The entire architecture of digital life – with its algorithmic feeds, frictionless production and the ambient expectation that we should be consuming or optimising at all times – nudges us towards chasing outputs rather than generating meaning. - Aeon

For the first hour or so, I found the Robot Games enthralling. What can robots already do, and where do they still fall short? Which robot will manage to crawl under an obstacle, and which will pitifully get stuck? But after a while, I suddenly realized that I had grown deeply bored. - Yascha Mounk

The authors don’t actually exist, but are instead names that large language models repeatedly produce when tasked with generating experts in certain fields. - 404 Media

There were ups and downs in the stories I saw people telling, but the trajectory I observed most frequently was an upward one. Growth, expansion, improvement, overcoming. Vacations as burnishments to the image. Illnesses as stress tests, ways of ultimately proving fitness. - The Walrus

The difference between private knowledge, even when widely shared, and common knowledge is not a mere logical nicety. It can unify knowers in coordinated action and sometimes explode a social status quo. - Persuasion

In one moment, you see children playing on the grass, and you are genuinely moved. In the second moment, you see the children playing, and you think how nice it would be to be moved. The latter is the substance of kitsch. - 3 Quarks Daily

Two decades ago, Downtown Brooklyn was well connected but underpopulated, a combination that drew armies of fresh college graduates, quintupling the population. It’s hard to believe how thoroughly and quickly the skyline has been remade in that time—and how shoddily. - Curbed

Calls for an audit of the African-American Arts and Culture Complex came after the nonprofit was consistently late with required reports on the spending of millions in city grant money. The audit found no misuse of funds but identified shortcomings with both the AAACC and the San Francisco Arts Commission. - San Francisco Chronicle...

What’s happening to the New School is an increasingly common story across all of higher education, hit by a perfect storm of financial and political pressures. Well-paid bosses, touting fiscal crises, seek to fire their way to profitability. - Dissent

Nearly all (95%) women working in the arts thought gender inequality persisted, while three-quarters (75%) reported experiencing unconscious bias or sexism, according to a survey of 76 arts professionals. - The Guardian

Across the city, community-based arts education organizations employ thousands of music educators, teaching artists, arts therapists, accompanists and administrators — together, one of the city’s largest employers of working artists. New York’s real competitive advantage is the ability to attract and retain creative talent. But artists need reliable employment, benefits, professional networks and room...

Each new development and court filing in opposition makes the same structural problem clearer: A judge can restrain the board’s actions time and time again, but “if the problem is a governance problem, there is not much that a court can do.” - The Atlantic

A producer created a cover of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” using AI-generated vocals and drums. The remix became the most played song on Australian radio, spent 16 weeks on the charts and hit No. 1 for Australian dance singles. Traditionalists called it AI slop, but the reboot been streamed more than 48 million times. - Washington Post

Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, and numerous other music publishers have sued Anthropic and co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann, alleging the AI lab conducted a “brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works.” - TechCrunch

“From Tuesday 1 September, every title in the LaScalaTV catalogue will be available to watch for free, following simple registration – a shift made possible by continued support from the platform’s Principal Sponsor, Intesa Sanpaolo.” - Gramilano (Milan)

It would be an understatement to say that the growing prominence of A.I. music is generating backlash—sometimes it seems this music generates nothing but backlash. - The New Yorker

An effective review offers what the concert can’t: an extra-human perspective. By “extra-human,” I mean going beyond the experience of any one person, beyond the perspective of the reviewer and beyond the specific concert itself. - San Francisco Classical Voice

This year Curtis will have 13 musicians entering school under the age of 18. But even at a place known for prodigies, Olivia is unusual. She is believed to be the youngest student to study at Curtis since 1950, when 6-year-old violinist Diana Halprin matriculated. - Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

“Investigative authorities have said very little on the record, but sources speaking anonymously to The Guardian and local media, as well as art historians who know the (museum in Messina) intimately, say lots of elements don’t add up, except one: the date chosen by the thieves.” - The Guardian

The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents voted Monday to house the American Latino museum, which Congress created in 2020 but which has lacked a permanent home, in the Arts and Industries Building, a 258,000-square-foot redbrick Victorian structure next to the institution’s headquarters. - Washington Post

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art is canceling its planned exhibit honoring British designer John Galliano, which had led to severe backlash in the Jewish community and beyond because of the designer’s past antisemitic and racist statements.” - AP

“She made more than 20 variants of her mirrored chambers, which use light, sculpture and reflection to create a kind of 360-degree celestial infinity. They have traveled around the world and reached enormous popularity, forever changing the types of exhibits that are staged and the way the public engages with them.” - CNN (Yahoo!)

“Two municipal employees in the Dutch city of Rotterdam have been dismissed following an investigation into alleged corruption involving construction contracts. They include work connected to asbestos removal at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, one of the country’s most important museums.” - ARTnews

While the exhibition of the massive medieval embroidery at the British Museum hasn’t yet opened to the public, the right-wing tech billionaire was hosted by the museum’s director of development for a private viewing — for which he is reported to have made no donation — on August 18. - The Guardian

After Mr. Putin declared all-out war on Ukraine in 2022, he unleashed a devastating crackdown on free speech. That was initially confined to criticism of the war. Over time it spread, attacking a range of cultural expression. Now, the Kremlin is placing literature squarely in its cross hairs. - The New York Times

Elsevier announced the launch of Nora AI, an AI-powered assistant available within Elsevier e-books through VitalSource's Bookshelf platform. Nora AI enables users to ask questions and receive personalized, evidence-based answers drawn directly from Elsevier content. - Publishers Weekly

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of students enrolled in Yiddish-language online courses exploded – not only in the United States but also in Canada, Mexico and Latin America, Europe and elsewhere. … At the same time, organizations like the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Yiddish Book Center have pushed for a new perception of Yiddish.” - The Conversation

“(The) gap between the rapid expansion in available titles and slowing revenue growth is creating new pressure across the industry. ... More titles are competing for a finite amount of listening time, raising the value of established audiences and making it harder for individual projects to break through.” - TheWrap (MSN)

“The reality is that our reading choices are directed and massaged at every turn. … And who are the persuaders? They’re the booksellers, the supermarket stock buyers, the publishing houses and their ranks of marketers and publicists. And, more recently, persuasion often comes from (social media). How is all this changing publishing?” - The...

“(She) produc(ed) 12 novels, four volumes of poetry, one collection of short stories, and an autobiography between 1977 and 2002. … Kusama’s novels are dark, violent, and, in many cases, clearly informed by her decade in New York, no matter how emphatically she entreated readers to interpret them otherwise.” - Artnet

“The new label, titled Leawood Films, will distribute and market films for established and emerging filmmakers. But … the company is not necessarily aiming for blockbusters, and will instead focus on small- and medium-sized films. It will be genre-agnostic.” - The Hollywood Reporter

“President Trump on Monday urged Congress to approve federal tax incentives aimed at reviving American film and television productions, saying Hollywood has been hollowed out by productions moving to Canada and other countries.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Currently, per Rentrak, the North American box office for the first Friday in May through EOD today stands at $4.598 billion, officially the second-highest summer ever behind 2013. If this summer is going to beat 2013’s all-time high, it has $158M to gross. - Deadline

“She is part of a lineage that has gone dormant: larger-than-life, carefully curated personas bolstered by their market value at the box office and by how their sheer artistry shapes the texts that end up on the silver screen. These are women like Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Mae West.” - Vulture...

Love it or hate it, with its viewing figures fast overtaking traditional broadcasters’, YouTube is now undeniably a part of the U.K.’s broadcasting ecosystem. - Variety

The movies in the good-because-bad canon are not forgettably bad, like cheesy Hallmark fare or the thousandth predictable sequel in a superhero franchise; they are not skillfully and expensively bad, like botched Oscar bait. - The New Yorker

“By the 1950s, Chandralekha was a legendary figure in (Bharatanatyam). However, she walked away from fame, rejecting the Brahminical and nationalist values that had come to shape it. ... When she returned to the stage in 1984, she brought with her a radically reimagined practice — sensual, iconoclastic and uncompromisingly feminist.” - Elle India

The 49-year-old native of Estonia danced with San Francisco Ballet for 18 years, retiring as a principal in 2023. He spent over a decade applying for artistic director positions; now that he has one, he’s excited about almost every aspect of it, even the fundraising. - Pointe Magazine

"Dancing? Banned? In New York?! Not anymore," Hochul said. "Thanks to my administration, you can now cut loose, footloose and kick off your Sunday shoes." - New York Daily News (Yahoo)

“The contests appear to be designed for virality, with young competitors often demonstrating exaggerated versions of popular TikTok dance moves for the audience. Outrageousness seems to be the point of these battles, which have no apparent criteria, judges, or rules. Instead, contestants compete for crowd reaction and are rewarded with attention.” - CNN (MSN)

Rachael Gunn, the middle-aged Australian breaker who went viral worldwide after coming dead last in the 2024 Olympics: “It’s part of society now, if you end up online, people are going to rubbish you, but maybe we need to reframe it as a badge of honor that you’ve actually done something interesting.” - CNN...

“Pandora … was the first woman, an Eve-like figure, created from clay and given by Zeus to Epimetheus, unbeknownst to him, as a punishment for his brother Prometheus giving humans fire. ‘One of the things I was really driven by was the fact that she was an agent of change,’ says Barton.” - The...

The idea has taken root that venues outside of London are in perpetual crisis. Standstill funding has affected all theatres but the retreat by local authorities from funding the arts has had a significant impact on theatres outside the capital. - The Stage

Looking back, having lived and experienced life and now nearing 40, that place felt like a cradle. Being an usher cracked open my heart to the beauty of humans experiencing art and I had the privilege of watching along with them. - The Guardian

Silicon Valley’s embrace of improvisation and theater is also part of its much bigger and more longstanding philosophical tendency to treat reality, play, perception and performance as essentially interchangeable. - The New York Times

The festival sold or distributed over 2.8 million tickets in 2026, up nearly 8% from last year and approaching the 3 million sold in 2019. This despite the fact that attendance fell sharply during the festival’s final week. Saturday 17 August set an all-time record for single-day attendance — more than 164,000. - BBC...

Attendance and grosses have fallen from the show’s early highs, with the show playing to 50- to 60-percent capacity this spring, but the production has seen a relatively long, healthy run on Broadway, as the 40th longest running show in its history. - The Hollywood Reporter

One might argue that Beckett is the perfect playwright for an actor with that condition to perform — especially when the play is Krapp’s Last Tape, which Peter Marinker is preparing to do this week. Here’s how he, along with the director and crew at London’s Cockpit Theatre, are making it work. - BBC...

“In poems, stories, novels and essays (he) celebrated the farming communities of his native (Kentucky) and warned of the excesses and misjudgments of an industrial, commercialized society.” - AP

In works that were by turns personal and political — vividly realistic and unsettlingly surreal — he captured and uplifted Palestinian life and history, creating art that served as a form of preservation as well as resistance. - Washington Post

The only issue at the former obstetric nurse’s trial is whether she deliberately planned the killings (as prosecutors argue) or (as she claims) was in the grip of postpartum psychosis. Yet there’s a crop of true-crime fans on TikTok and other platforms who insist that Patrick Clancy is really the murderer. - Variety

She starred in movies and invested in property and wrote children’s books, sold cake mix and jeans and doggy toys. Dollywood, the theme park she launched in 1986, was an economic engine that generated thousands of jobs in the Eastern part of Tennessee. - The Wall Street Journal

After Indiana’s death, the Star of Hope Foundation began to transform the old lodge as a public art space. But now it plans to put the building and another one he owned on the market as the foundation shifts from focusing on managing the properties into directly supporting art and cultural initiatives on Vinalhaven....

The beloved librarian and host of the kids’ TV show reboot, Threets made news earlier this week when he said on social media “I am not okay” and checked into a psychiatric hospital. Now he has revealed some details of how he’s been suffering and what his diagnoses are. - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)