The latest battle (last time we checked, at least) was last week, when the image generator of Google's Gemini bot was found to default to women and people of color even when asked to create images of Vikings and popes. Conservative critics accused the bot of being woke, of course. - Wired
If it’s tough for venues, it’s even tougher for artists, who in the past have found it hard but possible to sustain some kind of hand-to-mouth living from project funding. - The Stage
Cherelle Parker: "Every time you hear us referencing the importance of making our city the safest, the cleanest, the greenest big city in the nation, with economic opportunity for all, you have to know that arts and culture play an essential role in helping to make that happen." - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
"Arts Council England has released new guidance confirming it will not penalise organisations for working with artists who make political statements, after earlier advice suggested 'overtly political or activist' work could break funding agreements." - The Guardian
Despite Oregon’s arts sector garnering $829 million in economic activity every year, the state is ranked at No. 41 for its annual arts funding per capita. - KOIN
Regional council’s decision to pause the arts fund for a third-party review due to alleged harassment and governance concerns, announced in a press release on Wednesday evening, came as a shock to its board members. - The Record (Waterloo)
"More than half the councils that responded to a survey said they were likely to be unable to balance their books in the next five years. Two-thirds said they were cutting services. Parks, leisure facilities, arts and culture are at the top of the list." - BBC
The fact of the matter is that the problem is not our students. It is us: faculty and administrators who are too afraid—of random people on social media, hard-core activists, irritable alumni, assorted “friends” of Harvard—to allow a culture of open debate and dialogue to flourish. - The Wall Street Journal
Whether Disney adults are embarrassing or enchanting is largely a matter of opinion. What is missing from endless comment sections is the fact that they are a creation of the Walt Disney Company – a character constructed just as carefully as Elsa or Donald Duck. - New Statesman
If no one industry rules the city, one group of people does: artists. Every year, a new generation of them arrive in New York hoping to make their name. Those of us who aren’t artists come here for them, too. - The New York Times
Improving DTLA desperately needs advocates - and a focus, which the area could provide. “The sorry fact is that the hall has never been the best it can be, and there seems to be far too little motivation to take the place to its necessary next step." - Los Angeles Times
"A few attendees stepped outside to acknowledge the incident and see what was going on, but the awards show continued. Host Aidy Bryant said on stage, 'We’re at the beach and people are exercising their freedom of speech.’” - IndieWire
“Some laws operate like hidden trap doors — everyone walks across the trap at one point or another, but only a handful of us actually fall through.” - The Verge
“The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, ‘Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe,’ displayed after the machine failed to launch a facial recognition application." - Ars Technica
A trigger warning is not a call to censorship as the quoted tweeter above suggests – if there is an instinct for that, it should be enacted in the rehearsal room. But it is entirely right that we ensure our audiences know what it is they are getting into. - Classical Music UK
