“After the six-week intervention, we found the rhythm of salivary cortisol across the day to be improved. We also found the intervention improved some aspects of well-being. We think if both these physiological and psychological benefits could be sustained for long periods, it could help to improve quality of life.” – Hyperallergic
Blog
Every Society On Earth Has Music, Confirm Scientists, And It’s Used In ‘Strikingly Similar Ways’ Throughout The World
“To arrive at this conclusion, researchers spent five years painstakingly creating a database that features music created by people across the globe. They dubbed it the Natural History of Song.” – Newsweek
Hearing Octaves As The Same Note Is Culturally Learned, Not Hardwired In Brain: Research
“Musical systems around the world and across historical eras have been diverse, but octaves are commonly a feature of them. The acoustic structure of octaves is always the same: The frequency of a note in one octave is half the frequency of the same note in the octave above,” and that fact of physics has led to the general assumption that “octave equivalence” is universal. But research with an indigenous Bolivian ethnic group that has limited outside contact indicates otherwise. – Quanta Magazine
The 100 Greatest Films Directed By Women (An International Critics’ Poll)
“[This] is BBC Culture’s biggest and most international poll yet: 761 different films were voted for by 368 film experts – critics, journalists, festival programmers and academics – who came from 84 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. We asked the same number of women to contribute as men to create a gender-balanced poll.” (Click here to read why the number-one film on the list was chosen.) – BBC
Roger Cardinal, Scholar Who Coined Term ‘Outsider Art’, Dead At 79
“This was not entirely a source of pleasure to the man who, under duress, had invented the term” as a compromise title for his very influential 1972 book. “In a 2009 essay on outsider art and autism, Cardinal noted that the name had been ‘used and abused in a variety of ways, which have often compromised it’.” – The Guardian
Surge In Black Art Is ‘Exhilarating Sea Change’ That Made 2010s ‘Thrilling’: New York Times
Roberta Smith: “What made the 2010s the most thrilling of all the decades I’ve spent in the New York art world was the rising presence of black artists of every ilk, on every front: in museums, commercial galleries, art magazines, private collections and public commissions. During this exhilarating sea change new talent emerged, older talent was newly appreciated and the history of American art was suddenly up for grabs — and in dire need of rewriting.” – The New York Times
UK Conservative Party Plans £120 Million Cultural ‘Festival Of Brexit’
“The Conservative Party confirmed in its manifesto that it plans to move forward with the cultural Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland if it wins the UK general election on 12 December. … But arts professionals have raised concerns about this proposed showcase of Great Britain’s talents, once dubbed ‘the festival of Brexit’ by the [hardline anti-EU] Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.” – The Art Newspaper
Police To Impound Rotterdam Museum Sculptures After Church Says They Were Stolen
“Police have said they plan to seize six religious sculptures that are on display at an art museum in the Belgian town of Leuven. The authorities acted following a complaint by a Belgian church that has long sought to reclaim the fragments of a 16th-century altarpiece, which were stolen at the outbreak of World War I” and ultimately ended up at Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. – Artnet
The American Theatre Was Killing Me: Healing from Racialized Trauma in an Art Workspace
“In the following conversation, theatremaker Lauren E. Turner recounts her courageous healing journey from the depths of sustained racialized trauma working in a New Orleans theatre to the launching of her own theatre company, No Dream Deferred, into its first season this fall. Given the persistence of racialized trauma in white theatre institutions, we interrogate how — and if — people of color feel they have a place within them.” – HowlRound
What Passes For A Soul (Or Conscience) In Silicon Valley
What happens after you admit you might have ruined the internet, or helped elect a lunatic, or undercut Western democracy? I suppose that, like with any confession, you feel relief. Nothing is worse than keeping a secret. Then, to borrow a cliché, you might take some time to work on yourself. Unburdened, perhaps, by their No Good Very Bad Election Year, the elite of Silicon Valley have discovered a new depth of self-reflection that they didn’t realized they possessed—and a new opportunity to grow their consciousness. – The Baffler