The Line Between Art And Propaganda Sometimes Isn’t Easy To See
Values are promoted through cultural strategies where buzzwords chime loudly. Terms like networking, collaboration, common good, connection and cooperation promote an ever-closer union with...
The Secrets Of Stage Blood
"Are there more types of fake blood than there are of real blood? Oh, positively. ... As a prop master for the last 30-odd...
Why People Are Attracted To The Density Of Urban Living
Rubbing shoulders with strangers is considered both a pleasure and a pain of urban life. Density can be an endless source of social possibility,...
Why Do The Ranks Of Crossword Puzzle Constructors Remain So Un-Diverse? Simple: The Pay’s...
"It turns out the crossword industry really does consist of earnest wordplay lovers donating their time to unpaid mentorships, generally as part of an...
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...
Qatar Is Basically Setting Up A Giant Open-Air Museum In Doha. Have A Look.
"A Yayoi Kusama pumpkin, Rashid Johnson mosaic, and a monumental Jeff Koons sculpture — in the likeness of an endangered marine mammal — are...
Orchestras Are Chafing, And Sometimes Buckling, Under Their Post-Shutdown Workloads
New programming initiatives mean musicians are rehearsing more unfamiliar works, and, come curtain time, standard repertoire sometimes ends up underrehearsed. Shutdown-induced layoffs mean remaining...
A New Factor In Writing TV Scripts: The Online Superfans Scrutinizing Every Line Of...
"Storytellers have to do more than spin a satisfying yarn; they must contend with fans who are so involved, they're practically racing them to...
A Conservative Version Of Prestige TV? Considering “Yellowstone”
"It is too easy to call it a conservative show. Like its audience counterpart, Yellowstone thinks it is at war with progress when it...
Filmmaker Lars Von Trier Diagnosed With Parkinson’s Disease
"His production company, Zentropa, ... said it released the information in order to avoid speculation about his health leading up to the premiere of...
After More Than A Century, Britain’s Dancing Times Magazine Is Shutting Down
"Dancing Times was established in October 1910 ... and has been published continuously every month for 112 years. ... The economic impact of the...
Meanwhile, Anthony Gormley’s Memorial To Alan Turing In Cambridge Has Been Approved With Little...
The as-yet-untitled sculpture, to be placed near the library at King's College, is, like the one planned for Imperial College, London, made of stacked...
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...
Too Phallic: London Students Are Loudly Objecting To Anthony Gormley’s Planned Sculpture Honoring Alan...
The 20-foot-tall memorial, titled ALERT and planned for the South Kensington campus of Imperial College, London, is a stack of rectangular volumes intended by...
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...
Behind The Scenes At Bayreuth’s Other Opera Festival
The Bavarian town has, in fact, two opera houses: Richard Wagner's famous custom-built theater and the Margravial Opera House, an opulent 18th-century venue seating...
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...
A New Record Label Devoted Solely To Women Composers
"The label, called La Boîte à Pépites (the jewel box), will record compositions that have rarely, if ever, been heard before, yet deserve 'a...
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...
How An Indian Film From Beyond Bollywood Became A Hit On U.S. Screens
"The Telugu-language Indian action spectacular RRR, or Rise, Roar, Revolt, ... (is) the rare Indian hit to catch on with American viewers outside the...
