“Our old ideas about space have exploded. The past three decades have produced more change in more cultures than any other time in history. Radically accelerated growth, deregulation, and globalization have redrawn our familiar maps and reset the parameters: Borders are inscribed and permeated, control zones imposed and violated, jurisdictions declared and ignored, markets pumped up and punctured. And at the same time, entirely new spatial conditions, demanding new definitions, have emerged.” Rem Koolhaas has no shortage of ideas on the future of space, from legislative gluts to the art of miniaturization to virtual space.
Blog
Transport Strike Causing Cannes Concern
Movie stars, as a rule, do not like to wait around. So one can imagine that the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival are more than a little bit concerned about a country-wide transport strike in France which is threatening to make the logistics of the festival a bit tricky. Cannes opens on Wednesday, and while some luminaries of the film world have already arrived, many are finding themselves stranded in Paris, at least temporarily.
Fort Worth Dallas Ballet Takes A New Name
Fort Worth Dallas Ballet has a new name. Henceforth it shall be called Texas Ballet Theater. “Last month’s merger of the ballet’s two boards – one based in Fort Worth and one in Dallas – prompted the decision. It reflects the new board and the new artistic direction. We did not want to be known as North Texas Ballet, either. It limits yourself. We have grown beyond Fort Worth and Dallas. We are spreading our wings.”
Questionable (Artificial) Intelligence
Scientists have been working for decades on trying to build artificial intelligence. But how much progress has actually been made, when “notions as ‘water is wet’ and ‘fire is hot’ have proved elusive quarry for AI researchers? Unfortunately, the strategies most popular among AI researchers in the 1980s have come to a dead end. So-called ‘expert systems,’ which emulated human expertise within tightly defined subject areas like law and medicine, could match users’ queries to relevant diagnoses, papers and abstracts, yet they could not learn concepts that most children know by the time they are 3 years old.”
Artists In Post-Hussein Iraq
Artists in Iraq under Hussein had mixed fortunes. Those in favor were treated well. Those who were suspected for anything were killed or imprisoned. Now artists wonder about the future. “Though they know their agenda is less urgent than restoring electricity or holding elections, the men agreed that Iraq’s cultural rebirth will be crucial if the country is to prosper. There will be a place for Western influence, the men concluded, but they hope it is a tempered one.”
Lucas Starts Animation Studio
Filmmaker George Lucas has started his own animation studio. “For nearly six years, Lucas has tried ? without success ? to break into the feature animation business, which has become increasingly competitive. Rivals such as Pixar Animation Studios and partner Walt Disney Studios, DreamWorks SKG’s Pacific Data Images and 20th Century Fox’s Blue Sky Studios have cashed in on such blockbusters as ‘Monsters, Inc.,’ ‘Shrek’ and ‘Ice Age,’ respectively. Last year, Sony Pictures joined the fray by forming its own computer animation outfit.”
Comic Book Nation
“Today, students who come to a campus with Spider-Man on their minds may have trouble believing it, but they share the superhero with middle-aged professors. For, in our scholarly lives, many of us are not just harking back to distant memories of the Marvel comics of our childhoods, but creating a new scholarship on the comic book and the comic strip. The scholarly part is an odd experience and, for the most part, a recent one.”
A Study Of African American Art
“The study of African American artistic production has emerged as a growing field within art history, while its subjects have proven equally amenable to visual culture studies. But a dearth of quality reproductions, institutional holdings catalogues and subject indices, and the number of out-of-print texts continue to slow our scholarly labor.”
A Crisis In American Orchestras
America’s orchestras are slipping away. “Nearly a dozen orchestras across the country have either closed or are in danger of doing so. This season’s first orchestral casualty was the San Jose Symphony, which shut down in November. The Tulsa Philharmonic, the Colorado Springs Symphony and the San Antonio Symphony followed. In February the 49-year-old Savannah Symphony Orchestra canceled the rest of its season. It was $1.3 million in debt, had gone through five executive directors in seven years and was unable to meet its payroll.”
London – Capital Of The Art World
London is the world’s new art capital. “New Yorkers see their town as the source of all creation, a one-stop shop for culture. But London has become the art capital of the world. London has hot artists and a new museum every other year. New York is between generations and cannot get new buildings off the ground. It lacks coherence and unity. Visiting Americans will soon be offered a combined ticket for the Tate, the Saatchi, the Aquarium and the Eye. “