ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

IDEAS

How Belfast Sounded During Lockdown

One PhD student at Queens University recorded it all. "Like many cities throughout the UK, Belfast had previously been dominated by the sound of human activity. During lockdown, these were replaced by subtle industrial, urban and natural sounds." - BBC

Please Stop Calling The Artisan Oscars The ‘Tech’ Awards

And, as a matter of fact, if the Academy can't fully respect them, get them their own show. Yes, their own awards show - focused on craft skill. - Variety

In Oscar Contender Drive My Car, The Actors Meet And Transcend The Limits Of Language

The main character is "directing a multilingual production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya with a cast composed of actors who speak English, Chinese, Tagalog, Japanese, and Korean Sign Language." The actors' - and the audience's - task is to trust the rhythm and emotional response. - The Atlantic

Brandon Sanderson Is Making *How* Much Money On Kickstarter?

In the most jaw-dropping Kickstarter ever, the fantasy author has taken in (at the time of posting) $24 million for a year of special publishing perks for his fans. Some writers seem annoyed. But this is a one-time kind of thing, right? Right? - Slate

Innovation Is Fine. But Wisdom Creates Longterm Success

Fairly or unfairly, many tech companies with disproportionately young employees and leaders have gone from a shining example of how entrepreneurial capitalism can improve our lives to something that seems unhealthy and even sinister over the past several years. - The Atlantic

What If The Internet Is Actually A Living Thing?

Could it be that the internet is not best seen as a lifeless artifact, contraption, gadget, or mere tool, but as a living system, or as a natural product of the activity of a living system? - Wired

Okay, So This Is Creepy: New Google Tech Monitors Your Movement Without Cameras

It sounds futuristic and perhaps more than a little invasive—a computer watching your every move? But it feels less creepy once you learn that these technologies don't have to rely on a camera to see where you are and what you're doing. Instead, they use radar. - Wired

How Social Media Distorts Culture

Social media enables people to make, shape, and share anything they want and call it their own, even when it’s not—further helps to distort what we experience on these platforms. Feeds are flooded with culture that, translated through the screen of a creator who is only interested in clout, comes across as hollow and cheapened. - Wired

Pay Attention! (It’s Not Because Of Smart Phones. Historically We’ve Had Problems Doing That)

“You can read medieval monks nearly a millennium ago complaining that they were suffering from attention problems of their own. As human beings get older, they can focus less, and they become convinced that this is a problem with the world and with the next generation, rather than with their own failing minds.” - The Baffler

Andy Warhol, Value Of Creativity, And Crypto

Andy Warhol, innovation expert Clayton Christensen, and Etherum creator Vitalik Buterin walk into the bar. They don’t start out talking about crypto, but like everyone else, they end up there. - O'Reilly

Climate Change — A Cultural Issue

To tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis effectively, we urgently need to address cultural values relating to consumption. An important aspect of this is the role models presented on our screens and in books. - The Conversation

Experts: By 2030, Most Of The Internet Could Be Created By Artificial Intelligence

As its capabilities advance, the idea is that AI could start to generate entire online worlds, along with all the stuff that inhabits them — not to mention all the online material that’s currently mostly made by humans. - The Byte

Why ‘Cyrano’ Is So Infinitely Adaptable

Why, it's about unrequited love, of course. The newest version shows that "singing can make a character (and an actor) more vulnerable, tapping into an openness and emotion that beautifully suits this particular story of romantic longing." - The New York Times

Why Do Some Teams Inspire While Others Sap Energy?

Why might a person let her team down in one situation but give it her all in a different one? Sometimes, as in the first scenario, teamwork is demotivating. In fact, in German, ‘team’ is an acronym for Toll, ein anderer macht’s, meaning ‘Great, someone else does it.’ - Psyche

The Role Of Fiction When “Facts” Don’t Mean Anything

The gap between the experiences of ordinary citizens and the perspectives of politicians and journalists widened throughout the long years of crisis. One damaging consequence is that many more people today are willing to suspend their disbelief in the malign fictions of far-right demagogues, podcasters and YouTubers. - London Review of Books

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