ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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Seattle’s Low-Income Artspace Seems To Be Falling Apart

“Artspace, the Minneapolis nonprofit that owns the lofts, sold the city on a vision: affordable housing that would help retain Seattle’s creative soul as redevelopment and rising costs were driving out artists. But the dream shattered.” - Seattle Times

Inside The Courthouse Reshaping The Future Of The Internet

“While the FTC’s lawyers were calling witnesses against Meta in one courtroom, a nearby room was hosting arguments about whether Trump could fire two of the agency’s own commissioners.” - The Verge

Authors Are Creating Time-Lapse Tik-Toks To Prove They Don’t Use AI

One young adult fantasy author “doesn't say a single word in the video, but her captions on the screen speak volumes. ‘Using GenAI to write a book doesn’t make you a writer, it makes you a thief,’ reads one.” - Wired

Oops, Sorry, Authors – TikTok Doesn’t Actually Want To Publish Books

The news "came as a shock to authors who were swayed by the possibility that 8th Note could help engineer best sellers with elaborate marketing campaigns on TikTok. Instead, 8th Note has started taking down digital editions of their books, effectively unpublishing them.” - The New York Times

Why Culture Desperately Needs Better Digital Infrastructure

When AI systems learn about Canadian culture, history, and events, they should be learning from trusted, structured, Canadian sources - not filtered scraps from engagement-driven platforms. - LinkedIn

This Administration Almost Sold The Freedom Rides Museum, And Other Civil Rights Monuments

“Many of the buildings on the original list were not ‘underutilized’ at all. They were simply being used for government work that the president didn’t like or by government officials whom the president wanted to punish.” - The New York Times

National History Day Has Turned Into A Deeply Competitive Performance Extravaganza For High School Students

But federal funding cuts are threatening national history: "A scramble for stopgap funding from donors and bake sales allowed all qualifying teams to attend the national finals this year. But what happens next is unclear.” - The New York Times

The Schomburg Center, At 100, Is Ready For Its Day In The Sun

“Artists, writers and community leaders have gone the center to be inspired, root their work in a deep understanding of the vastness of the African diaspora, and spread word of the global accomplishments of Black people” - Seattle Times (AP)

Space Artists At The Museum Of Natural History Discovered A Spiral At The Edge Of Our Solar System

As the artists worked on a video, “We’re flying away from the Oort cloud and out pops this spiral, a spiral shape to the outside of our solar system. … A huge structure, millions and millions of particles.” - Fast Company (Internet Archive)

Disney And Universal’s Battle With Midjourney May Reshape Copyright

“The only thing that can stop AI companies doing what they’re doing is the law. ... If these lawsuits are successful, that is what will hopefully stop AI companies from exploiting people’s life’s work.” - Time

Pussy Riot Founder’s Performance Art ‘Police State’ In LA Got Shut Down By The Police State

"Tolokonnikova, 35, whose political art has left her as a wanted criminal in Russia, chose to continue her performance inside the empty museum.” Normal country. Nothing to see here. - The Guardian (UK)

Where The Last Decade Of Andy Goldsworthy’s Life Has Gone

He’s been doing physically demanding, “totally grim work” on nine farmhouses, restored and turned into art, across six miles in a valley in Yorkshire. And the artist says he’ll never do anything like it again. - The New York Times

Brian Wilson, Creative Mastermind Of The Beach Boys, Is Dead At 82

“There was an abiding pathos in his best records — not merely the idealized scenes the songs depicted, but also that they were created by a depressed, socially awkward, partially-deaf young man who never surfed or much liked the beach and spent his time alone in his room.” - The Washington Post (MSN)

Watching The Tryouts For The Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus

“The Metropolitan Opera’s stage door, a plain entrance hidden in the tunnels of Lincoln Center, routinely welcomes star singers, orchestra musicians, stagehands, costumers and ushers. But a different bunch of visitors arrived there on a recent afternoon, carrying stuffed toy rabbits and ‘Frozen’ backpacks.” - The New York Times

Kyiv’s 1,000-Year-Old Cathedral Damaged By Russian Air Attack

St. Sophia, the 11th-century landmark considered the mother church of Orthodox Christianity in Russia and Belarus as well as Ukraine, was damaged by blast waves from bombs dropped on the Ukrainian capital last night by Putin’s armed forces. - Euronews

Smithsonian’s Board Confirms That Its Chief Executive, Not The U.S. President, Has Hiring And Firing Power

While the Board of Regents (which includes the U.S. Vice President and the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice) didn’t directly address Trump’s attempt to fire National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet, the Board’s statement clearly affirmed that hiring/firing power belongs to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch. - The Washington Post (MSN)

The GSA Oversees 26,000 Public Works Of Art, But Trump Cuts Leave Everything At Risk

This administration slashed the staff of 30 to about 10, an impossible number to track the government collection, which “has been placed in federal offices and private institutions in all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.” - The New York Times

Live Updates From The Tonys

At the preshow, “Buena Vista Social Club, a musical about a Cuban band, picked up awards for choreography, sound design and orchestrations, while Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel to the Netflix series, won for sound, lighting and scenic design.” - The New York Times

So, Turns Out We Might Have Been Completely Wrong

Cool cool: A “new law of nature” upends everything we thought we knew about time, evolution, and (perhaps) life in the rest of the universe. - Wired

Prominent Lawyers Join The Fight Against Paramount’s Planned Settlement With The President

“Late Thursday, the two attorneys sent a strongly worded letter to Paramount’s chairworman and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and other board members arguing that a Trump settlement would cause ‘catastrophic’ harm to the embattled media company.” - Los Angeles Times (AOL)
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