“The so-called Ideas Box, designed by Philippe Starck, contains 15 tablet computers and four laptops with satellite Internet connections; 50 e-readers and 5,000 e-books; 250 printed books; a movie projector, screen and 100 films; chairs, tables and board games.”
Archives for March 25, 2014
On The Process Of Choreography: “Sometimes It’s Just An Accident”
“The greatest things that happen in choreography are by accident. Sometimes it’s a dancer’s physical reaction to the last step that informs my brain and leads to the next one. Or how a group of dancers happens to stand together, or if they fall out of a lift, or accidentally try a different grip that creates a window of opportunity and gives direction to what should happen next.
The Massive New Skyscrapers That Will Barely Touch The Ground
“Hudson Yards is the largest private development project in U.S. history, and it’s being built without footings or foundations.”
Saltz: Building Plans Would Destroy MoMA
Jerry Saltz: “The greatest collection of modernism on Earth has been relegated to rotating storage. If the wrecking ball swings in May, our beautiful garden of modernism will become another Penn Station.”
New Taxes Will Make UK Downloads (Movies, Books, Music) More Expensive
“Closing the loophole could bring in revenues of about £300m in its first year, according to government estimates. The tax change will apply to downloads of films, music, e-books and smartphone games.”
BBC Makes Push Into The Arts With Two Big Hires
“Alongside the new appointments – which sees Nicholas Hytner join the BBC executive board and Vicky Featherstone become a ‘creative leader’ – director general Tony Hall has today announced a range of new arts programmes and strands which he said would put the arts at “the very heart” of what the BBC does.”
Report: Movies Reviews Or Social Media – Which Has More Influence?
“Nielsen’s 2013 American Moviegoing report found that 80% of moviegoers refer to reviews at least some of the time when they’re considering what to see. By comparison, 40% of those surveyed they value recommendations they see posted by their friends or family on social media.”
Why Would You Ban Books For Prisoners?
“The general consensus seems that this move is designed to punish prisoners purely to show potential voters that the government is tough on crime. But if you look into the science and psychology behind such things, it actually makes little sense.”
‘Cardboard Architect’ Shigeru Ban Wins 2014 Pritzker Prize
Architecture’s most prestigious honor goes to a 56-year-old Japanese designer “known for building refugee shelters at almost every cataclysmic natural disaster for the past 20 years.”
‘Good Design and Good Works Can Both Be Rewarded’: What Shigeru Ban’s Pritzker Win Means
Michael Kimmelman: “You can listen to students at architecture schools, many of them anxious to make an impact beyond the bubble of fading glamour in which stardom derives from designing costly art museum expansions and megaprojects for clients in Qatar and Dubai, built on the backs of indentured labor.”
‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ Recalls His Early Life in China
Li Cunxin, now artistic director of the Queensland Ballet, describes his childhood on a dirt-poor farm, the fluke that led to his strenuous dance training in Beijing, and how he came to Houston and stardom in the U.S.
Venetians Want to Revive the Old Republic of Venice and Leave Italy
Granted, it was a non-binding online poll, but more than 2 million people in the Veneto (out of a voting population of 3.8 million) answered yes to the question, “Do you want Veneto to become an independent and sovereign federal republic?”
London Theatre Ceiling Collapse Blamed on Old Materials
Part of the auditorium ceiling at the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End fell in med-performance in December. Staff of a BBC Radio 4 programme “has seen a letter from Westminster City Council saying hessian wadding embedded in the ceiling was getting weaker over time.”
Choreographing the Boxing in Broadway’s ‘Rocky’
Assistant fight choreographer Patrick McCollum: “It’s about working on developing boxing technique with the actors, and then we also created ways that the actors can safely impact on each other in the show so it looks like a real fight. It is essentially a real fight.”
‘Interpretation Is Fluid’: Q-and-A With Choreographer Tere O’Connor
“I am looking to meditate on the expansive nature of consciousness through dance, where language, dream states, memory, and willful artifice combine to create a unique form. I am interested in dance outside of its ‘narrative’ potential. … My work embodies a convergence of many ideas, not a paring down to one theme.”
A Unified Theory of Humor
What makes something funny? There’s Plato and Aristotle’s old “superiority theory”, there’s Freud’s “relief theory”, there’s the currently-favored “incongruity theory”. But the founder of the Humor Research Lab (HuRL) argues that each of those theories has a flaw – and offers one of his own.
Too Soon! How Long Before It’s Okay to Joke About Something?
As Mark Twain observed, “Humor is tragedy plus time.” But how much time? Researcher Peter McGraw of the Humor Research Lab (HuRL) tried some experiments (e.g., a Hurricane Sandy Twitter account) and thinks that “Too soon?” may not be the right question.
How Mark Twain Became an American Superstar
A trip to Hawaii and a hastily arranged lecture in San Francisco transformed the young and debt-ridden journalist’s life.