ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

Stories

How In The Entire Heck Did The Winnie-The-Pooh Horror Movie Get Made?

Sure, Disney owns the animation rights, but the story and characters came out of copyright on January 1, 2022. And director Rhys Frake-Waterfield "wasted no time jumping on the opportunity to incorporate the characters into his microbudget slasher flick." - Time

Bing Was Nearly Irrelevant – Until Its Chatbot Went Off The Rails

"The company’s previously flatlining Bing app almost surpassed Google in downloads last Saturday, and search interest in Bing is spiking. The astonishing screenshots—as long as they stay within reasonable bounds—will likely bolster the surge. They’re great marketing." - Slate

The Energy Crunch In Europe Means Ballet In The Car Factory

"In a converted conference room on Thursday, the dancers honed their pliés and pirouettes, while row upon row of new cars could be seen in a distant lot through the ceiling-high windows, and workers passed by outside dressed in bright red coveralls." - NPR

The Physics Principle That – Perhaps Unfortunately – Inspired New AI

Consider the way ink diffuses into water. "The algorithm first turns complex images in the training data set into simple noise—akin to going from a blob of ink to diffuse light blue water—and then teaches the system how to reverse the process." - Wired

Journalist Who Exposed Navalny Poisoning Says He’s ‘Banned’ From The BAFTAs

The Bulgarian journalist, Christo Grozev, says "the ban was down to 'concerns about public safety and security,' he was told, but was given no more information on what those risks were." - BBC

After Nearly 100 Days On Strike, HarperCollins Union Approves New Contract

A union representative said that "the hope is to show publishing employees that they have more options beyond just 'stick it out or leave. ... There is now a third option of collective action and standing up together for what is right.'" - Publishers Weekly

Everything Everywhere All At Once WiBig At Directors Guild

In another potential Oscars signal, the small-budget domestic science fiction movie that could racked up another win for writer-directors Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan. - The Hollywood Reporter

An Entire Revamping Of Manchester’s Museum Tries To Meet 21st Century Britain

The museum's director calls museums "empathy machines" and says the mission goes "beyond caring for objects and collections to 'caring for beliefs and ideas and relationships.'" - The New York Times

New Editions Of Roald Dahl’s Books Remove Some Of His Hateful Rhetoric

The man really loved to call people fat, and he also enjoyed calling people - with varying degrees of disgust - "crazy," "Black," and so forth. Some new editions of his kids' books have been, let's say, revised. - Los Angeles Times

The Extraordinary, Art Historical Beauty Of Photos Of The Downed Spy Balloon

The Navy images’ "unusual lighting and dramatic composition ... smooth individual sailors into heroic archetypes and make the calm, pre-dawn Atlantic seawater as lush as oil paint." - The New York Times

Banksy Mural Messed With Once Again, This Time By The Gallery

First the local council said the freezer that was part of the artwork was a hazard, and now a gallery says they can't figure out a way to keep it safe. What's to be the fate of the sculptural mural? - The Guardian (UK)

The Girls Who Dance, And Gather Coal

"Before sunset, in the 110-square-mile mining region of Jharia in eastern India, an ensemble of girls dances near an opencast coal mine. Come sunrise, they'll be back at the mines for another reason: survival." - WSIU (Illinois)

A Small Jeff Koons Sculpture Has Shattered On The Floor At A Miami Art Fair

At a preview, a woman brushed the sculpture - and, said a collector, "Before I knew it, they were picking up the Jeff Koons pieces in a dustpan with a broom." - The New York Times

The Classical Legend Of Cartagena Plays On

When Teresita Gómez was 3, a piano teacher let her watch "from a distance — while was teaching the little white girls who were her students. ... At night, when her father walked around doing his rounds, she went along with him, playing on all the classroom pianos." - NPR

Jesse Trevino, Who Lost His Painting Arm In Vietnam And Retrained Himself, 76

"Trevino painted portraits of Chicano life in San Antonio that have been exhibited across the country, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. His towering murals on prominent city buildings are reflections of the city in which they hang." - Washington Post

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');