“If you can put yourself inside of a music experience, when you’re 100% covered with the artist’s music and another artist’s interpretation of the music, we thought those two worlds colliding is great way to achieve something remarkable. I want to explore that as an art form, and create the next generation moments that is something everyone will talk about.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Top Posts From Today’s AJBlogs 08.05.16
Metropolitan Museum Boasts Record Attendance; Attributes Deficit, in Part, to Younger Demographics Is an increase in young visitors too much of a good thing? The Metropolitan Museum late yesterday issued an upbeat press release that painted a much rosier picture of attendance figures than my doom-and-gloom post… read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-08-05
When We Allow Technology To Police Our Culture… Last year I was producing the live streaming of the Ojai Music Festivaland we decided to use YouTube to carry the streams. In a small outdoor venue, the number of seats is limited to … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-05
Propwatch: Richard III’s spine When archaeologists excavating a Leicestershire car park in 2013 uncovered a battle-scarred skeleton, the emergence of its severely curved spine was the first strong indication that these were the remains of Richard III: England’s … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2016-08-05
Trump Wrestles for President A friend tipped me to this video. It’s no secret. Hundreds of thousands of viewers have seen it, but I hadn’t. My friend also sent along his comment: How could the man in … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-08-05
One song, no plot In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the new Broadway revival of Cats. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” opened in New York in 1982 and closed 18 years later, the …read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-08-05
Why Is So Much Sound Art So Bad?
“Duchamp was a genius. He could put a noise in a ball of string and hey presto, it was art. He made it look easy – well, he made everything look easy – and yet many daft and self-indulgent sound works are only “art” at the most glib level as sadly exposed by the National Gallery’s exhibition Soundscapes last summer, in which only Philipsz rose above the banal.”
Is Multitasking Good Or Bad For You? The Answer Is (Predictably) Complicated
“Multitasking has a purpose—but it’s not as effective as we think and makes us more prone to mistakes. Doing rote sorting or organizing work while having a conversation with a coworker? Fine. But try answering an email while trying to explain an important meeting outcome to your boss, and both tasks will take you longer, have a greater likelihood of errors, and be more taxing than if you focused and did one thing.”
Rewriting The Rules Of Ballet Class
“In Ashley Tuttle’s increasingly popular ballet classes, actual dancing is encouraged — something that’s less common than you might expect. Ballet class is usually a place to hone an impossible technique, and dancing is for the stage. But Ms. Tuttle doesn’t subscribe to that notion; what’s startling about her classes is the freedom she pulls out of her students. She cares deeply about technique, but for her, ballet is about more than positions; by the end, even beginners find themselves linking academic steps into swirling dancing phrases.”
“Augmented Eternity” – The Machines That Will Learn Enough About Us To Be Us
Augmented Eternity doesn’t just ingest the data someone leaves; to create a convincing facsimile, it analyzes how they think and act. The “presentation layer,” could take many forms: a chatbot, a voice interface, or even a 3D avatar in virtual reality.
So You’re Going To Add To Versailles’ Architecture. Can This End Well?
“Through five Republics, the French have assiduously cared for this apogee of French culture, a national symbol baked into the country’s psyche. Touching any part of Versailles is like performing brain surgery on France: a very delicate matter.”
Cities Want To Be The Next Silicon Valley. That Might Not Be A Good Idea
“The Washington Consensus of the 1980s claimed that free trade and deregulation were the most promising growth policies for developing countries. The Silicon Valley Consensus suggests that innovative cities grow faster, that startups are the only real hope for job creation, and that high-tech growth helps rich and poor alike. But, like the Washington Consensus, the Silicon Valley Consensus offers a false promise.”
American TV Seems More Diverse. Is It?
“There’s a prevailing notion that—in a pop culture climate ruled by Scandal and Empire and an industry flipping a middle finger to any #OscarsSoWhite malfeasance—television is in the midst of a Golden Age of diversity. But is that really the case?”
America Is Quickly Getting Older. Are Our Arts Going To Be Increasingly Age-Specific?
“Some industries will forsake the senior audience, other industries will court it. And those decisions are likely the result of research and judgments. Which end of the spectrum will we end up on, and is it likely some arts organizations will embrace the senior growth market, while others of us, flee from it?”