Where Quantitative Aesthetics is really newly intense across society—in art and everywhere—is in how social-media numbers (clicks, likes, shares, retweets, etc.) seep into everything as a shorthand for understanding status. - Artnet
In August 2021, Apple purchased the classical-only streaming app Primephonic and immediately shuttered it, announcing that it would be reconfigured as an Apple product; 17 months later, that product has arrived. Here's a look at what's included in the new version — and what's missing. - Musical America
For the past few years, social-media platforms have used creator funds to lure content creators from their rivals with the promise of money to be made on top of the usual sponsorship dollars. But they seem more and more like empty PR stunts. - Variety
The excavated imperial tomb also had extra bricks, slathered with lime, which isn't usual. The combination of nails, bricks, and lime "strongly implied the use of protective charms to keep the 'restless dead' from interfering with the living." - The New York Times
"His artistic breakthrough came with 'John Somebody,' a playfully inventive work for solo electric guitar with taped accompaniment, which he assembled from 1980 to 1982, and which, as performed regularly and recorded in 1986, won him considerable acclaim." - The New York Times
When the BBC announced plans to close the UK's only full-time professional chamber choir right before its century mark, 140,000 people signed a petition - and alternative funders stepped in. - BBC
Hope Carasquilla was ousted from Tallahassee Classical School after several parents complained about the lesson in a Renaissance art class. (One parent called the sculpture "pornographic.") Carasquilla was the charter school's third principal since it opened in 2020. - HuffPost
The process is difficult even for organizations with strong financial and administrative support. For smaller companies with less funding, it is daunting. - Broad Street Review
Watching these wounds being inflicted is painful. People who work in culture and the arts in this country are exhausted. The 30% cut to Arts Council England in 2010, when the now chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, was culture secretary, has done huge and long-term damage. - The Guardian
"The artisans there — including a gold-leaf specialist, coppersmiths and wood carvers — fear that their meticulous work will be destroyed, as has happened in years past. Their frustrations have been intensified by the tighter control Israel has exerted over the compound in recent years, making repairs more difficult." - The New York Times
Of course, I sometimes still had to weather the churning roil of his stream of consciousness. I won’t try to replicate his frenetic, perseverating mode of expression here. But when Binstock grows focused, and whenever he writes, he sets out his arguments with precision. - The Atlantic
Paradoxically, we may come to want the things that we cannot have in an instant, that demand our time and patience before they will reveal all they have to offer: the art that demands that we slow down. - 3 Quarks Daily
Librarians argue that a lawsuit filed by four major publishers, should it succeed, "would jeopardize the future development of digital libraries nationwide. The Internet Archive is the most significant specialized library to emerge in decades." - Inside Higher Ed
"We have changed our collective tastes in response to technological progress in the past. We’ll now do it again, without even noticing that it’s happening. And if history is any indication, our tastes will evolve in a way that rigs the game in favor of human artists." - Wired
An arbitrator "in a decision issued last month that has not been previously reported, ruled that the Met should compensate Netrebko for 13 canceled performances," which means the opera company owes the Russian soprano more than $200,000. - The New York Times
AI image and text generation is pure primitive accumulation: expropriation of labour from the many for the enrichment and advancement of a few Silicon Valley technology companies and their billionaire owners. - The Guardian
Much of the reluctance to do what climate change requires comes from the assumption that it means trading abundance for austerity. But what if it meant giving up things we’re well rid of, from deadly emissions to nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction? - Washington Post
The advancement of generative artificial intelligence is not an advancement toward artificial personhood for a simple, absolute reason: There is no falsifiable thesis of consciousness. You cannot find a researcher who can define, in a testable way, what consciousness is. - The Atlantic
For nearly two decades, Tina Chancey and her ensemble, Hesperus, have been assembling and performing live music — songs and instrumental works from the Middle Ages, along with period-style improvisation — to accompany such classic silent films as The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. - Early Music America
Arifa Akbar: "Crunching or chewing can be a distraction, especially in the confines of the older, tighter West End venues, but theatre is a group activity. … The group experience is what we come for – and that includes jostling in the foyer, coughing, rustling and, yes, eating or drinking." - The Guardian
