“Generational changes aren’t new to cultural institutions, but the changes at Steppenwolf are notable because they are happening on all fronts at the same time — on the business and artistic sides as well as in the boardroom.”
Are You A Multi-Tasker? Oh, Oh…
Study: “They found that heavy multitaskers—those who multitask a lot and feel that it boosts their performance—were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another. Ouch.”
The Way Gaudí Worked Was As Unconventional As His (Glorious) Buildings
“Gaudí devised new ways of building, with reusable scaffolding, roofs used as terraces, cement beams and the elimination of supporting walls. For each project, he formed a multidisciplinary team in which he encouraged the collaboration of master craftsmen and apprentices with specialists from other fields: chemists, physicists, astronomers, ceramicists, theologians, philosophers, writers, musicians, politicians and bishops.”
No, Being ‘Super Excited’ Is Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be
“Generation TED does lack sufficient scepticism. Truly great ideas are sculpted with the chisel of critical thought, not created fully formed by spontaneous genius and good intent.”
China Bans Actors With Drug Or Prostitution Busts From TV And Movies
“Citing the role of broadcast media as an ‘important vessel’ for ‘transmitting socialist culture and core values,’ the new regulations claim that the illegal behavior of actors has ‘corrupted the social atmosphere’ and creates a ‘detrimental influence on the development of many young people’.”
An Interconnected World Needs A Common Language
“In an ideal world, we’d all learn to use one language for science, technology and business, and learn, respect and use others for cultural identity and a sense of community — especially in our polyglot nation. That requires some flexibility in how languages themselves are developed. We need to be more adaptable and sensitive to other cultures as we use language.”
Architects 3D-Print A Column That Can Withstand Earthquakes
“The aptly named Quake Column is a knurled pillar of 3-D printed concrete that combines an ancient Incan masonry technique with state-of-the-art manufacturing tools to create a structure that can withstand seismic shocks without mortar or rebar.”
Expert Reattributes 70 Rembrandts
Among the 70 attribution changes in Volume 6, Mr. van de Wetering, now making the decisions himself, restores 44 of those deattributions to Rembrandt. He now describes the project’s “democratic” decisions as “unjust.”
Our Enduring Fascination With Theatre About Theatre
“Plays about plays have a long tradition in the theater; this fall alone there are three on Broadway.”
Publishers Simplify, Sanitize For Lucrative Young Reader Market
“Prominent nonfiction writers like Ms. Hillenbrand, Jon Meacham and Rick Atkinson are now grappling with how to handle unsettling or controversial material in their books as they try to win over this impressionable new audience. And these slimmed-down, simplified and sometimes sanitized editions of popular nonfiction titles are fast becoming a vibrant, growing and lucrative niche.”
Moshe Safdi: We Need To Rethink How We Build Cities
“Safdi said that proliferating downtown high-rises — he called them “object buildings” — sitting atop retail spaces around the world are creating cities that are “disjointed and disconnected and not worthy of our civilization.” He said these buildings fail to nurture community spaces like the squares and piazzas of the past, so that the very idea of shared space is becoming extinct.”
What Happens When National Geographic Uses Your Art Without Telling You (Or Paying For It)?
“National Geographic used artist Barrett Lyon’s internet image (opte.org) on the cover of its bookazine, 100 Scientific Discoveries that Changed the World, and in the book, The Big Idea, without Lyon’s permission or respecting the Creative Commons license that allows it to be used free of charge for non-commercial purposes.”
Creativity Versus Evaluation (The Battle In Our Brains Over Ideas)
“Our findings suggest that individual differences in creativity may be related to a differentially activated network of evaluation that imposes a stricter process of evaluation, and hence inhibits creative production.”
Georgia Shakespeare Co. Shuts Down After 29 Years
“‘We had no major funders who were willing to make a lead gift,’ Managing Director Jennifer Bauer-Lyons said. ‘We had other people who were kind of waiting in the wings – ‘If you get a lead gift, call us back and we’ll do something’ – but there was nobody willing to make a lead gift.'”
Atlanta Symphony Lockout: How The Musicians Are Coping
“The cellist, who has barely slept, searches his laptop for a secret recording of a former symphony executive. The clarinetist is gone, joining two other musicians now playing in the New York Philharmonic. And the percussionist, who practiced all summer for a star turn that may never come, spent a recent morning packing bottles at a local brewery. He got $45 and, he adds, a case of ale.”
Can We Keep The Superintelligent Computers We Create From Conquering Us One Day?
The trick is how to serve us to keep us alive and well, as opposed to wiping us out…
Ex-NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Leaves Twitter After Less Than A Year
Schiller left her post-NPR job as chief digital officer for NBC News to become Twitter’s first-ever head of news and journalism partnerships – a job that has evidently been eliminated in a senior staff consolidation.
Lost Stories By Truman Capote Published
“A Swiss publisher was searching for chapters of Truman Capote’s unfinished final novel last summer when he stumbled upon a different find … a collection of previously unpublished short stories and poems from Capote’s youth.” Four of the stories (in translation) are being published this week in a German magazine.
Confirmed: The Oldest Known Art in the World Is In Indonesia
“The Indonesian images, discovered in a limestone cave on the island of Sulawesi in the 1950s, had previously been thought to date back only 10,000 years. Anything older would, it was assumed, have deteriorated.” In fact, it turns out, the oldest of the paintings is nearly 40,000 years old. (includes video)
Vienna Philharmonic Finds Good Use For Its $1M Nilsson Prize Money
The orchestra’s members voted unanimously to use the award to digitize its historic archives, which includes program leaflets, correspondence, and autographed manuscripts and scores.
Norway’s New Money Will Be, Literally, Abstract Art (Designed By Starchitects, No Less)
“Call it more evidence of the endless commercialization of design; call it another reason to be thankful Norway never joined the Euro; call it kroner gone kreative.” The country’s own starchitects, Snøhetta, designed one side of each of the new banknotes.
Music Industry To NY State: Give Us Tax Credits Like You Give The Film Industry
“A group of music industry figures, worried about the flight of music production and related jobs from New York to states like Texas and Tennessee, is encouraging the State Legislature to pass a bill to give $60 million in tax breaks each year to studios, record companies and others involved in the creation of music.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.08.14
Anselm Kiefer Talks About Beauty In Art
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts
It can be done (2)
AJBlog: Sandow
The Commodification of Cool
AJBlog: CultureCrash
Scott Johnson’s Mind Out of Matter: Should music make so much sense?
AJBlog: Condemned to Music
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Winston Churchill’s Paintings Offered To Britain
“The Churchill family has offered the pictures to the nation in lieu of inheritance tax. A decision by the government on whether it will accept this deal is expected next year.”
Today’s TV Superheroes – Just A Passing Fad?
“Within two months over the summer of ’79, disco went from hero to zero, banished from the airwaves in a blacklist that persists, arguably, to this day. Now it’s superheroes hailed as the pop cult panacea for the industry’s financial woes, with Marvel and DC proudly trumpeting enough comic book flicks to populate screens big and small until 2028.”