Portable GPS locators are being used for art. One “technique involves holding a G.P.S. device, which records their path as a kind of line drawing, and then posting the results on the Web (www.gpsdrawing.com).” The artists travels in a shape as his progress is tracked by the GPS unit. “As G.P.S. receivers have become smaller and cheaper, a growing number of digital artists are exploiting the technology. Like much digital art, the ideas are often spiffier than the visuals.”
Month: December 2003
You’ve Got Literature!
“Cybersnoops, aspiring Web detectives and electronic voyeurs searching for a new kind of fix might find it in an emerging form of e-book fiction with a twist: the digital epistolary novel, or DEN. Created by Greatamericannovel.com, a DEN reveals its story line through a series of simulated e-mails, Web pages and instant messages.”
Is It Or Isn’t It? “Van Gogh” Auction Delayed
“The auction of a controversial painting attributed to Vincent Van Gogh has been delayed to re-examine its authenticity. The work was spotted at a Paris flea market in 1991 and bought for 1,500 euros ($1,800). It was expected to fetch more than 1 million euros ($1.2m) at auction on Saturday, but was withheld to allow further scrutiny by experts.”
Why The Met Is Worth The Money
$7 million per year. That’s what it costs to put the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the air each Saturday afternoon. With the Met scrambling for new sponsors, there are rumblings in the opera world that the price tag is just too high, and that the broadcasts aren’t worth saving. Nonsense, says William Littler. There are other great opera companies, but none that consistently match the Met’s high level of performance. “I’ve visited them all, and I’ve never encountered in any of them the sustained quality I experienced last weekend during four performances at the big house at Lincoln Centre. As Harold C. Schonberg, late music critic of The New York Times, once observed, The Met sometimes fails, but when it does, it does so on a level of its own.”
Since When Is Poetry Not Contentious?
Much has been made of the political difficulties being faced by the formerly tiny Chicago-based Poetry magazine, since it was the surprise recipient of a $100 million bequest last year. Philip Marchand is a bit surprised by the tone of some of the press coverage: “According to [one] story, the gift is ‘sowing discord in the normally harmonious realm of verse.’ Normally harmonious realm of verse! Where did the reporter, Robert Frank, ever get that idea? Read some literary history, Mr. Frank. Poets have been at each other’s throats since the invention of the sonnet, and several centuries previous to that.”
Mies House Goes To The Preservationists
The legendary “Farnsworth House” designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, has been purchased at auction by a group of preservationists backed by the National Trust, which intends to open it to the public. “The sale lays to rest months of fear that the 1951 steel-and-glass house in Plano, Illinois, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, would be sold to a developer and moved from its site.” The winning bid was for $7.5 million, and followed a quick but intense bidding war between the preservationists and an anonymous telephone bidder.
Writers On The Front Lines
“[Culturally] blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction are appropriate for Israeli writers like [Amos] Oz, David Grossman, and A. B. Yehoshua, who are deeply engaged peace activists as well as novelists. All three flew to Geneva two weeks ago to take part in ceremonies surrounding the signing of the Geneva Accord, a new, extragovernmental peace pact negotiated by Israeli and Palestinian civilians. For most of their careers, including the past three years, as the second Palestinian intifada has waxed and waned, these writers have been struggling to address the problems of their country while trying to find the peace and quiet necessary for their literary work.”
Christianity For The Matrix Generation
Increasingly, it seems as if the current generation of teens and young adults is getting its moral guidance in the form of entertainment, rather than from religion. In fact, the line between Christian theology and secular moralism seems to be increasingly blurry, with blockbuster movie franchises like The Matrix and Lord of the Rings presenting morality plays not dissimilar from the ones you might find in the Bible. Some Christians see the pop culture moralists as a threat, of course, but increasingly, non-denominational Christian churches are embracing secular pop as a way to draw in the next generation of devout churchgoers.
Stop Explaining My Art!
Astronomers in Texas have determined that the famous figure in Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream, is meant to be reacting to a frightening, fiery Norwegian sunset, caused by the eruption of an Indonesian volcano. Kate Taylor would like these astronomers, and all other art-explaining scientists, to kindly take a seat and stop telling her what her favorite paintings are about. “The eager detectives who ferret out the scientific details of these artistic experiences always argue they don’t mean to diminish the art, but that is the effect, however unintended, of their discoveries.”
What’s Uglier Than A Dancer’s Feet? Her Shoes.
Dancers love a nice pair of new shoes as much as anyone. But you’d never know it by the way they treat them. The process of “breaking in” a new pair of pointe shoes begins with ripping them apart, and taking a knife to the innards. From there, it’s up to the individual dancer, and some are more, ahem, aggressive than others, but let’s just say that Krazy Glue and nails are frequently involved. And when all else fails, you might as well try slamming the shoe in a door hinge a few times before you strap it on. Pretty brutal treatment for such delicate-looking apparel? You bet. But when you spend your whole career on your toes, you’d better be comfortable.