One might think it odd to stage a symphony at Glacier Point. But according to Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman, “From the signing of the Yosemite Grant to the present day, the arts have played a significant role in the creation and continued interest in preserving these public places.” Yosemite sparkles in Ansel Adams’ photos. It is illuminated by John Muir’s prose. Yosemite has a new artistic champion in Les Marsden, the conductor of the Mariposa orchestra.
The Great Library Of Alexandria Had A Rival – And A Vicious Rivalry
What Is, And Isn’t, ‘Artificial Intelligence’? Not What The Marketers Tell Us It Is
Om Malik: “Much like ‘the cloud,’ ‘big data,’ and ‘machine learning’ before it, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ has been hijacked by marketers and advertising copywriters. A lot of what people are calling ‘artificial intelligence’ is really data analytics – in other words, business as usual. If the hype leaves you asking ‘What is A.I., really?,’ don’t worry, you’re not alone. I asked various experts to define the term and got different answers.”
The Changes Begin Under Atlanta Ballet’s New Artistic Director
James Corden’s Success In U.S. Based On YouTube, Not Broadcast TV, Says Producer
The Extraordinary Detail Of Rembrandt’s Etchings
Why Holograms Of Dead Performers Weird Us Out (But We Keep Watching Them)
“Simultaneously here and gone, holograms are stand-ins for all things virtual, harbingers of a ‘mixed reality’ in which the real and the simulated have been integrated seamlessly. … In reality, however, holograms have mostly been gaudy stunts … still abut the uncanny valley, displaying a body that is there and not there, alive and dead. Something about it doesn’t quite compute.”
Cast Of ‘Fun Home’ And PFLAG Compare Notes On Coming Out
“‘We thought they could learn a lot from professional actors about public speaking skills,’ said Drew Tagliabue, the executive director of PFLAG NYC, an organization for family members of gay and transgender people. The group runs the Safe Schools Program, which sends those emissaries into classrooms to talk about coming out. … But what was planned as a class about how to hold onto an audience became something different.”
You Know Who’s Responsible For That ‘Any Similarity To Actual Persons Is Coincidental’ Disclaimer In Movie Credits? Rasputin, That’s Who
“Virtually every film in modern memory ends with some variation of the same disclaimer: ‘This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.’ The cut-and-paste legal rider must be the most boring thing in every movie that features it. Who knew its origins were so lurid?” Duncan Fyfe explains.
Hard Lessons About How The Art-Buying World Works, Courtesy Knoedler Fakes Scandal
“For collectors seeking information on the authenticity of specific works of art, there is no repository of authenticators’ reports, and experts doubt the value of a database that buyers could consult the way they check for stolen art (for example, through the Art Loss Register or Art Recovery Group). For one thing, not all reports are reliable.”
The Church Of Big Data – A Quack Religion?
“Just as divine authority was legitimised by religious mythologies, and human authority was legitimised by humanist ideologies, so high-tech gurus and Silicon Valley prophets are creating a new universal narrative that legitimises the authority of algorithms and Big Data. This novel creed may be called “Dataism”. In its extreme form, proponents of the Dataist worldview perceive the entire universe as a flow of data, see organisms as little more than biochemical algorithms and believe that humanity’s cosmic vocation is to create an all-encompassing data-processing system — and then merge into it.”
Earthquake Exposes Fragility Of Italy’s Architectural Treasures
Ai Weiwei Removed From Major Chinese Bienniale
“Ai tweeted that he received a ‘vague letter’ from Yinchuan MoCA’s artistic director Hsieh Suchen that ‘the decision is made by higher officials’ due to the show’s status as part of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative to build a new Silk Road of overland economic and cultural exchange with countries to China’s west.”
The Books A New Author Reads On Book Tour Can Make Or Break Them
What Is The Public Art In City Hall Park Saying?
How A Writer Of Gay (And Wildly Silly) Erotica Became The Standard Bearer For What’s Good In Science Fiction
Reinventing Ballet’s Long Form
The Venice Film Fest Provides A Superb Showcase For Awards Bait
What It’s Like To Try To Play – But Not Caricature – The First Lady Of The United States
Max Ritvo Took The Poetry World By Storm, All While He Dealt With Terminal Cancer
When Teens Without Arts Opportunities Get To Do Shakespeare
One British Politician Pledges Extra Money For The Arts (If He Gets Elected, Of Course)
The Cleveland Orchestra Goes To The Heart Of The City For The Summer [AUDIO]
Taking Art World Sexism And Making It Into Art
“Language started creeping into her work after this episode, with ‘Censored’ drawings, explicit images over which Tompkins laid a grid, stamping ‘censored’ on the offending areas. ‘I censored my own pieces. I felt I could do it better than anyone,’ Tompkins told me. ‘It was in reality a way to stay sane. Being censored is a really nasty business.'”
The Things Musicians Carry
The Love/Hate Relationship Authors Have With Their Own Books
Is This The Year That Movies Stopped Mattering In Pop Culture?
“Nowadays there’s likely something way more exciting than the latest alleged blockbuster waiting for you on your phone, whether it’s a Frank Ocean record, a cornered Charmeleon, or some dank memes. And with social media providing us real-time updates of our passions and consumption, it’s become clear that, in 2016, people are less passionate about films than ever before.”
Top Execs Quit Bronx Museum Over International Plans
We Thought The Internet Would Liberate Us. Instead It Distracted Us From What Really Mattered
What Do Plain Old Museumgoers Think Of The Art They See? The Times Asked Them, And Here’s What They Said
“We tried to find out what goes on in the mind of the modern museumgoer, unscientifically, by staking out the Met Breuer and interviewing nearly 50 art gazers over the course of two months … they included students who said museums were like ‘eating your vegetables’ and romantics who cherish their lunch breaks, when they can hop in a cab to go steal a few quiet minutes in front of a beloved painting.”