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“No Thinking, No Rationale, No Explanation” — Yet Precise: Sharon Eyal’s Choreographic Process

“Everything you see on the stage starts with Eyal herself improvising, which is then mapped on to the dancers. ... Each movement idea could be slowed down, reversed or repeated. ... From a small amount of source material, Eyal will play with composition and timing and layering up movement.” - The Guardian

We Used To Be An Oral Culture. Then We Read. Now We’re Going Back To …

For most of human history, culture was exclusively oral. Knowledge was transmitted by speech, and what could be transmitted was what could be remembered. Oral culture was “aggregative rather than analytic”—full of redundancy, traditionalist in disposition, and embedded in the “human lifeworld,” rather than allowing abstract thought. - The Baffler

About AI, Many Podcasters Are Rather Ambivalent

Like other creative types, a lot of podcasters are skeptical of or even downright hostile to the idea of using AI bots, which only mimic sentience and thought, to create content. Yet some AI tools can do legitimate, important work on podcasts. - The New York Times

Belgium’s Gorgeous New Calatrava Train Station

Conceptualised by Calatrava as a "monumental bridge", its volume traverses a series of 350-metre-long platforms and bus stops that extend outwards from the gallery's underside. - Dezeen

Wexner Center Director Resigns, Effective Immediately

Gaëtane Verna inherited a Wexner facing financial turmoil worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. The center’s fiscal health and workplace culture appeared to deteriorate further after her arrival. - ARTnews

This San Francisco Museum Decided To Be Nomadic

The museum will henceforth be presenting exhibitions in new spaces each cycle. The intent behind this is both to pair artistic projects with architecturally or historically significant sites and to bring attention to lesser known spaces that can inspire more site-specific art. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

A Play About Thomas Jefferson And Sally Hemings Nearly Broke This Theater Company Apart. Now It’s Trying Again.

Eight years ago at the Marin Theatre near San Francisco, Thomas Bradshaw’s play Thomas and Sally sparked in-person protests, an open letter with 1,800 signatures, and a police confrontation. Now, under new leaders, the company hopes to repair some of the damage with Suzan-Lori Parks’s play Sally & Tom. - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)

Why We’re Having Difficulty Understanding AI

Cognitivism, which has permeated society—as evidenced by the omnipresence of the terms “cognitive” and “cognition”—has perpetuated a traditional view of thought and intelligence as phenomena of inextricable complexity, and therefore phenomena that we can hardly imagine recreating artificially. - AI & Society

A Prominent Arts College Offers An AI Major. There’s Pushback

According to SCAD, the Applied AI program will prepare students for professions including AI product developer, AI design strategist, AI story engineer, autonomous agent designer, and “ethical design strategist.” SCAD is also offering a minor in Applied AI that’s open to students across all majors. - Fast Company

Lebrecht: Two Nominations For 21st Century Great Composer Status

In an increasingly authoritarian age, we are suspicious of new leaders; when posterity squints back at us it will have to fumble in the dark to identify 21st-century composers who might, by some future criteria, qualify for greatness. - The Critic

The Grand Reveal: At Long Last, The Grand Egyptian Museum Has Its Grand Opening

The $1 billion, 5 million square-foot complex. for which planning first began in 1992, includes 12 main galleries holding over 50,000 items, a conference center, a children’s museum, and a large conservation center. Among much else, the GEM will bring the entire contents of King Tutankhamun’s tomb together for the first time. - The Guardian

Museum Employees Are Unhappy. Is It Getting Better?

Fifty-four percent of museum employees have considered quitting their jobs in the last five years, and more than one-quarter of full-time workers earn salaries that fall below a living wage, according to a new survey. - The New York Times

What We’re Losing In A Post-Literate Culture

By now we’ve moved beyond a post-literature culture into what some are calling a post-literate age, taking us back several thousand years to communication by images and symbols. - The Atlantic

A Dramatic Decline In Thinking?

If we consider literacy not as the ability to parse simple sentences but as the capacity to comprehend and enjoy complex texts, and ultimately as a sensibility that approaches the world itself as a text that requires interpretation, it’s obvious we live in an unprecedented decline of what neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf calls “deep literacy.” - The Baffler

Why So Many People, Including New York’s Governor, Mispronounce Zohran Mamdani’s Name

John McWhorter: "Mispronouncing someone’s name certainly can be a form of ridicule or dismissal. … But malice is not the only possible explanation for these flubs. As a matter of pure linguistics, it would be surprising if people didn’t have trouble with the name Mamdani.” - The New York Times

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