AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- “Dog on a Cold Stone Floor,” or When Nonprofit Arts Organizations Obsess About the Art More Than the People
Art is a universal good. No argument. Nonprofit arts organizations are not art, and therefore are not a universal good. No argument there, either. - Good Morning
OpenAI killed Sora this week, taking Disney’s $1 billion equity bet down with it (Variety). Three months after the two companies struck a “groundbreaking” deal licensing 200 Disney characters for AI video generation, the app is just gone — no explanation offered (Ars Technica). The Patreon CEO has a phrase for the pattern: AI companies call it fair use when training on independent creators, then cut multimillion-dollar deals with Disney and Warner Music when they need the brands (Fortune). Apparently the same creative property is both free and worth paying for — depending on who’s asking.
Control over creative work is slipping elsewhere, too. Producers of the Broadway Dog Day Afternoon adaptation threw playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis out of rehearsals weeks before opening after a clash with a Warner Bros. exec (The New York Times). The Boston Symphony, having fired Andris Nelsons, still doesn’t seem to have a plan for what comes next (Boston Globe). And Tacoma Arts Live has filed for receivership, preparing to sell the historic Tacoma Armory on its way out (Seattle Times).
The inaugural Hilary Mantel Prize went to Anna Dempsey for an unpublished novel called This Is About an Alligator and Nothing Else (The Guardian). A title Mantel herself would have appreciated.
All of our stories below.
- Disney Bails On $1B Investment In OpenAI After AI Company Pulls Plug On Sora
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
- This Chicago Symphony Musician Took Her Baby On An Orchestra Tour
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)
- Lion King Composer Sues Comedian For Misrepresenting “Circle Of Life”
A Grammy-award winning South African composer who wrote and performed the iconic opening chant in “Circle of Life” for Disney’s “The Lion King” movies is suing a comedian for allegedly damaging his reputation by intentionally misrepresenting the song’s meaning on a podcast and in his stand-up routine. – AP News
ISSUES
- Zurich Transfers Ownership Of All Its Benin Bronzes To Nigeria
Two of the 11 pieces have been sent back to Nigeria; the other nine will remain at Zurich’s Museum Rietberg on loan. – ARTnews
- Brooklyn Museum Plans New $13 Million Galleries For African Art
“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
- Report: Most Galleries Are Now Using AI
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
- Czech Culture Minister Fires Director Of National Gallery
“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
- Preservation Groups File Lawsuit Against Closing Of The Kennedy Center
The lawsuit seeks to have the White House and the Kennedy Center board comply with existing historic preservation laws and secure Congress’ approval before moving ahead with the renovations. – NPR
MEDIA
- Stunning Museum In Downtown San Francisco For Sale
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 work? – San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo)
- Manchester’s Strange Quarter Bristles With Creative Activity, Redefining The City
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
- Patreon CEO Blasts AI Companies And Fair Use
“The AI companies are claiming fair use, but this argument is bogus,. It’s bogus because while they claim it’s fair to use the work of creators as training data, they do multimillion-dollar deals with rights holders and publishers like Disney, and Condé Nast, and Vox, and Warner Music.” – Fortune
- Tacoma’s Leading Arts Organization Shutters, Prepares To Sell Its Home
“Tacoma Arts Live has filed for receivership, a court process similar to bankruptcy. … TAL announced earlier this year that it would close for good this summer and sell the historic Tacoma Armory, its sole remaining building, citing debts incurred in part due to declining ticket sales following the pandemic.” – The Seattle Times
- Chile’s New Conservative President Cuts Culture Budget, Avoids Cultural Policy
Reversing the pro-culture stances of his predecessor, left-leaning former president Gabriel Boric, new president José Antonio Kast has ordered a 3% reduction of the culture ministry’s budget. What’s more, his government has no stated cultural policy of any kind. – The Art Newspaper
MUSIC
- How Iran War Is Disturbing Publishing Industry’s Global Supply Chain
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
- Here’s The Winner Of The First-Ever Hilary Mantel Prize
“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
- Why AI Can’t Write Well
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
- How Should Schools Teach In A Post-Literate Society?
If they are to survive America’s post-literate era and serve society in the future, colleges need to invest in programs that answer the question, “Why read?” They must also design courses where the techniques of close reading are taught. – The Hill
- Merriam-Webster And Encyclopedia Britannica Sue OpenAI
“The lawsuit (by the American dictionary publisher and British encyclopedia) incorporates both the ‘mass-scale copying’ of their copyrighted content for training AI models and for real-time RAG scraping (retrieval-augmented generation). It also claims ChatGPT generates outputs that contain ‘full or partial verbatim reproductions’ of Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster content.” – Press Gazette (UK)
PEOPLE
- “Dog on a Cold Stone Floor,” or When Nonprofit Arts Organizations Obsess About the Art More Than the PeopleArt is a universal good. No argument. Nonprofit arts organizations are not art, and therefore are not a universal good. No argument there, either.
- Good Morning
OpenAI killed Sora this week, taking Disney’s $1 billion equity bet down with it (Variety). Three months after the two companies struck a “groundbreaking” deal licensing 200 Disney characters for AI video generation, the app is just gone — no explanation offered (Ars Technica). The Patreon CEO has a phrase for the pattern: AI companies call it fair use when training on independent creators, then cut multimillion-dollar deals with Disney and Warner Music when they need the brands (Fortune). Apparently the same creative property is both free and worth paying for — depending on who’s asking.
Control over creative work is slipping elsewhere, too. Producers of the Broadway Dog Day Afternoon adaptation threw playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis out of rehearsals weeks before opening after a clash with a Warner Bros. exec (The New York Times). The Boston Symphony, having fired Andris Nelsons, still doesn’t seem to have a plan for what comes next (Boston Globe). And Tacoma Arts Live has filed for receivership, preparing to sell the historic Tacoma Armory on its way out (Seattle Times).
The inaugural Hilary Mantel Prize went to Anna Dempsey for an unpublished novel called This Is About an Alligator and Nothing Else (The Guardian). A title Mantel herself would have appreciated.
All of our stories below.
- Disney Bails On $1B Investment In OpenAI After AI Company Pulls Plug On Sora
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
- This Chicago Symphony Musician Took Her Baby On An Orchestra Tour
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)
- Lion King Composer Sues Comedian For Misrepresenting “Circle Of Life”
A Grammy-award winning South African composer who wrote and performed the iconic opening chant in “Circle of Life” for Disney’s “The Lion King” movies is suing a comedian for allegedly damaging his reputation by intentionally misrepresenting the song’s meaning on a podcast and in his stand-up routine. – AP News
PEOPLE
- “Dog on a Cold Stone Floor,” or When Nonprofit Arts Organizations Obsess About the Art More Than the PeopleArt is a universal good. No argument. Nonprofit arts organizations are not art, and therefore are not a universal good. No argument there, either.
- Good Morning
OpenAI killed Sora this week, taking Disney’s $1 billion equity bet down with it (Variety). Three months after the two companies struck a “groundbreaking” deal licensing 200 Disney characters for AI video generation, the app is just gone — no explanation offered (Ars Technica). The Patreon CEO has a phrase for the pattern: AI companies call it fair use when training on independent creators, then cut multimillion-dollar deals with Disney and Warner Music when they need the brands (Fortune). Apparently the same creative property is both free and worth paying for — depending on who’s asking.
Control over creative work is slipping elsewhere, too. Producers of the Broadway Dog Day Afternoon adaptation threw playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis out of rehearsals weeks before opening after a clash with a Warner Bros. exec (The New York Times). The Boston Symphony, having fired Andris Nelsons, still doesn’t seem to have a plan for what comes next (Boston Globe). And Tacoma Arts Live has filed for receivership, preparing to sell the historic Tacoma Armory on its way out (Seattle Times).
The inaugural Hilary Mantel Prize went to Anna Dempsey for an unpublished novel called This Is About an Alligator and Nothing Else (The Guardian). A title Mantel herself would have appreciated.
All of our stories below.
- Disney Bails On $1B Investment In OpenAI After AI Company Pulls Plug On Sora
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
- This Chicago Symphony Musician Took Her Baby On An Orchestra Tour
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)
- Lion King Composer Sues Comedian For Misrepresenting “Circle Of Life”
A Grammy-award winning South African composer who wrote and performed the iconic opening chant in “Circle of Life” for Disney’s “The Lion King” movies is suing a comedian for allegedly damaging his reputation by intentionally misrepresenting the song’s meaning on a podcast and in his stand-up routine. – AP News
THEATRE
VISUAL
- The Gap Between Big AI And The Rest Of Us Are Growing Wider
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
- Is Time Just Something We Made Up?
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
- What Can A Movie Teach Us About Resisting AI With Performance?
“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
- One Week On, Looking At The Impacts Of This Year’s Oscars
“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
- What It Takes To Bring A Long-Neglected 1930s Cinema Back To Life
“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
