The Prize for Medicine went to researchers who found that roller coaster rides could help dislodge kidney stones, while a Japanese gastroenterologist won a Medical Education Prize for performing a colonoscopy on himself while sitting. (He reported “Mild discomfort”.) The Chemistry Prize went to researchers who found that saliva worked better on 18th-century sculpture than alcohol-based cleaners, and researchers who found that workers did in fact relieve stress by sticking pins in voodoo dolls of their bosses won the Economics Prize.
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One Of Video Game Industry’s Most Admired Creators Lays Off 90% Of Staff And Ceases Work
Telltale Games, which produces the popular interactive series The Walking Dead and Minecraft: Story Mode, more or less collapsed over the span of 48 hours. Brian Crecente reports on how it happened.
Artist Conks Marina Abramović On The Head With Portrait Of Her That He Painted
Abramović was just leaving a book-signing at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence when Vaclav Pisvejc approached her with a framed portrait he painted of her. She thought he was bringing her a present; instead, he lifted it high, smashed it over her head, and said, “Boom!” When Abramović, unhurt (there was no glass over the frame) asked Pisvejc why he would do this, he replied, “I had to do it for my art.” (includes video)
Berlin Cancels Artist’s Recreation Of The Wall
Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s immersive installation DAU, scheduled to open on October 12 as part of the Berliner Festspiele, was to include a mini-East Berlin, complete with a checkpoint requiring papers, bounded by a replica of part of the barrier that once divided East and West Berlin. The city government says that it has refused permission for the project because there’s not enough time to build it safely, but many locals argue that they’ve had quite enough of walls, thank you.
Four More Years: National Symphony In DC Extends With Music Director Gianandrea Noseda
“One year into the conductor’s tenure as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, Gary Ginstling, the orchestra’s executive director, announced a four-year contract extension, through 2024-2025. Also announced was “an in-house digital media initiative, meaning that the NSO will record its own performances for streaming and for physical CD and DVD.”
Museum Director Resigns, Alleging Censorship Of Mapplethorpe Exhibit In Portugal
When the show opened at the Serralves Foundation Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto last week, 20 of the 179 works intended for display were mot on view. “One day after the opening, on Friday, João Ribas, the museum’s artistic director, announced his resignation, and an open letter has circulated accusing the institution of censorship. The Mapplethorpe Foundation, in response, has pushed back against that claim.”
Will Macron’s Culture-Pass App Really Entice Young French People To The Arts?
The program, which lets users swipe left or right, Tinder-style, on listed events and comes with a €500 credit for a user’s 18th birthday, is being beta-tested in a few locales this fall and will be rolled out nationwide next year. Can it work as planned, or are the potential pitfalls too great? Two contributors, a cultural historian and an art journalist, weigh in.
Sculptures Off Beach In Maldives Destroyed After Government Declares Them Un-Islamic
Jason deCaires Taylor’s suite of sculptures, called the Coralarium and touted as “the world’s first intertidal srt gallery” by the resort off whose beach it’s installed, was demolished last week amidst an election campaign which the incumbent president, who had been railing against Western influences, lost.
Pianist With Tourette’s Says British Orchestras Are Colluding To Discriminate Against Him
Nick Van Bloss says that his involuntary tics disappear while he is playing and that he has concertized successfully abroad, but that the orchestras in his home country have gotten together to blacklist him. The Telegraph has obtained correspondence between some of those orchestras on the matter.
This Little Italian City Is Next Year’s European Capital Of Culture. It’s Not Even Close To Ready
In Matera, most of the venues are still unbuilt or unrenovated, and neither the rail line from Rome mor the new highway are finished. “Rome and Brussels secured €400m (£360m) to organise the year’s events, money that was supposed to pay for restoring buildings and repairing streets in a place famed for its stunning but dilapidated beauty and history of dire poverty. But … most of the money is still trapped in the labyrinth of Italian bureaucracy and has not yet been spent.”