Blog

Whatever Happened To Art Reflecting Reality?

Russell Smith is tired of being overwhelmed by the surreal world of modern movies, books, and art. Events that should be spread over a year happen in a day, bullets slow to the speed of land tortoises, and the whole experience is simply exhausting. “I’m wondering if naturalism is well and truly dead in all the arts, in entertainment and academic art equally. Fantasy, surrealism and downright implausibility have been the 21st century’s dominant artistic modes so far.”

Go 2 R Museum

Trying to attract younger audiences, York’s railway museum is trying a new ad campaign. “Posters showing a pair of oily handprints on a woman’s denims went up yesterday in clubs and student bars across York to try to bring down the average age of helpers at the National Railway Museum. Heavily reliant on enthusiasts in the their 40s and above – a problem shared by scores of other museums and galleries across the country – the final home of hundreds of historic trains is also texting young people in schools and colleges in the city to tempt them into helping. Designers have created a locomotive-like logo using computer symbols from the asterisk to the double-dash, and added the message: ‘Ifu think trAns R ZzZz thnk x2.’ (If you think trains are boring, think again.)

The Last Boys’ Club

Why are there so few women on talk radio? Is it that women are less likely to possess the conservative leanings that dominate the medium? Are they simply uninterested in having their voices heard by the vast talk radio audience? Not likely. “If there is one explanation that seems to resonate, it may be that women are out of fashion in an industry that puts a premium on constant aggression and throbbing neck veins.” Put another way, talk radio’s audience is unapologetically sexist, and has no interest in a female host who acts as boorishly as most of the men currently on the air.

The Human Cost Of Florida Phil’s Fall

When the Florida Philharmonic ceased operations last month, 80 musicians lost their jobs instantly. This is no small thing, since orchestra players must devote months of practice time and hundreds of dollars in travel expenses even to make a stab at winning a new job in another ensemble. Many Florida Phil musicians were married to others, making the shutdown a financial catastrophe for their families. “Some players already have left town. Some are going home to family. Others are turning to teaching or investigating careers outside music. A few cling to the hope that a miracle waits around the bend and resurrection will come in the weeks or months ahead.”

Why Do Foreigners Keep Winning The Orange Prize? They’re Better!

“It’s becoming an interesting feature of the Orange that only two past winners have been from Britain. The rest have been either from the US or Canada. Why should this be? One answer, advanced at the Hay Festival by Hilary Mantel, a judge of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, is that the Americans and Canadians are simply more accomplished.”

RIAA Continues Its Crusade

“The recording industry is playing an old song: It has filed a new copyright-infringement suit against Streamcast, makers of the popular Morpheus file-sharing service. The suit involves a Web radio service never launched by Streamcast.” Streamcast’s chief exec “called the recording companies ‘sore losers’ following U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson’s ruling in a separate copyright lawsuit in Los Angeles against Streamcast Networks.” The new lawsuit is part of an ongoing battle by the industry to shut down companies which enable illegal file-sharing.

Where Science And Humanity Meet

“Scientists are working in the emerging field of biomimetics, in which machines are designed to function like biological systems. They have only the foggiest idea of how the human brain perceives and acts on information from the body’s sense organs, even though they’ve known the mechanics of those organs for many years.” It’s all part of the grander struggle for what is sometimes called Artificial Intelligence – the seemingly Quixotic quest to build a machine that can think, learn, and react like a human – and it’s as not as much about building robots as it is about understanding basic functions of humanity.

A Place For Big Ideas

Suzaan Boettger writes that Dia’s new outpost at Beacon is a place where space could allow for the jumble and interplay of big ideas. “The Dia collection harkens back to a decade when the convergence of strong fiscal growth, the largesse of Great Society programs, increasing support for civil rights, anti-Vietnam war protests, and myriad forms of personal and sexual liberation made such artistic innovation on a large scale a cultural manifestation of the utopian belief that ‘anything is possible’.”