 10 weeks after publication." Roth was, however, embattled throughout his career, known for both his mental health troubles and the constant criticism he received for his relations with women and with Judaism. … [Read More]
Man Booker International Prize Goes To Olga Tokarczuk’s ‘Flights’
"More than 100 novels were submitted for the 2018 award, and Tokarczuk's Flights saw off work by two former winners – South Korea's Han Kang and Hungary's László Krasznahorkai – to secure the £50,000 prize, which is shared equally with her English translator Jennifer Croft." … [Read More]