The arts generated 4.2% of the overall U.S. GDP, with roughly 4.9 million Americans working in the sector in 2015, the latest year for which data is available. Collectively, those employed in the sector earned over $370 billion, according to the findings. – Artsy
Author: Douglas McLennan
How A Dance Photo Went Viral And Became An Issue In Algeria’s Presidential Election
On Friday, March 1, 17-year-old Melissa Ziad performed a few classical dance steps in front of a large Algerian flag at a demonstration in the country’s capital city of Algiers. The steps, like her outfit – ballet shoes with jeans and leather jacket – caught people’s attention. – France24
Edinburgh Fringe Teams Up With Kickstarter
As part of the collaboration, Kickstarter will offer a series of incentives to companies using the platform to crowdfund their show, including support for artists before and during the festival through online videos about fundraising and one-to-one coaching. – The Stage
Report: Despite Efforts, London’s Creative Workforce Has Failed To Diversify
Covering the breadth of the creative industries – from design, fashion and crafts to performing arts and TV – it notes there has been a 24% growth in creative jobs in London since 2012, but says 95% of workers still come from advantaged backgrounds. – Arts Professional
How Did Our Interactions With Historians Get So Pedantic?
Graduate students in the humanities can hardly escape reading Adorno and Foucault, and if they miss out on White, they absorb his arguments indirectly. So it is odd that, as scholars unite around the idea that historical writing constructs the past that it studies, they should at the same time turn to literalism as their favored mode of public engagement. – Chronicle of Higher Education
A Plague Of Insta-Poets?
Often described as “Instapoets”, there are several writers sharing short fragments online to enormous followings. The biggest of these audiences belongs to 26-year-old Rupi Kaur: the author of two poetry collections, she has 3.5 million Instagram followers and has received by far the most media attention of any Instapoet. On her Instagram account, she alternates beautiful pictures of herself in elegant outfits with short poems written entirely in lower-case; many young, attractive poets have followed this winning template. – New Statesman
The Greatest Jazz Photo Ever?
The show that night was billed as the Thelonious Monk Trio. Monk, 35, was already a prolific composer and piano innovator, yet it would take a decade for his brilliance to be fully appreciated by mainstream America. The trio was rounded out by Charles Mingus, 31, on standup bass and the youngster Roy Haynes, a 28-year-old hotshot drummer everyone called “Snap Crackle.” – The New York Times
A New AI Tool To Predict Whether The Text You’re Reading Was Written By AI
Why do we need it? Automatically produced texts use language models derived from statistical analysis of vast corpuses of human-generated text to produce machine-generated texts that can be very hard for a human to distinguish from text produced by another human. These models could help malicious actors in many ways, including generating convincing spam, reviews, and comments — so it’s really important to develop tools that can help us distinguish between human-generated and machine-generated texts. – Boing Boing
Broadway Gets A Tech Startup Accelerator
Alongside venture capital firm Exponential Creativity Ventures and tech training company IT Mentors, the Shubert Organization is launching a startup accelerator that will provide companies with funding, training and the ability to test products in Broadway theaters or within the Shubert ecosystem. In exchange, the Broadway Tech Accelerator will take an equity stake in each company. – Broadway News
26,000 Students, Millions In Student Tuition, Loans, Gone In Default Of A Chain Of Colleges
The affected schools — Argosy University, South University and the Art Institutes — have about 26,000 students in programs spanning associate degrees in dental hygiene and doctoral programs in law and psychology. Fourteen campuses, mostly Art Institute locations, have a new owner after a hastily arranged transfer involving private equity executives. More than 40 others are under the control of a court-appointed receiver who has accused school officials of trying to keep the doors open by taking millions of dollars earmarked for students. – The New York Times