“In Heliópolis, one of São Paulo’s largest favelas, the trial of a black youth agitates the community, which argues for his innocence. In a train heading to Jardim Romano, an audio brings the history of the region to the passengers’ ears, and culminates with a final point: the rains and flooding. In the very south of the city, the body of a dead person is reanimated with Brazilian funk music. These three stories, told in three stage plays, are representative of the theatre scene that has exploded in São Paulo in recent years.” – Global Voices
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A Push To Create Immersive Virtual Reality Experiences In The Arts
UK digital minister Margot James described the initiative’s vision in an opening event. “Imagine being inside the world of a Shakespeare play, or in a video game as professional players battle it out for millions of dollars, or immersed in a national museum, solving a detective narrative involving dinosaurs and robots with fellow virtual museum-goers.” – Ludwig Van
Christopher Knight Takes Issue With Peter Zumthor’s Comments About How Museums Work
“Presumably you didn’t mean to insult these folks, who represent a core museum constituency. Every art museum serves two publics — an art public and a general public. After the affront, your interview puts a thumb on the scale for the latter.” – Los Angeles Times
Skills Versus Knowledge: Are We Teaching Kids The Wrong Way?
What if the best way to boost reading comprehension is not to drill kids on discrete skills but to teach them, as early as possible, the very things we’ve marginalized—including history, science, and other content that could build the knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand both written texts and the world around them? – The Atlantic
Egypt Asks Interpol To Track Tut Artifact It Believes Was Stolen And Sold At Christie’s Auction
Egypt said on Tuesday it had asked Interpol to track the statue and other artefacts over alleged missing paperwork, and it criticised British authorities for not supporting its claim. – The Guardian
Want To Tear Down Authority, Then Attack The Authority (Not Its Argument)
“Contrary to the popular view, I think that we sometimes have good reasons to argue against the person. In other words, ad hominem arguments can be good arguments, especially when they are construed as rebuttals to appeals to authority.” – Aeon
Warner Announces New Streaming Service Built Around HBO – A Really Dumb Idea?
Some 35 million households now subscribe to HBO either via their cable service or the HBO Now streaming service. They’re used to paying for premium content. HBO is betting that they’ll pay roughly the same amount for a lot more of this other stuff. HBO Max subscribers will get everything a current HBO subscription delivers plus a lot more from TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network and CNN. – Washington Post
Really Good Nature Documentaries ‘Are Great Art, Maybe The Greatest Art Of Our Time’
Sebastian Smee: “I realize the claim sounds odd. After all, they weren’t really intended as high art. They’re television documentaries. They were created primarily to educate and to entertain. And yet a lot of things we now display in our museums and think of as art were never intended as such. African carvings. Russian icons. Minoan ceramics. Egyptian statues. … The best nature documentaries … [are] great in this important sense, too: Like those Impressionist paintings, they are ahead of their time. We are not yet ready to see them from the perspective of the future. But soon we will be.” – The Washington Post
Grass Is Greener?
The arts being valued by the government as an important part of society and the (near) certainty that money will be available for basic operations — as in Australia and Chile, which I recently visited — borders on utopian fantasy for those of us in the States. And yet there are reasons they envy us. – Doug Borwick
Grace and Mercy Come Together
Ronald K. Brown’s Grace and Mercy, performed by Ronald K. Brown/Evidence: A Dance Company at the 2019 SummerScape Festival at Bard College. – Deborah Jowitt