The AI industry is splitting away from the lives of everyday people. Exclusive polling conducted for the Guardian last year found that twice as many Americans believe their financial security is getting worse than better, hardly half as optimistic as Jensen Huang’s prediction. - The Guardian

An emerging scientific picture is that such “clock time” isn’t a standalone, physical phenomenon at all. It’s a mathematical tool or book-keeping device – useful for coordinating our interactions, but with no independent existence of its own. - The Guardian

“Plato decried the falsity of imitation of real life—called ‘mimesis’—specifically in the arts. ... What makes you ‘you’ or the world the ‘world’ if artists can just depict a facsimile and receive recognition from an audience?” - The Defector

"Put the Warners Bros. sale alongside the Oscars’ imminent move to YouTube, and the whole night carried with it a bittersweet fin de siècle air, as if it was being immortalized in retrospect even as it was happening.” - Vulture

“The Holly’s revival offers a case study in how a historic landmark can complement an existing arts ecosystem — strengthening downtown vitality while reconnecting a community to its past.” - Oregon ArtsWatch

The study of wisdom dates to antiquity, but only in the past 40 years have researchers begun to apply the scientific method to probe what wisdom is and how it develops. - Knowable

Multiple departments were affected — including programming, development, advertising, marketing and the office of the president — according to multiple people at the center. - Washington Post

This is how I came to understand that the relationship between what we see and what we know—the art of noticing— is a sophisticated act of interpretation, not just passive observation... “By the time you get to New York, this won’t be a thing,” he hissed, and I withered. He wasn't wrong.  - Talk...

“Analysis by the Autonomy Institute shows spending has dropped from £1.19 billion in 2010 to £539 million in 2024 to 25. The data covers local authority budgets for arts and entertainment, including theatres, live performance, museums and galleries.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)

The Azrieli Foundation, a charitable organisation with ties to Israel’s largest real estate company, will cease its support of the Toronto Arts Foundation following a protest campaign by Canadian artists and arts workers. - The Art Newspaper

In another market, the building might fetch $100 million. Today, in a downtown cultural district still recovering from the pandemic - with depressed real estate values, weakened foot traffic and strained arts funding - the buyer pool shrinks to a narrow question: Who can take on a large, vacant cultural space and make it...

In a city still somewhat in thrall to its heritage, from the Haçienda to Oasis, many in the Strange Quarter say the area has redefined Manchester’s cultural life. - The Guardian

“The study sessions were first organized during the COVID-19 pandemic by Entree, the youth association of (Amsterdam’s) Concertgebouw, to help students improve their concentration and introduce them to the charms of classical music. They have been a hit ever since.” - AP

All we have to do is keep kids and families watching Bluey, and they will playfully and profoundly enjoy more classical tunes than the children of almost any previous generation. - The Guardian

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that internet provider Cox Communications cannot be held liable for music piracy from its users. - The Hollywood Reporter

Second flutist Emma Gerstein didn’t want to miss Klaus Mäkelä’s first tour with the CSO, which was to the East Coast last month. Neither did she want to stop nursing her ten-month-old, Ronan. So he came along with his mom, who kept a diary about the experience. - WBEZ (Chicago)

What’s the vision might not be the right question, then. It might be: Does the vision even exist? - Boston Globe

It is difficult to appreciate the toll of being on the road for days, weeks, and sometimes months on end, playing program after program and often dealing with social and media commitments in addition. - Nightingale Sonata

After 16 years helping build one of the most powerful galleries in the world, Cristopher Canizares is stepping away from Hauser & Wirth to try something the art market still hasn’t quite figured out how to define: an artist management agency. - ARTnews

The collection, and the home near Rittenhouse Square, belonged to Henry McNeil Jr. (son of Tylenol magnate Henry Slack McNeil), who died last July at 81. There are works by Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and others; there’s even a Picasso print in the bathroom. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

Two of the 11 pieces have been sent back to Nigeria; the other nine will remain at Zurich’s Museum Rietberg on loan. - ARTnews

“The institution’s new Arts of Africa galleries, … a 6,400-square-foot home for its 4,500-piece African art collection, … will open in Fall 2027, presenting 300 African artworks dating from antiquity through today, installed throughout the museum’s third floor.” - Artnet

According to the AI in Galleries report by the art industry network First Thursday, 84 percent of galleries surveyed say they are using AI tools in their daily work. Yet only 8 percent have a formal policy governing how those tools should be used. - ARTnews

“Within the Czech Republic, the dismissal has been viewed by some as a politically motivated gesture. (Alicja) Knast took up the position in 2021, having been appointed to the role by … a Social Democrat. … (Otto) Klempíř, a member of the right-wing Motorists party, became culture minister last year.” - ARTnews

As more A.I.-generated writing is put out in the world, more readers will question whether the text they are poring over was penned by a human. We’re barreling toward a rapid erosion of trust between authors and readers, and the publishing industry is unprepared to deal with the consequences. - The New York Times

Everyone is trying to ­figure out who is LLM and who is human, and sometimes we’re getting it wrong. In particular, people who learned English as a second or third language, working hard to master the strange, unpredictable rules, are accused of using AI precisely because they follow those rules. - New York Magazine

The independently-owned title has seen sales decline from a post-pandemic high of 91,000 copies in 2021 to about 78,000 currently. But the LRB has increased income by an average of 6.8% year-on-year since the pandemic and is focusing on revenue per copy rather than discounting to increase circulation. - Press Gazette (UK)

Shipping costs are rising; freighters are being re-routed, interfering with schedules; one shipment was on a vessel struck by a missile. Perhaps worst: insurance policies usually exclude acts of war. - Publishers Weekly

“The newly established award, launched to honour the legacy of the late Booker Prize-winning novelist, aims to support unpublished and un-agented writers across the UK and Ireland.” The inaugural winner is Florida-born, London-based writer and teacher Anna Dempsey for her yet-unpublished novel This Is About an Alligator and Nothing Else. - The Guardian

What I learned is that modern LLMs are built in a way that is antagonistic to great writing; they are engineered to be rule-following teacher’s pets that always have the right answer in hand. - The Atlantic

Beginning in 2029 — the same year the Oscar telecast moves to YouTube — the Academy Awards will move to downtown Los Angeles, to L.A. Live, a sports-and-entertainment complex adjacent to the Crypto.com Arena, home of the Lakers basketball team and the Kings hockey team. - The New York Times

"You can’t create an AI film that resonates with an audience without understanding how to craft an incredible story. We found the people making the very best AI-assisted films in our community are working professionals in the industry." - The Hollywood Reporter

Sora stumbled upon AI’s massive potential by giving users free rein over popular characters — from “Rick & Morty” to Pikachu — in any scenario they can imagine. But that, of course, was a nightmare scenario for studios. - Yahoo

“Jurors (in Los Angeles) found the tech companies to be both negligent and having failed to provide adequate warnings about the potential dangers of their products. The jury awarded the plaintiff in the case damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder.” - The Guardian

“Matt Brittin, 57, who has a background in tech, rather than traditional broadcasting, spent almost two decades at Google, becoming the company’s president in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.” - AP

Disney and OpenAI announced the blockbuster three-year licensing deal in December, saying that over 200 Disney-owned characters would be available for use in Sora-generated videos. At the same time, Disney said it would be making a $1 billion equity investment in the AI company. - Ars Technica

“Rafael Bonachela will step down in the middle of 2028, marking 20 years at SDC. Under his leadership, the company has emerged as a significant player on the global dance stage and established extensive training programs for young dancers.” - The Sydney Morning Herald

"If I’m just talking about the work, I would say we have a very clear movement approach that has developed over time, a shared language that includes a lot of different modern dance techniques, a language that has become unique to us." - LA Dance Chronicle

“Since 1980, Val Caniparoli” — for decades SFB’s principal character dancer — “has dedicated most of his energies to a much-lauded choreography career, and rather than slowing down, he's building momentum as he enters an exciting new phase.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)

“Once a week, about a dozen patients come to Ramos Mejía Hospital to dance — a session that uses the movements of tango to help address issues of balance, stiffness and coordination. The goal is to give them approaches to movement that they can use in their daily lives.” - The New York Times

Dance competitions offer significant business opportunities. Yet visible profitability can invariably lead to exploitation. Is there a danger that competitions are at risk of becoming an easy way to make a fast buck? - The Stage

The industry still has an obsession with “perfect” feet. High arches have traditionally been praised in ballet, and some dancers today use farches (fake arches), which give the illusion that your foot is more bendy than it is. - The Guardian

At the moment, theatre companies undertake a range of sustainability practices, including reusing set pieces in different shows and ethically sourcing and constructing sets. -ArtsHub

“’We were never notified,’ said Monifa Days, co-founding ensemble member (of Congo Square Theatre Company). ‘Our lawyers were never notified. How we found out was we would just do searches in the state’s database about where our status was ... and that’s how we found out.’” - WBEZ (Chicago)

“Jonathan Berry, a longtime Chicago director and former artistic producer at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, will take the helm at Raven Theatre, a 43-year-old off-Loop Chicago theater that operates a busy, two-stage complex in an Edgewater building that once housed a grocery store.” - Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)

“His goal (is) to platform voices that many audiences won’t be familiar with — and to push back against a theater landscape he feels has lost its edge. ‘Professionalism has flattened its soul,” he said. ‘It can feel polished to the point of sameness.’ … His program ... (will) favor cracks over polish.” -...

The show’s producing team told the playwright, Stephen Adly Guirgis, that he was no longer welcome at rehearsals after tempers flared on Friday between Guirgis and Mark Kaufman, who runs Warner Bros. Theater Ventures, an entity that is among the play’s lead producers. - The New York Times

Theaters have experimented with “Black Out” nights intended to attract patrons of color. At issue in the lawsuit was whether a discount offered as part of the Playwrights event was discriminatory. - The New York Times

“(He) turned everything from computer engineering to life in a nursing home into unexpected bestsellers. … Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for his 1981 work The Soul of a New Machine, which (explored) a fledgling computer company long before most people cared about the inner workings of Silicon Valley.” -...

Ross had become a master at catering to ego, facilitating deals and making a class of people feel important. Now he’d begun to wonder if the skills that made him exceptional at his job had also made him in some ways complicit. - The New York Times

“He built a serious and wide-ranging classical career, collaborating with major artists like Eugene Ormandy, Leonard Bernstein and Yo-Yo Ma, without stinting the traditional ballads that John McCormack (1884-1945) had brought to the masses.” - The New York Times

“After a nearly two-week trial in Santa Monica, jurors found Cosby, 88, liable for the sexual battery and assault of Donna Motsinger. They awarded her $17.5 million in past damages and $1.75 million for future damages, … (plus) an additional $40 million in punitive damages,” totaling $59.25 million. - AP

“(Her) memorable film roles included a porn actress abducted by aliens in Slaughterhouse-Five, Lex Luthor’s secretary in two Superman films and an Oscar-nominated performance as the wife of Lenny Bruce in Lenny. (She died) following a 15-year battle with Parkinson’s disease.” - Deadline

Along with his happy student-teacher alliance with Hammerstein, the defining association of Sondheim’s life was his tortured relationship with the mother he described as a “monster,” among harsher words. - The Atlantic