“We’re giving it a try to be creative. Yes, it would have been easier just to post a press release, but the board, especially for our chapter, decided to see if we could come up with something. We’re going to give it a shot and see how people like it.” – Variety
Author: Douglas McLennan
How Locked-Away Artists Are Expressing Themselves
Practical concerns aside, it can be difficult to keep creating during a pandemic that has already killed more than 180,000 people worldwide. Even so, people who need to express themselves through their art are finding new ways. – The New York Times
Was This The Social Media Of The 1700s?
In 1769, amateur historian James Granger published the Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the Revolution. It was an interactive book, aimed at collectors of printed images—a popular new hobby at the time. The Biographical History featured portraits of historical figures and blank leaves to let readers take notes referring to their own collections. Soon, collectors went beyond the book’s intended use, instead adding their own portrait collections directly inside. – JSTOR
Private Freedom Versus Public Interest: Houston, We Have A Problem
The logic of private interest – the notion that we should just ‘let the market handle it’ – has serious limitations. Particularly in the United States, the lack of an effective health and social policy in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has brought the contradictions into high relief. – Aeon
Zoom-As-Artistic-Medium, The Music Video
The three-minute video for the band Thou & the Get’s single “Phenom” is a kaleidoscope of ordinary images whose rhythm and hostility bust the limits of Zoom. The video speaks to the locked-down dreamer in all of us, as it reframes the possibilities for community, expresses the frustration of confinement and reminds us that one way to shake it off is through our inherent creativity. – Washington Post
Bankers Didn’t Just Want To Own The Art, Now They Want To Run It Too
Sure, the machers of the banking industry have deep roots in the art market—the Medicis fueled the Renaissance, the bankers of the East India Company let Rembrandt put up his paintings as loan collateral, and the robber barons used their money to build the Frick and the Morgan. But today, bankers don’t just want to be patrons—they want to be players, occupying roles once filled by art experts. – Artnet
AI Is Done With Games (Having Beaten Us). Now On To The Serious Stuff
A 2016 survey of top AI researchers found that, on average, they thought there was a 50 percent chance that AI systems would be able to “accomplish every task better and more cheaply than human workers” by 2061. The expert community doesn’t think of artificial general intelligence (AGI) as an impossible dream, so much as something that is more likely than not within a century. So let’s take this as our starting point in assessing the risks, and consider what would transpire were AGI created. – Nautilus
Met Museum Lays Off 81, Says It’s Already Lost $150 Million
Salary and benefits constitute more than 65% of the Met’s annual budget. In addition to the layoffs, the museum announced today, April 22, that its top executives will be taking salary reductions. That includes 20% pay cuts for director Max Hollein and president and CEO Daniel H. Weiss and 10% for 11 other museum officers. – Hyperallergic
Listen To 50 Years Of Interviews About American Music
“For the most part, the Oral History of American Music, known as OHAM, has focused not on insurance salesmen or barbers, but has instead gone straight to the source: living American composers, who sit for interviews that can last many hours. The archive has grown to encompass recordings of around 3,000 interviews with major voices in American music.” – The New York Times
Quarantined Shakespeare As Performed As Global Conversation
As the speeches are performed by a succession of people in the videos, it feels “as if they are in conversation even though they are in different parts of the world” said Terry. The three speeches suit our current period of contemplation under lockdown as they “ask questions about our place in the planet and where we go when we are no longer physical beings”. They provide an opportunity for questioning – “rather than worrying about what the answers might be”. – The Guardian