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Get Ready: Now We Have Virtual Celebrities (And They’re Popular)

Miquela Sousa, also known as Lil Miquela, is a fictional character created by a Los Angeles startup called Brud. Miquela has 1.5m followers on Instagram, where she shares pictures of her imaginary life and proclaims her support for LGBT rights and Black Lives Matter. In the past few years, the virtual model has become a veritable celebrity: starring in Ugg ads, interviewing artists at Coachella and collaborating with Prada.  – The Guardian

The ‘Gomorrah’ Housing Project In Naples Will Be Torn Down

“Just a few years ago, Le Vele – a sprawling housing estate in Scampia, on the outskirts of Naples – was both the fictional location for the hit crime film and Italian TV series Gomorrah and the real-life location for the biggest international drugs and arms supermarket in western Europe.” But no more. “Unusually, the effort to demolish the buildings has been led by the residents themselves.” – The Guardian

Turns Out AI Machines Can Hallucinate (Or Are They Seeing Things We Can’t?)

Adversarial examples are like optical (or audio) illusions for AI. By altering a handful of pixels, a computer scientist can fool a machine learning classifier into thinking, say, a picture of a rifle is actually one of a helicopter. But to you or me, the image still would look like a gun—it almost seems like the algorithm is hallucinating. – Wired

The Artwork That Won The Venice Biennale Is Actually An Opera

“The piece, called Sun & Sea (Marina) (2019), was created by a trio of highly creative women: filmmaker and theater director Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė; writer, poet, and playwright Vaiva Grainytė; and artist, musician, and composer Lina Lapelytė. From within Venice’s Marina Militare, the opera’s set is a faux beach, complete with lounge chairs, inflatables, and sand. A troupe of two-dozen performers from Lithuania and Italy sing sweetly and harmoniously, enacting dark humor that reflects on the decaying Earth, through the guise of a lazy, frolicsome beach day.” – Artsy

A Ballet Dramaturg Explains How (And Why) She Works

Uzma Hameed, who developed Woolf Works and Obsidian Tear with Wayne McGregor and Victoria with Cathy Marston, “defines her role as dramaturg – the definition of which is often a vexed question – as essentially creative, a ‘critical friend’ to the choreographer rather than an omniscient authority. ‘There are probably as many definitions as there are dramaturgs – kind of like versions of religion.'” – The Stage

Feds Will Retry Guy Who Broke Thumb Off Ancient Chinese Terra Cotta Warrior

“Prosecutors told a judge Thursday that they intend to retry Michael Rohana, 25, on charges of theft and concealment of an object of cultural heritage. Their decision comes a month after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict after a weeklong trial, stymied by questions of whether he had been appropriately charged.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

Columbus Dance Theatre Has Funding Taken Away By Local Council

“Amid a year of turmoil, the Columbus Dance Theatre will enter its 2019-20 season without support from the Greater Columbus Arts Council. … Spokeswoman Jami Goldstein said of Columbus Dance Theatre that ‘the concerns included missed deadlines, a balance of payroll taxes owed dating back to 2012, increased debt, negative net assets, leadership misconduct and lack of board recruitment and oversight.'” – The Columbus Dispatch

The Louvre’s Attempts To Get Works Loaned For Its Leonardo 500 Show Aren’t Going So Well

First of all, there’s the on-again, off-again attempt by Italy’s new-ish nationalist government to make da Vinci and the Louvre show a cultural battleground. But there are also the perpetually uncertain status of loans from the Hermitage (again, politics), the fact that works on wood are too fragile to travel, and the mysteriously missing Salvator Mundi. – The Art Newspaper