It’s probably a hazard of the job, but I tend to look at culture systemically. It’s not just the algorithms that steer our attention, but the often-unseen infrastructure we constructed that determines a large part of our culture diet: the systems that shape orchestras, theatres, dance companies, museums, the practical nuts-and-bolts and often mundane practicalities that determine what’s possible … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2026
Old Laws, New Ghosts: Why Artists are losing the Battle for AI
For a while now, creative industries have been locked in a state of high-alert, cycling between existential dread and a weary, cynical acknowledgment that AI will change everything. Increasingly, among many, there's a growing and reflexive rejection of AI. Surely anyone who cares a whit about aesthetic value has a visceral revulsion to "AI slop," the uncanny, high-gloss imagery that feels like … [Read more...]
An AI “Digital Twin” for the Performing Arts
A few weeks ago, I wrote about "speaking to the art" in museums—using AI to turn passive observation of artwork into an active, contextual dialogue, a way for visitors to find what resonates with them and explore more meaningfully. It is an idea about deepening the experience once the visitor is already in the room. The performing arts face a bigger challenge, before anyone enters the concert … [Read more...]
The Great Renegotiation: Five Ideas about where Culture is going in 2026
My last post trying to make sense of the landscape in arts and culture in 2025 was something of an autopsy of the year that traditional 20th business models for culture finally broke. Now I'd like to propose a blueprint for rebuilding. Yes, I mean rebuild and not recovery. You recover from a bad season; you don't recover from a climate shift. You adapt. To do that, I'd like to step back a bit … [Read more...]