Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
How Streaming Platforms Guide Your Choices
Being able to control how long programmes are available to stream appears to give video-on-demand platforms significant power over what audiences watch. The longer...
Neuroscientist Predicted 25 Years Ago Science Would Unlock Consciousness. He Loses Bet
Despite a vast effort, researchers still don’t understand how our brains produce it, however. “It started off as a very big philosophical mystery. But...
Cormac McCarthy Was A Literary Star. He Couldn’t Happen Today
This improbable trajectory — writer toils for decades in obscurity before finding international renown — is the stuff of legend. But it did not...
Another Director Quits The Much-Troubled Royal British Columbia Museum
In the wake of the recent resignation of Alicia Dubois, the chief executive of the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) in Victoria, British Columbia, 16 months after...
Why Divas Have The Right To Be Difficult
Diva status depended, back then as now, on being the author of your own career – creatively and financially – and driving it forward....
What Ails Publishing Can’t Be Fixed By AI
Authors know that the idea that “good books” will prevail in the marketplace is a cruel joke. Publishers are very, very bad at connecting...
San Francisco Opera At 100: Its Best Season Ever?
"There’s no getting around it. I’ve been covering this company since 1985, and in all that time there’s never been a season in which...
In Canada: Facebook, Google Now Have To Pay For News
Meta announced in a news release following the act's passage that it will block news for Canadian users in order to comply with the...
The Internet Imperative: Cost Drops To Free
It's now clear that practically everything Web technology touches starts down the path to gratis. Basic economics tells us that in a competitive market,...
How Did Steven Holl’s Queens Library, With All Its Accessibility Issues, Get Approved?
How a public building constructed in the 21st century, having journeyed through New York City’s laborious approvals process, can emerge so ill-prepared to receive...
Disney’s Slump: Studio Has Lost $900 Million On Recent Movies
Titles like "The Little Mermaid" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" haven't been able to deliver the expected results, adding to Disney's economic woes. In...
Why You Should Give Up Traveling
Travel gets branded as an achievement: see interesting places, have interesting experiences, become interesting people. Is that what it really is? - The New...
Review Bombing Is Warping Whether A Book Is Successful Or Not
Given its influence, some authors have come to think of Goodreads as a necessary evil, and a minefield. - The New York Times
Why LA’s Center Theatre Pressed Pause On The Mark Taper Forum
“Taper shows lose the most money. That’s always been true. But right now they’re costing us twice as much as they would have before....
Archaeologists Use AI To Translate 5000-Year-Old Ancient Language
A team of archaeologists and computer scientists have created an AI program that can translate ancient cuneiform tablets instantly using neural machine learning translations....
How AI Is Reimagining Urban Design
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are rapidly changing how we investigate and imagine the world and the urban environment. They can generate a highly "realistic" representation...
Experiments In Sustainable Theatre Design
The structure consists of a 26-metre-long timber frame, shaped roughly like the number six with one long wall clad in mycelium – a biomaterial grown from...
Behold: The Mighty “Sonic Sphere”
The Sonic Sphere, a realization of a modernist dream by the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, aims for a new kind of listening experience: surrounding the...
The Marvel Movie AI Credits: No Artists Were Replaced
"It is crucial to emphasize that while the AI component provided optimal results, AI is just one tool among the array of toolsets our...
Dani Filth: Streaming Is Killing Us
"Spotify are the biggest criminals in the world. I think we had 25, 26 million plays last year, and I think personally I got...
The 257 Recordings Of Claudio Abbado
If Abbado’s life had a theme, it was this question of power: of what power means in music, where it comes from, and to...
Might HBO License Its Content To Netflix?
Talk of such a move was a surprise, largely given the frostiness between the two rivals, which have been battling it out on the...
The Long Slow Decline Of Pixar
In retrospect, it seems clear that “Inside Out” was when Pixar’s Silicon Valley brain trust began to peel off from the universe and float...
The Academic Right — Obligation — To Cancel
The whole point about academic freedom: the freedom to exercise academic expertise in order to discriminate between good and bad ideas, valid and invalid...
Book Bans Are Only Part Of The Assault On Reading
A precious domain of imaginative and intellectual freedom is menaced by crude authoritarian politics. Exposure to the wrong words is corrupting our children, who...
