AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Dance USA’s New Director On The State Of The Field
The entire field is facing heightened levels of uncertainty, and we have not been spared. Dance/USA needs to reimagine and rebuild its business model. Our existing organizational strategy and structure are not sustainable. I took this job knowing that that was the case. – Dance Magazine
- The Onion’s Takeover Of InfoWars May Be The Most Interesting Media Story Of The Year
Since The Onion took over Alex Jones’s rabidly right-wing media property and turned it into a parody of itself, the brand has gotten hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. What could have been a one-note joke has become a real business, with viewership exceeding Jones’s own. – TheWrap (Yahoo!)
- Microdramas Are Surging As Hollywood Chases TikTok
Microdramas may be the only thing that’s growing in Hollywood. The format is expected to generate $1.5 billion in revenue in the U.S. this year and jump to nearly $2 billion next year, according to research firm Omdia. – Reuters
- National Symphony Announces New Season (No Kennedy Center)
The orchestra said that from September to June, it will stage some 60 performances at six venues across the region. – Washington Post (MSN)
- Researchers Use AI To Define Musical “Fingerprints” Of 20 Jazz Greats
In a new paper in Nature Machine Intelligence, three University of Cambridge researchers used AI to help better define the musical tics of 20 of the most celebrated jazz pianists of all time. – Scientific American
ISSUES
- The Rijksmuseum Has Digitized 840,000 Artworks And Put Them Online
The museum promised to “bring the museum to you,” and it has delivered not only with its extensive digital collection, free for downloading, sharing and editing with a free Rijksmuseum account, but also with informative series on its website. – Open Culture
- What Are The Best Art Emojis? Getty Curators Have Thoughts…
Curators at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles have taken those variations as an invitation to judgment. In a series of recent social media posts, the museum is rating the appearances of art-adjacent emojis across different platforms and operating systems, leavening scholarly expertise with a liberal sprinkling of cheek. – The New York Times
- Sydney’s Biggest Cultural Project Since The Opera House Sets Its Official Opening Date
Powerhouse Paramatta, a 915 million AUD (US$650 million) museum of applied design and technology, will be Western Sydney’s first major cultural institution. It will open to the public this November 7. – Time Out Sydney
- As Some Paintings Are Found, Art Thieves Hit A Sicilian Museum
In the morning, good news about an art theft from March. Then came the evening. “Thieves got past the alarm system at Messina’s Museo Interdisciplinare Regionale (MuMe), and broke open a security case. They soon left with four wooden panels.” – NPR
- Massive Art Thefts, Massive Recoveries This Week In Italy And Brazil
“The recovered works are Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries, which authorities said was valued at about $7m (£5.2m), Renoir’s Fish, valued at $3.5m, and Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace.” – The Guardian (UK)
MEDIA
- France’s Planned Ban On Social Media For Under-15s Ruled Unconstitutional
“The Constitutional Council … said the restrictions in the bill disproportionately infringe on minors’ right to freedom of expression and communication. Europe’s would-be first social media ban … had been a flagship policy of Macron’s second and final term.” – Politico
- Close The Kennedy Center? It Might Be The Best Option
Given how thoroughly Trump’s leadership has destroyed the center’s viability as a presenting organization, that is probably the best of a slew of bad options. – Washington Post
- Confirmed: Amazon Is Scanning And Then Ripping Up Rare Books
Wow, OK, way to be just obviously evil. “The printed book is destroyed in the process. The logo of the Amazon team that works at this warehouse, called VGT3, is a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands.” – 404 Media
- The Current Guy Uses AI To Claim Ballroom Approval From A Long-Dead Leader
The 47th president shared “a series of seemingly AI-generated images … and a short video in which Trump and Washington stroll through the still-unbuilt ballroom. ‘Thank you, George, for some of your brilliant ideas on this great Military Complex/Ballroom!’ Trump captioned the 10-second video.” – Salon
- The Dream Of A ‘Red State Hollywood’ Usually Founders On A Couple Of Things
“No one wants more uncertainty, and certainly no one wants this chaos. And let’s face it, no one really wants to move from Beverly Hills to Nashville.” – The New York Times
MUSIC
- Why Reading Fiction Is Good For Your Brain
The amount of fiction people read seems to be a better predictor of language ability than nonfiction, research finds. And, perhaps even more importantly, research has found that fiction is linked to better social cognition and an increased understanding of the world as a complex place. – Washington Post
- Why Writing Detectors For AI Won’t Work
Either human speech and AI speech progressively assimilate, causing a collapse in any meaningful distinction, or language becomes a contested social signal. This second scenario would essentially be a game of whack-a-mole across the English language. – Washington Post
- A “Great Books” Professor Lets His Students Watch Him Struggle With “The Brothers Karamazov”
Matt Dinan, of St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada, had somehow never read the Dostoevsky classic before last semester. He found himself completely consumed by the novel — and then found his students equally taken with it. The reasons they gave for being so excited were telling. – The New York Times
- All Novels Are Boring Until They’re Not
I call this point in a novel its volta. The term comes from poetry, where it denotes a shift that sonnets exhibit between their opening octave and concluding sestet or between their first 12 lines and final couplet. – Public Books
- AI Has Plunged Publishing Into Chaos
The spectacular implosions of big book deals over suspected AI use—and fears about who might be next—are forcing a reckoning over the nature of authorship, the relationship between writers and publishers and the industry’s long-term survival. – The Wall Street Journal
PEOPLE
- Dance USA’s New Director On The State Of The Field
The entire field is facing heightened levels of uncertainty, and we have not been spared. Dance/USA needs to reimagine and rebuild its business model. Our existing organizational strategy and structure are not sustainable. I took this job knowing that that was the case. – Dance Magazine
- The Onion’s Takeover Of InfoWars May Be The Most Interesting Media Story Of The Year
Since The Onion took over Alex Jones’s rabidly right-wing media property and turned it into a parody of itself, the brand has gotten hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. What could have been a one-note joke has become a real business, with viewership exceeding Jones’s own. – TheWrap (Yahoo!)
- Microdramas Are Surging As Hollywood Chases TikTok
Microdramas may be the only thing that’s growing in Hollywood. The format is expected to generate $1.5 billion in revenue in the U.S. this year and jump to nearly $2 billion next year, according to research firm Omdia. – Reuters
- National Symphony Announces New Season (No Kennedy Center)
The orchestra said that from September to June, it will stage some 60 performances at six venues across the region. – Washington Post (MSN)
- Researchers Use AI To Define Musical “Fingerprints” Of 20 Jazz Greats
In a new paper in Nature Machine Intelligence, three University of Cambridge researchers used AI to help better define the musical tics of 20 of the most celebrated jazz pianists of all time. – Scientific American
PEOPLE
- Dance USA’s New Director On The State Of The Field
The entire field is facing heightened levels of uncertainty, and we have not been spared. Dance/USA needs to reimagine and rebuild its business model. Our existing organizational strategy and structure are not sustainable. I took this job knowing that that was the case. – Dance Magazine
- The Onion’s Takeover Of InfoWars May Be The Most Interesting Media Story Of The Year
Since The Onion took over Alex Jones’s rabidly right-wing media property and turned it into a parody of itself, the brand has gotten hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. What could have been a one-note joke has become a real business, with viewership exceeding Jones’s own. – TheWrap (Yahoo!)
- Microdramas Are Surging As Hollywood Chases TikTok
Microdramas may be the only thing that’s growing in Hollywood. The format is expected to generate $1.5 billion in revenue in the U.S. this year and jump to nearly $2 billion next year, according to research firm Omdia. – Reuters
- National Symphony Announces New Season (No Kennedy Center)
The orchestra said that from September to June, it will stage some 60 performances at six venues across the region. – Washington Post (MSN)
- Researchers Use AI To Define Musical “Fingerprints” Of 20 Jazz Greats
In a new paper in Nature Machine Intelligence, three University of Cambridge researchers used AI to help better define the musical tics of 20 of the most celebrated jazz pianists of all time. – Scientific American
THEATRE
VISUAL
- The End Of Nostalgia?
What if businesses become too good at selling nostalgia? Research I carried out with colleagues suggests that digital technology is changing nostalgia itself. Ironically, by making the past permanently available, companies may be weakening the very notion they are trying to sell. – The Conversation
- Warning: Screen Time Is Having An Impact On Kids’ Cognitive Abilities
“Our children are less cognitively capable than we were at their age. For nearly two centuries, the west experienced steady generational progress. Each new cohort of children grew up, on average, healthier, happier, and better educated than the last. Until now.” – The Guardian
- How AI Will Damage Children’s Brain Development
During the most foundational period of brain development, social interaction of the sort that AI can now emulate isn’t entertainment for the developing brain. It’s nutrition. Once you see it that way, the right parallel snaps into focus. A more apt comparison than social media is food—more precisely, processed food. – The Atlantic
- Our Ability To Search The Internet Is Dying
Search can no longer pretend to be a neutral gateway to a stable body of knowledge. While the web has always been organized around intermediaries that shape what survives online and who sees it, the internet’s archival function is today breaking down under relentless pressure from stakeholders with very different—and often conflicting—priorities. – The Walrus
- The Anti-AI ‘Hand-Designed’ Trend Is Big, But Also Filled With Grift
“Most telling is Claude’s branding, incorporating hand-drawn illustrations and details that attempt to tell the world, ‘Hey, we’re the more human AI.’” – Fast Company