“More and more of us now express our emotions through the devices and software we rely on in our everyday lives. E-mail, text messages, social media, video chat—each platform demands of us different expressions of ourselves. And in the near future, we will have a new range of technologies at our disposal—sensors, monitors, and software with the power to track, nudge, persuade, and coerce. What the clock did to time, technologists hope to do to emotion—regulate and regiment it, measure and monitor it. But taming the temperamental beast that is human emotion might prove a challenge that contemporary technology is unfit to take on.”
Category: AUDIENCE
Broadway Introduces New App For Vision- And Hearing-Impaired Audience Members
“Cell phones in theatres may no longer be taboo. Well, at least in this case, where 12 Broadway theatres now offer GalaPro, a new app that expands accessibility services by providing audio description, captioning, and dubbing to audiences at every performance.”
Free Tickets If You Wear A Swastika, Says German Theater (Outrage Ensues)
“A play based on Adolf Hitler’s youth is sparking controversy for an unusual opening-night deal: Audience members willing to wear a swastika (provided by the theater) during the performance get in free. Those who prefer to pay full price are asked to wear the Star of David. … Producers of the play at the theater in Konstanz, a picturesque city in the south of Germany, say the action is part of an attempt to reinvigorate the national conversation about the dangers of fascism.”
MoviePass Is Growing Crazy Fast. But Can It Survive?
Since MoviePass slashed its monthly subscription costs last August from $50 to $9.95, its user base has exploded from roughly 20,000 to more than 2 million. In the process, it’s become the fastest-growing paid-entertainment subscription service in history, signing people at a greater clip than Netflix or Spotify. All that disruption in the movie theater business has created enemies and fueled skeptics, but whether MoviePass survives or dies, it has undeniably shaken up an industry that hasn’t changed much since the silent era.
Future Of Movies: Battle Between Cannes And Netflix Is Bad – But It’s Hard To Root For Either
France’s protectionist laws, which require a 36-month window between a film’s theatrical opening and its streaming debut, seem like the last gasp of a rapidly dying era. And the manner in which Frémaux handed down the Cannes ban, at the same time as the festival announced it was putting the kibosh on red-carpet selfies, was high-handed and doctrinaire. (In other words, it was French.) It’s increasingly evident that Netflix doesn’t just want to “disrupt” the business of showing movies in theaters. They want to destroy it. But it’s also increasingly evident that Netflix doesn’t just want to “disrupt” the business of showing movies in theaters. They want to destroy it. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told reporters last year the company wanted to “unleash film,” but he also spoke of the current state of exhibition with glib contempt.
Vend-A-Story – Getting Your Literature From A Machine
Here’s how a dispenser works: It is shaped like a cylinder with three buttons on top indicating a “one minute,” “three minute” or “five minute” story. (That’s how long it takes to read.) When a button is pushed, a short story is printed, unfurled on a long strip of paper. The stories are free. They are retrieved from a computer catalog of more than 100,000 original submissions by writers whose work has been evaluated by Short Edition’s judges, and transmitted over a mobile network. Offerings can be tailored to specific interests: children’s fiction, romance, even holiday-themed tales.
Future V. Past: The Stakes In The Netflix V. Cannes Battle
By putting its movies online immediately, the streaming service represents an existential threat to the French theater industry’s business; the Cannes rule change is just the latter’s mode of resistance (as the festival director, Fremaux is under tremendous pressure from French exhibitors). In announcing his decision to pull the company from Cannes, which is widely viewed as the world’s most prestigious film festival, Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, framed it to Variety as a battle between cinema’s past and future.
Finally – Orchestras are Changing
Talk to orchestra leaders around the country, and you find a new consensus about what community work means: a new approach to an orchestra’s role, even a new approach to training musicians. Leaders of some of the most innovative orchestras stress the need to find different ways to perform and get the music out there. But it’s a hard thing to talk about without lapsing into routine orchestra-speak — and an even harder thing to spotlight for a public.
Sales Of Thrillers Have Overtaken Everything Else In Britain, But Why?
There’s an old bromide that people want certainty in uncertain times – and crime fiction usually ends with a very certain solution, that of the main mystery. In addition, “while the essence of writing crime fiction might come down to speed and fluency, crafting and control are vital. It’s not easy and few do it really well. A crime novel that works is as taut as a drum. Plus, readers can quickly sniff out a fraud – someone writing up or down, or for the money, and it’s now a very competitive market.”
Let Us Pause To Consider The Historic Cultural Significance Of Beyoncé Headlining The Coachella Festival
She created a performance themed around HBCUs – historically Black colleges and universities – and educated, while entertaining, the audience. “Coachella has come to be known for an easygoing, boho aesthetic, with the stereotypical Coachella attendee a drunk white hipster wearing a Native American headdress and loads of glitter. On Friday, Vince Staples referred to the main stage as ‘the white people stage.'” Then Beyoncé arrived.