“We wanted to create the idea that we are everywhere, and we are listening. We could be working at the MoMA or even at Leo Castelli’s gallery. We wanted to create this idea that the art world was being watched, surveilled and scrutinized. Anonymity has protected us, but now I’m not sure anyone cares any more who we are. It has changed.” – The Guardian
Author: Douglas McLennan
San Francisco Conservatory Acquires Opus 3 Artists
Under the terms of the agreement, which is effective immediately, Opus 3 will continue to operate as an independent, for-profit corporation under the leadership of President and CEO David V. Foster, while San Francisco Conservatory president David Stull will chair a management team overseeing the alliance between the two entities. – San Francisco Chronicle
How The Louvre Became The Louvre
Ten million people visited the Louvre last year, before France’s lockdown in March, and no museum can become so crowded without cancelling its own purpose, or replacing it with another purpose—the purpose of a dutiful hajj, of having been there. There are too many people looking to allow anyone to see. – The New Yorker
Google Now Lets You Search For A Song By Singing It
The update, a new feature called ‘Hum to Search’, was announced at Google’s Search On event and is available from today. It allows you to search for a piece of music which either has no lyrics, or whose lyrics you can’t remember. – Classic FM
When Even Socially-Distanced Dance Is Shut Down
KDH, an Austin, TX dance group “planned to present ‘At a Distance’ for free over the course of couple of weekends. The show would be pop-up style — informal, free and no seating would be offered. In fact, the dancers would move slowly down the lake to discourage any crowding along the lakeside. Kathy Dunn Hamrick didn’t publicize the plans widely, just a few social media posts. However, somehow, just days before the first the city’s Office of Special Events got wind of the performance plans. Stephen Pruitt and Hamrick were told they could not stage their show.” – Sight Lines
The Wow Factor In Martin Amis’ New Autofiction
The difference between autofiction and a “loosely” autobiographical novel, broadly speaking, is the difference between Amis’s new book and one he published ten years ago, “The Pregnant Widow.” Both tell the story of a middle-aged baby boomer looking back on a formative erotic encounter that took place in the nineteen-seventies, during the heyday of the sexual revolution. – The New Yorker
A Critics’ List: Books To Read About Theatre
For now, if we can’t be inside the theatre, at least we can be all about it in our reading and our thinking. – Aisle Say
Live-Streaming Concerts People Will Pay For
Some acts have reaped serious money from ticketed livestreams: Pollstar reports Laura Marling sold 4,500 (UK) tickets at £12 each for her show at London’s Union Chapel in June; YouTube says Japanese artist Reol made $130,000 from a livestream on its platform in August; and BTS’s management company Big Hit said they had 756,000 fans watch their Bang Bang Con live stream in June, each paying between 29,000 won (£19.41) and 39,000 won (£26.10), meaning a minimum gross of £14.6m. – The Guardian
Fun To Think About: Are We Living In A Computer Simulation?
“Some have tried to identify ways in which we can discern if we are simulated beings. Others have attempted to calculate the chance of us being virtual entities. Now a new analysis shows that the odds that we are living in base reality—meaning an existence that is not simulated—are pretty much even. But the study also demonstrates that if humans were to ever develop the ability to simulate conscious beings, the chances would overwhelmingly tilt in favor of us, too, being virtual denizens inside someone else’s computer.” – Scientific American
A Social Media Horror Story: “Our Social Dilemma”
In horror, “the narrative is driven by the question of whether the creature can be destroyed.” In The Social Dilemma, the creature is you and me, or at least the tech-addicted, algorithmically-modeled version of ourselves disclosed by big-tech behaviorism. So the film’s horrifying question is this: are you willing to destroy a part of yourself, that Twitter-refreshing creature within? – 3 Quarks Daily