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...]
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...]
Five Year-end Observations about Arts and Culture in 2025
Over the past few weeks on ArtsJournal we've been showcasing year-end reviews of highlights (and low-lights) of a turbulent year in culture. But when you spend every morning scanning websites, blogs, and newspapers for what to put in our daily ArtsJournal report, you aren't just scanning for news; you’re monitoring a seismograph. Most days, it’s background noise—a hiring here, a firing there, a … [Read more...]
AI that turns Museums into Conversations: The Digital Twin
Discussion about AI and the arts can be abstract, both on the up- and downsides. I'd like to offer a concrete potential use that could be transformative. This one is for museums. Next week I'll offer an idea for performing arts. Arguably, one of the biggest transformations in the arts over the past thirty years has been the shift in relationship between artists, institutions and their … [Read more...]
The Disney/OpenAI Deal: How the Creative Landscape is being Rewritten for Us All
Disney’s deal with OpenAI last week got a lot of attention because one of America's biggest most-storied legacy content companies finally made a big bet on AI. There are, however, clues in the deal that put into sharp focus what's really at stake. This is about much more than a brand giant licensing its IP to an AI company. The deal was announced as Disney's $1 billion “strategic investment” in … [Read more...]
The AI that has Colonized our Creativity
Everyone's talking about AI, and you're being pestered to use it every time you open your phone. But are you aware the extent that AI has taken over how much of what you see and hear online? A study by Five Percent reported a few weeks ago that 52 percent of all new text online is now generated by AI. Seventy-four percent of all writing online now shows signs of "involvement" of AI. The French … [Read more...]
Not Really a Manifesto, I guess, but Perhaps a Framework for Thinking about AI and Art…
Everywhere we look, we're confronted now with AI. Or at least the claims of AI. Your WORD document offers to draft something for you. Your GMail promises to better organize your inbox. Your Reels and TikToks are flooded with annoying ludicrous AI video. AI promises to change everything. Even if you don't want it to. But there probably isn't anyone in creative industries not focused on the … [Read more...]
Making the Creative Turn: Is Using AI Cheating?
At the newspaper I worked at in the 1980s, there was the story of the longtime reporter who came in to work the day after computer terminals were installed in the newsroom. He went to his desk, where, in the spot where his typewriter had sat for decades, a giant new monitor with a blinking green cursor awaited. He looked at the screen, picked up his bag, and said “I’m done,” never to … [Read more...]