Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The Machines Are Talking to Each Other
Good Afternoon,
The machines are mostly talking to each other now, and we're the ones waiting for a reply. The Atlantic frames the quiet crisis...
The Trump Administration Is Dismantling Support For Social Science Research
If the National Science Foundation does stop funding social scientists, experts told me, our 5,000-foot-view of American life will get foggier. The NSF, through...
The World Is Becoming Automated Around Us. Are Humans Losing Autonomy?
Computers talk to computers, producing information to train computers to sound more like humans or to better engage them. Humans type into the box,...
A Dancer Helping To Redefine What A Ballet Body Is
Ballet has a reputation for upholding rigid body standards. In recent years, though, the art form has been rethinking its relationship to diversity in...
How Alice Walton Culturally Transformed A Corner Of Arkansas
It’s impossible to miss the scope of transformation that’s happened in Bentonville, population 63,000. - Fast Company
Just What Does “American” Architecture Look Like In 2026?
A new book makes the case that when it comes to evolving forms and styles in American architecture, a new generation of firms is...
Not So Fast: Interior Secretary Won’t Commit To Removing Trump Name From The Kennedy...
Secretary Burgum’s hedging came as Trump attacked the decision and the judge behind it on social media Friday and Saturday. - Time
What We Need To Do To Get America Reading Again
Teaching people to read and building a world where they can do so are different problems. Throwing our phones in the lake can’t bring...
Facebook Whistleblower Forced To Stay Silent On Hay Festival By Meta
Sarah Wynn-Williams, whose bestselling memoir, Careless People, details her years working at Facebook, was due to appear in conversation with the investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr...
AI-Created Music Is Now Overwhelming Playlists
AI music has gone viral before and charted before, but song generators are now good and fast enough that they can flood the zone, creating tracks that slip...
A Trio Of Prominent Art Critics Has Just Retired. Here’s What We’ve Lost
The trio were not only the most influential, but also the most gainfully employed—two factors that have everything to do with each other. - ARTnews
Presidio Theatre seeks Executive Director
Presidio Theatre seeks Executive Director. Estimated base salary in the range of $200,000 to $220,000.
AJ Chronicles: Google Just Changed the way We’re Going to Find Culture
What Google presented this month was revolutionary, a declaration that the web as we know it is dead, and an operating manual for how the new web will work. More important, it suggests how we all will find — or fail to find — culture over the next decade.
Federal Judge Orders Trump To Take His Name Off The Kennedy Center
A federal judge Friday ordered that President Donald Trump’s name be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and that...
Top Hollywood Exec Pay Rose 51 Percent As Industry Shed 17,000 Jobs
The total compensation for the top executives surged a stunning 51% from a year earlier, based on a tally of $615 million vs. $408.5...
The Art Looter Who Supplied Museums
Latchford’s success depended not just on criminal networks that supplied and transported these objects, but on the willingness of museums, dealers, collectors, and scholars...
Universities Rethink The SAT
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics,...
Summing Up Dudamel’s Time With The LA Philharmonic
Unlike his immediate predecessor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, who also served as the Philharmonic’s music director for 17 seasons, Mr. Dudamel seems not to have matured on...
FCC Action Against ABC Is A Threat To Free Speech, Says Disney
“The order is inconsistent with a legitimate exercise of investigative authority and is plainly incompatible with the First Amendment,” Disney said in its Thursday...
Looking At 100s Of Thousands Of College Essays: AI Flattens Creativity
This seems to be especially true for students. A.I.’s smooth sentences, elegant transitions and rich vocabulary give the illusion of expansive creativity and individuality....
Gehry Partners Will Work On Renovation Of The Getty Center
Gehry Partners will design a variety of upgrades to the Getty Center — including a major revamp of its entry experience — during its...
The Publishing Industry Is Very Vulnerable To AI
The book-publishing industry had already been wrestling with the prospect of a flood of AI-authored texts in the fiction market, and now the Rosenbaum...
YouTube Will Start Labeling AI Video
YouTube is making AI-generated content labels more prominent for viewers — and it’s going to start automatically applying the labels if it detects that...
Science: Yes, Pianists Can Control Sound By Their Touch
Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), suggest that the subtle motions of a pianist's fingers and hands influence how...
The Savannah Philharmonic seeks Chief Executive Officer
The next Chief Executive Officer will drive a forward-looking vision that integrates artistic excellence with meaningful educational and community impact.
