Most of us live in a state of general ignorance about our physical surroundings. It’s not our fault; centuries of technological sophistication and global commerce have distanced most of us from making physical things, and even from seeing or knowing how they are made. But the slow and pervasive separation of people from knowledge of the material world brings with it a serious problem.
Archives for November 2018
The Hyperinflation And Corruption Of The Book Blurb Biz
Blurbs, the quoted testimonials of a book’s virtues by other authors, are now so ubiquitous, readers expect them, first-time authors stress about getting them, booksellers base orders on them. A blank back cover today would probably look like a production mistake. But while readers heft books in their hands and scrutinize the praise, it should be noted that blurbs are not ad copy written by some copywriter; they are ad copy written by a fellow author. “Ad copy” might be a bit harsh, but maybe not.
Study: How You Watch A Movie Depends On What Kind Of Thinker You Are
Aalto University researchers showed volunteers the film My Sister’s Keeper on a screen while the research subjects were lying down in an MRI scanner. The study compared the volunteers’ brain activity, and concluded that holistic thinkers saw the film more similarly with each other than analytical thinkers. In addition, holistic thinkers processed the film’s moral issues and factual connections within the film more similarly with each other than the analytical thinkers.
Researchers: This Is The Most Influential Movie Of All Time
“The success of a film is usually measured through its box-office revenue, or the opinion of professional critics,” the researchers write in the journal Applied Network Science. “Such measures, however, may be influenced by external factors, such as advertisement or trends, and are not able to capture the impact of a movie over time.”
An Artwork Powered By Visitor Biometrics. Any Concerns, People?
The Hirshhorn Museum has an artwork that is generated and powered by visitors’ fingerprints and heart rates. Cool, right? But what about the data collected by this piece? Are you willing to just “give” away your fingerprint?
Australian Aboriginal Art And Immanuel Kant
“There is beauty here in exactly the way that Kant meant the word, a beauty that comes from the pleasure of looking at designs that ‘mean nothing on their own.’ … The problem is that … Aboriginal artists aren’t working with anything like a Kantian conception of a free play of the faculties and they have, in the vast majority of cases, no interest in the idea of abstraction as that idea emerged in … painting in the 20th century.”
Our Culture Is Built On Trust. But As That Trust Melts Away…
To understand the crisis liberal democracy faces today – whether we identify this primarily in terms of “populism” or “post-truth” – it’s not enough to simply bemoan the rising cynicism of the public. We need also to consider some of the reasons why trust has been withdrawn.
A ‘War Hostel’ For Tourists Who Want To Relive The ’90s Siege Of Sarajevo
“[There’s] a sound system that, day and night, fills the place with the din of gunfire and explosions. Getting to sleep can still be a challenge: There are no beds, only thin mattresses on the floor with no pillows or sheets, and heavy, scratchy blankets that create the feeling of sleeping with a dead horse.” And, for brave guests, there’s “the bunker.” And yes, there is a demand for all this.
How Scientists Are Studying How We Respond To Music
Contemporary work on music perception embraces a variety of disciplines and methodologies, from anthropology to musicology to neuroscience, to try to understand the relationship between music and the human mind. Researchers use motion capture systems to record people’s movements as they dance, analyzing the gestures’ relationship to the accompanying sound. They use eye tracking to measure changes in infants’ attentiveness as musical features or contexts vary. They place electrodes on the scalp to measure changes in electrical activity, or use neuroimaging to make inferences about the neural processes that underlie diverse types of musical experiences, from jazz improvisation to trance-like states to simply feeling a beat.
We Each Have Our Own Oscar Wilde
“Saint Oscar; Wilde the Irishman; Wilde the wit. The classicist; the socialist; the martyr for gay rights. … So if Oscar’s ultimate genius was to allow us to see ourselves in him, what do we see in 2018? And what is there left still to see in a life that ended prematurely and has been so closely scrutinized?”
Conserving Art In Front Of An Audience – A Good Idea?
While it undoubtedly generates interest, what is actually gained from watching conservators working? Conservation has become an increasingly painstaking and intricate process, in which the conservator might sit for hours peering through a binocular microscope making, at the most, small twitching movements with a cotton swab or scalpel, or entering extensive documentation of observations on a computer. This has limited appeal for a visitor.
Robert Morris, Magpie Minimalist Sculptor, Dead At 87
“[He] was one of a generation of artists who embraced the Minimalist credo, along with Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin and others. But while his peers continued to work within the genre’s austere limits, Mr. Morris went on to explore an astonishing variety of stylistic approaches, from scatter art, performance and earthworks to paintings and sculptures symbolizing nuclear holocaust. His detractors, noting his tendency to borrow ideas from other artists freely, questioned his originality and authenticity. His supporters saw in him a mind too restlessly alive to the possibilities of art to be confined to any one style.”
Equal Pay Lawsuit Against Boston Symphony Could Impact Other Orchestras
One thing is certain: if the case does go to court and Elizabeth Rowe prevails, the impact on the symphony world will be profound. While it is true that the law on which this case is based is limited to Massachusetts, there would likely be a strong effort on the part of many musicians to argue that the precedent should apply to them.
This Year’s Man Booker Prize Winner May Never Write Again
Anna Burns, who took the 2018 award for her novel of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Milkman, suffers severe back and nerve pain due to botched surgery some years ago. “Thanks to the Booker, which includes a $64,000 prize, she may get treatment in Germany without having to worry about the cost. ‘If it’s successful, I’ll be able to write again,’ she said. ‘I haven’t written in four and a half years.'”
Undergrads Are Fleeing The History Major: Study
“History has seen the steepest decline in majors of all disciplines since the 2008 recession, according to a new analysis published in the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History. ‘The drop in history’s share of undergraduate majors in the last decade has put us below the discipline’s previous low point in the 1980s,’ reads the analysis.”
Sphinx Starts New Program To Train Minority Classical Music Administrators
The Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, which for 22 years has run education programs and competitions to develop black and Latinx classical music performers, “is launching a leadership development program with educational and mentorship components aimed at cultivating black and Latinx candidates for leadership positions in orchestras, conservatories and music schools across the country.”
See Ancient Rome At The Height Of Its Glory Via Virtual Reality
“The ambitious undertaking, [titled Rome Reborn and] painstakingly built by a team of 50 academics and computer experts over a 22-year period, recreates 7,000 buildings and monuments scattered across a 5.5 square mile stretch of the [imperial capital, circa 320 AD].”
24 Hours, Three Cities, 75 Dancers, 300 Solos, All Streamed Live: Merce Cunningham’s 100th Birthday
“‘Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event’ will take place on what would have been Cunningham’s 100th birthday, 16 April 2019. The three productions, each lasting 75 minutes, will be live-streamed, which means audiences around the world can see the Barbican performance [in London], followed by one a few hours later at Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, and finally one at UCLA’s Centre for the Art of Performance in Los Angeles.”
An ‘Amahl And The Night Visitors’ Staged In A Soup Kitchen, With A Chorus Of Formerly Homeless People
The site-specific New York company On Site Opera, which has already staged productions at a mannequin showroom, Harlem’s Cotton Club, the Bronx Zoo, and Madame Tussaud’s, is presenting Gian Carlo Menotti’s Christmas opera at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, with the chorus recruited from the clients of Breaking Ground, which provides permanent housing and services for the homeless.
NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ Fires Movie Critic David Edelstein
The popular interview show hosted by Terry Gross cut ties after Edelstein posted on Facebook an ill-considered joke (subsequently deleted) about the stick-of-butter scene in Last Tango in Paris that was widely condemned on social media as offensive.
What’s David Edelstein’s Firing Over A Brain-Fart Joke Really About?
“None of this should have happened, but it did,” writes Andrew O’Hehir, Salon‘s executive editor and sometime film critic. “I suspect what befell Edelstein this week is only partly about one stupid Facebook post, and has more to do with the messy process of generational change and the inevitable Schadenfreude surrounding someone who holds two prestigious media jobs, either of which many other people would kill and eat their grandmothers to get.”
After More Than 60 Years, Detroit Rep Will Get A New Artistic Director
“While no date has been set, [the Detroit Repertory Theatre’s] longtime artistic director and co-founder, Bruce Millan — who helped launch the company in 1957 — has announced he’s begun planning for his retirement. When that happens, Leah Smith, the Rep’s marketing and development director, will step into his considerable shoes. The Detroit News spoke with Millan and Smith at the theater last week.”
Unknown John Donne Manuscript Found In A Box In The Corner
“Dating back 400 years, the [handwritten] bound collection was kept for at least the last two centuries at Melford Hall in Suffolk. Sotheby’s expert Dr Gabriel Heaton was on a ‘standard checking visit’ to the property when he found it in a box with other papers.”
Yannick Nézet-Séguin Will Share Met Opera’s New Commissions With Philadelphia Orchestra
In a Q&A with David Patrick Stearns, the music director of the two institutions says of new operas in the works from composers Kevin Puts and Mason Bates, “We will be workshopping these pieces in collaboration with the Curtis Institute. The Philadelphia Orchestra will premiere the scores in a concert presentation prior to the full production at the Met.”
Documenta Lost Even More Millions On Athens Than We Thought
“A final audit has revealed that the deficit caused by overspending in the 2017 edition of Documenta, the contemporary art exhibition that takes place in the German city of Kassel every five years, is more than €2m wider than originally calculated.” The total deficit on the event, €7.6 million, is attributed on overspending on Documenta’s extension to Athens.