Tim Wu lays out a Turing Test-style thought experiment – and what its results suggest about the kinds of intelligence we’ve gained and lost over a century of technological change.
What If a Visitor From 1914 Encountered Someone With a Smartphone?
Actors’ Secrets to Playing King Lear
“Ian McKellen dreaded it, Albert Finney dodged it. As Simon Russell Beale prepares to play Lear in Sam Mendes’s eagerly awaited production, Laura Barnett talks to five actors who risked their sanity (and their knees) to wear the crown.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.14.13
Fu Lei: A Spirit for the Ages
Source: The Great Flourishing | Published on 2014-01-15
NYT MoMA Critique Isn’t Just About Architecture
Source: Real Clear Arts | Published on 2014-01-14
MoMA’s Excoriated Expansion: The Critics Pile On (plus AFAM’s good year)
Source: CultureGrrl | Published on 2014-01-14
Three Choreographers Grace a Busy Week
Source: Dancebeat | Published on 2014-01-14
Minnesota Orchestra Lockout Is Over; New Contract Approved
After more than 15 months of bad blood, bad faith, worse publicity, and no music, orchestra management and musicians have agreed to a three-year contract that appears to include concessions from both sides.
Do Shorthand Reviews Keep You From Attending Theatre?
“In a world where arts criticism has almost universally been reduced to star ratings, it’s almost certainly the case that many theatregoers make their buying decisions on the bluntness of the rating rather than the nuance in the review.”
L.A. Dance Project Gets A Glamorous New Home
“L.A. Dance Project, launched in 2012 by star choreographer Benjamin Millepied, announced Monday that its new home venue will be the Theatre at Ace Hotel, an ornate, Spanish gothic-style auditorium that’s at the base of a newly-opened boutique hotel in a 1927 structure built by Hollywood royalty.”
US Appeals Court Strikes Down Net Neutrality
“The 2-1 ruling upheld the FCC’s right to regulate broadband access, but the court called into question the FCC’s authority to impose rules that dictate how broadband providers manage traffic on their networks.”
So Much For An Open Internet
“The FCC’s rules were the only thing keeping Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from picking winners and losers online. Musicians and other artists depend on the ability to compete alongside the biggest companies; we know what it’s like when just a few powerful corporations control our access to audiences.”
Fire Destroys 1,300-Year-Old Tibetan Town In Tibet’s Shangri-la
Hundreds of buildings, including one with monument status dating to the early 17th century, were destroyed in the fire which began early yesterday in Dukezong Ancient Town.
Man Shoots And Kills Man For Texting In Florida Movie Theatre
“Their voices start going up; there seems to be almost a confrontation. Somebody throws popcorn, I’m not sure who threw the popcorn, and, bang, he was shot.”
Audience Data Increasingly Determines What/How Movies Are Made
“Worldwide Motion Picture Group analyses data from a decade of audience research to determine if a script is marketable and how much money it is expected to make. Some screenwriters are worried Bruzzese’s method detracts from the creative process, but he told the BBC he is helping producers make films that audiences want to see.”
So Art Is A Great Investment? (Maybe Not So Much)
“When looked at more carefully as an investment category, art falls short relative to many of the other assets to which it is frequently – and favourably – compared. These include both traditional and alternative investments, whether public and private equity, gold, wine, or residential property. Its lack of correlation to such assets is also questionable.”
Want To Be Successfully Creative? Build A Machine
“Lots of people like to talk about “the creative process,” but whiff when it comes to having any insight about adaptive Machine structures. In fact, I think our culture generally has trouble seeing how strategy is directly connected with implementation.”
The Best Music Journalism Of 2013?
Jason Gross’s annual list. “Gathering up this list of my favorite music articles of last year is also a nice way to try to chase away the blues about journalism, another industry in desperate, confusing times.”
Could Traditional College Campuses Be Endangered?
“As the business of education moves online, is the traditional quadrangle-dormitory-lecture hall-library configuration really going to be necessary? Could the college campus go the way of – gulp – the bricks-and-mortar bookstore?”
How Do You Organize The Study Of Literature In Ways That Make It Comprehensible?
Traditional techniques of close reading only ever brought us knowledge of a tiny sliver of literary history—less than one percent of the novels written in one country in one century. In short, we have always been “flimsy” readers.
Julie Taymor – Out From Under The Web
This was Ms. Taymor’s first return to the theater since being fired from “Spider-Man” nearly three years ago. She knew that, fairly or not, eyes would be trained on Brooklyn to see how she fared. Or, to put it another way, there was “a big Spider-Man hanging over this.”
Why Foundations Are Willing To Bail Out Detroit To Save Its Art
“The more we thought about it, the more we talked about it, the more it made sense that if this is something that is going to help Detroit get out of bankruptcy faster, then it was something for the general good of the city.”
Has The Museum Of Modern Art Lost Its Way?
“Disconnected from its past, impatient with the present and tearing into the future under the vague banner of “The New,” it has ceased to be the sui generis institution it had been throughout much of its history. Instead it is virtually indistinguishable from every other museum of modern and contemporary art around the world.”
What’s Sign Language For ‘Sequestration’?
D.C.’s ASL interpreters – who call themselves “terps” – “are charged with re-creating in crystal clarity speeches often known for nuance, importance and opacity.”
Merely Handling Money Makes Us Less Nice, Says Study
“It’s one of life’s less-charming little ironies: having money makes people less sensitive to others’ needs. That was the conclusion of a groundbreaking 2006 study.” Now it seems this is just as true outside the psych lab as in it.
Parliament to Investigate Whether London Gets Too Much Arts Money
“Parliament is to hold an inquiry into whether arts funding is distributed fairly across England, or is too heavily weighted towards London.”
Richard Maxwell Wins $20K Spalding Gray Award
The prize, named after the late actor and monologuist, includes a $20,000 commission to create a new theater work (which Maxwell already has planned) to be staged at each of four participating institutions, including P.S. 122 in New York and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Former Imelda Marcos Crony Sentenced in Art Theft/Sale
“A former personal secretary to Imelda R. Marcos was sentenced on Monday to two to six years in state prison in New York for conspiring to sell Impressionist masterpieces belonging to the Philippine government that disappeared when Ferdinand Marcos was ousted as president.”
Jazz Trumpeter Roy Campbell Jr., 61
“[He] always looked relaxed, with a Bronx-bred saunter to his step and often a leather baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, but he always played hard, whether for a European concert hall or a New York subway platform.”
If MoMA Saved the Folk Art Museum Building, It Wouldn’t Be MoMA
Michael Kimmelman: “It would be truly radical for MoMA to save the former folk art building, but that’s not what the museum has ever really been about. MoMA wants more gallery space, and the expansion that drives the planned demolition is just more MoMA madness.”
BBC Philharmonic Loses £1M in Local Funding
In 2007, the local council of Salford (near Manchester) stepped in with £2 million in annual funding for the radio orchestra, then facing cuts from the BBC. Now it’s the local authorities who are strapped for cash …