“A project called Mesa Musical Shadows, by Montréal’s Daily Tous Les Jours studio, is doing just that. It’s a public installation that turns a chunk of pavement in Arizona’s Mesa Arts Center into a giant game of Dance Dance Revolution that you play by moving your shadow.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Neuroscientists Are Still Struggling With Why Some Music Sounds Better To Us Than Other Music
“Some chords sound good—they’re consonant—and other notes grate when they’re played at the same time. Unraveling why that is could explain something basic about how humans perceive the world. Maybe people are just wired that way. Or maybe, as a paper argues today in Nature, it’s a product of human culture.”
How Rembrandt Got His Paintings So Perfect (Optics?)
“In a paper published Wednesday in the Journal of Optics, Francis O’Neill lays out a theory that Rembrandt set up flat and concave mirrors to project his subjects — including himself — onto surfaces before painting or etching them.”
How To Build A Theatre And Make It Successful
“Until last August, when they engaged a general management company, Ms. Nichols (who makes a part-time salary with the troupe) and Mr. Tucker (who makes a full-time salary) had been shepherding Bedlam’s rise themselves, building a board of directors and gradually hiring people to take on some of their too many tasks. Still on their wish list, among other things: a managing director.”
Phil Kennicott Tries To Find Meaning In Pokemon Go (And Fails)
The Washington Post critic follows the game through DC monuments and museums in a vain effort to get to level five, and finally concludes it’s not worth the effort.
The Sliding Value Of Facts In A Social Media-Saturated World
“We are caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between truth and falsehood, fact and rumour, kindness and cruelty; between the few and the many, the connected and the alienated; between the open platform of the web as its architects envisioned it and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob. What is common to these struggles – and what makes their resolution an urgent matter – is that they all involve the diminishing status of truth.”
Detroit Symphony Patron Leaves $5,000 To Each Member Of The Orchestra In Her Will
“She didn’t know many of them personally, but she had tremendous respect for their lifetime commitment to excellence and the quiet sacrifices they make to bring the joy of music to others. Still, no one outside the small circle of family and advisers privy to her estate planning knew of the cash surprise she quietly tucked inside her will like a sly gift from a secret Santa.”
Why Are Sports Surging But The Arts Aren’t?
Bottom line: I think it has a lot to do with the fact that sports has succeeded in being part of kids lives to an extent that arts have not.
What Happened To America’s Mid-20th Century Composers?
“I’ve never understood why the music of America’s midcentury modern composers disappeared from our concert halls. Not only is it “entertaining,” but it speaks to ordinary listeners in a direct, immediately comprehensible way, just like the better-known music of Copland and Samuel Barber. Don’t take my word for it—try listening for yourself.”
Do Cuba’s Abandoned Arts Schools Hold The Key To Its Future?
“It is difficult to separate the history of the Cuban Revolution from the fate of the National Art Schools as they themselves were building revolutionary desire. During their abandonment, over the course of decades, nature returned. This time it was not the scenic nature of the old golf course, but the greed of vines, lianas trees, animals, and flooding.”