Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Does Social Media Negate The Wisdom Of Crowds?
Here’s the thing about the wisdom of crowds – it only applies when those individual decisions are reached independently. Once we start influencing each...
From China To Amsterdam, Why Do So Many Bikes End Up In Urban Waterways?
Some of the bikes may have ended up in the canal by accident. Cyclists lost in the dark or disoriented by fog steer bikes...
Audiences Accept Modern Art. Why Not Modern Music?
More than 100 years after all the -isms in modern art, art lovers, art buyers, and masses of museumgoers throughout the world wholly accept...
Facebook’s New AI Chatbot Bizarrely Dishes On Its Corporate Overlords
Asked about Mark Zuckerberg, the bot told BuzzFeed’s Max Woolf that “he is a good businessman, but his business practices are not always ethical. It is...
New UK Guidance For Museums On Art Restitution
While cases regarding repatriation may be complex, the authors say, “they often present rich opportunities for enhancing understanding for all involved” by allowing the...
Fan Obsessions Are Changing The Ways TV Is Made
Audiences have begun to more actively engage with what they watch. They analyze, turning ambiguity into clarity, forging connections with fellow fans. As a...
Archaeologists Rebury Important Ancient Villa
“It may seem counterintuitive, but sometimes burying excavated ancient art and architecture is the best way to keep it safe from environmental and human...
Moral Grandstanding? Virtue Signaling? So…
“Moral grandstanding” and “virtue signaling” are slurs. They are variations on the charge of being “woke”, “politically correct,” etc., going at least as far...
Are We All Just Living In An Artificial Simulation?
This idea is surprisingly popular among philosophers and even some scientists. Assume that in the far future, civilisations hugely more technically advanced than ours...
Should James Franco Play Fidel Castro In The New Biopic? (Cue Outcries)
On Friday, after the casting of a white U.S. actor in the role of a prominent Latin American political figure had drawn widespread condemnation online (including...
Report: A Third Of Seattle’s Arts Workers Are Thinking Of Leaving The Field
Roughly a third of respondents indicated they were thinking about leaving the sector, and 4 in 10 respondents said they were considering a change...
Two Years Ago Keith Jarrett Had A Stroke. Here’s How He’s Doing
"I sit down at the piano. Last couple of days, I was there every day. I don't get much back from my right hand,...
Marvel’s Special Effects Artists Are Speaking Up About Working Conditions
The work is contracted to a VFX house at a set price. An effects artist might manage grueling hours to meet hard release dates...
The Bookstore As Expedition
The Internet dealt a major blow by creating a massive single market for used books, undercutting the bread-and-butter lower end of the secondhand market....
Our Brains Fill In Details Of Experience Based On Other Experiences
If you’ve ever had a conversation with someone about an event you both participated in that left you feeling like one of you was...
Here’s What Happens When You Offer Free Grammar Advice
I know how deep people’s relationship to grammar runs, because I’ve been teaching adults of all socioeconomic and educational backgrounds for thirty years. Language...
What If We Are The Ancients The Future Remembers?
Longtermism is about taking seriously just how big the future could be and how high the stakes are in shaping it. If humanity survives...
Where The US Is Losing Population
The examination of age shifts shows a loss of young people under age 18 and those in their prime working ages (18 through 59)....
Why Elevators Are Losing Their Music
With phones and constant connectivity do we really need a song during our elevator journeys? Apparently not. Elevators are losing their soundtracks. At least,...
New Leader For 9/11 Museum
Elizabeth Hillman, 54, who served as a U.S. Air Force space operations officer in the 1990s before becoming a law professor in the 2000s,...
How Museums Are Dealing With LGBTQ Cultures
Queer Britain is just one of a wave of new L.G.B.T.Q. institutions in London. “We’re still trying to see how we fit together with...
Why So Many Adults Are Keeping Their Kid Culture
If life in the 1930s was marked by a Great Depression, and the 2010s by a Great Recession, one might say our current decade...
Polish Museum Implores Visitors To Please Not Have Sex In The Museum
“Guests in love, please understand — most of the exhibits in our museum are objects ‘born’ many years ago and subject to completely different...
Pittsburgh Arts Advocates Want To Revamp City’s Percent-For-Art Program
“Right now, Percent for Art is reactive based on location, as opposed to opportunistic and strategic as to where’s the greatest need.” - WESA
Hollywood’s Critiques Of Online Culture Are Getting Pretty Good
The internet by design has sanded complex ideas down to trending hashtags, stripping subtlety from language and producing younger generations who confuse attention for...
