Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Thomas Heatherwick: We Need A Campaign For More Interesting Buildings
Calling for “a national conversation” about halting the spread of depressing architecture, he said: “We need to fearlessly demand interestingness. We need to rebel...
Theatre In America Is In Crisis – We Need To Listen To One Another
"The way we work together is as crucial as what we make, and that means acknowledging how badly we need each other’s ideas and...
Hugely Consequential LA Museum Director Retires
The decision to retire was the product of a year’s worth of rumination, Ann Philbin explained, and now, at 71, she is ready to...
Survey: Americans Say Live Entertainment Tickets Have Gotten Too Expensive
Nearly 60% of Americans say they have had to cut back on spending on live entertainment this year because of rising costs, according to...
Is English National Opera “Managing Decline”?
“This is a plan of managed decline, rather than an attempt to rebuild the company and maintain the world-class artistic output for which ENO...
Remembering Editor Steve Rubin
“Steve Rubin did more for music criticism than anybody — first, in the searching articles he wrote as a young man; later, as a...
The Music Industry Has Become “Always On” For Musicians
There is a "very real fear that the algorithm will ‘forget’ artists if they do not keep up a steady flow of social posts...
NEA Report: Significantly Fewer Americans Are Attending Arts Events
That number represents a six-point drop from the most recent survey in 2017, amplifying alarm bells that the arts community is struggling to regain...
Simon Woods: We Need To Rethink Orchestra Governance
"We can’t hide from uncomfortable questions about to what extent we should be connecting capacity and generosity with power and influence in a world...
For The First Time In 33 Years, The Pacific Symphony Is Choosing A New...
Pacific Symphony’s leadership change is happening at a time when audiences have become increasingly choosy. - CultureOC
A New AI Worry – Its Ability To Manipulate Viewers Subliminally
A.I.-centric handwringing concerns the potential to generate images with hidden, subliminal messages. The supposed danger is that brands will start producing carefully doctored images...
Uncanceled: Kevin Spacey Performs At Oxford
“In an era of cancellation and defenestration we sometimes forget that we cannot go on like this and that we have been here before....
What Happens To An Artist’s Work When The Technology It’s Created In Goes Obsolete?
Rather than keep stockpiles of expensive and obsolete technology in storage, museums have to find clever ways around software updates, from video game emulators...
Barenboim: My Israeli/Palestinian Orchestra Found Common Ground. We Need To Move Forward
Do we surrender to this terrible violence and let our striving for peace die – or do we insist that there must and can...
Generative AI And The Next Generation Of Spirituality
We’re in a spiritual revolution. Access to astrology and other spiritual practices has proliferated across witchy corners of the internet, with many tools fully...
Ukraine’s National Orchestra Regathers Its Musicians And Tours
Many of the orchestra’s musicians scattered. Some stayed, volunteering in field kitchens, doing what they could to help the effort to push back the...
Startling: Americans Without A College Degree Have Dramatically Lower Life Expectancy
For those without college degrees, life expectancy reached its peak around 2010 and has been falling since, an unfolding disaster that has attracted little attention...
New Owner Eliminates Half Of Bandcamp’s Employees
Half the staff at Bandcamp, the online music platform known for championing independent artists and labels, have been laid off following the recent purchase...
How We Determine Copyright Law Is An Existential Issue For AI
Legal experts told me that copyright challenges pose a near-existential threat to existing A.I. models if the way they’re being trained isn’t aboveboard. If...
The Internet Is Broken. Here’s How We Should Fix It
The internet is worth fighting for because despite all the misery, there’s still so much good to be found there. And yet, fixing online...
Study: Women Are Dramatically Underrepresented In Opera Companies
Men accounted for 95 percent of the conducting credits at the 11 largest American opera companies between 2005 and 2021. But men also dominated...
Don’t Believe Your Eyes: Suddenly All Our Photos Aren’t Real
As smartphones go, this integration of AI signals a new era, one created with tech that is intuitive to the kind of ferocious simulation...
How To Think About The Threats Of AI?
Maybe the nightmare about AI isn’t that it will go rogue and threaten our existence with lethal viruses. Maybe the likely endgame is similar...
Influencers And The Conflict Between Quality And Popularity
It’s the age-old problem of the relationship between the good and the popular. Plato saw the popular as the enemy of the good, but...
The Breakdancing Countertenor Explains the Aesthetic
"When I'm in my practice sessions with my breakdance crew, sometimes I put some classical instrumental music and I invite them to actually explore...
