“Images that were categorized as computer-generated were rated as visually less pleasing,” the researchers report in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. This held true whether participants appraised their quality before or after classifying its likely genesis. (They were pretty bad at guessing: The mean accuracy rate was only 52.5 percent.)
Category: AUDIENCE
Industry Report Says Exodus From Pay TV Services Is Accelerating
While “virtual multichannel video programming distributors” like Hulu, YouTube TV and Sling TV are poised to grow, they’ll significantly cannibalize the existing base of traditional pay-TV customers, according to RBC’s analysis. About 15% of the addressable market for “vMVPDs” will come from legacy cable and satellite subs, with 10% from “cord-never” broadband-only households.
A Year Later, Washington’s African American Museum Is Still An Audience Hit
“It remains one of the hottest tickets in town, it is an essential stop for out-of-town tourists, and it has succeeded in attracting a diverse, engaged, multicultural and international audience. It has also changed the center of gravity on the Mall, drawing crowds to its symbolic nodal point, where the Washington Monument connects the White House and Jefferson Memorial to the Capitol and Lincoln Memorial. There is an energy along 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW that feels new, and welcome, in the city.”
A New Art Camp For Grownups In Marfa, Texas
“It’s part of what the New Yorker calls the ‘Peter Pan market’: a vogue for youthful things (coloring books, summer camps, even faux pre-school classes) rebooted for an adult audience. And while some may bristle at the conceit – which, fair enough, can occasionally seem ripe for a Portlandia parody – it’s worth considering the merits. For some, it might even be a fast-track to recover a lost creative impulse, all over the course of a long weekend.”
The Ten Most-Produced Plays Of 2017-18: Shakespeare Leads The List, Even Though His Plays Don’t Count
As it does every year, American Theatre magazine omits the Bard’s plays and A Christmas Carol adaptations (because they’d lead year in, year out). Yet the most-produced play of the coming season is … Shakespeare in Love. (Most of the rest of the list is higher-brow.)
The 20 Most-Produced Playwrights Of 2017-18 (Excepting Shakespeare)
Editor Diep Tran: “This year, when I finished calculating the … list for 2017-18, and saw who was at the top, I let out a laugh. ‘Of course!’ I exclaimed. I was not surprised by the name at the top; she had been on it last year, at No. 2, just under August Wilson. It was almost poetic.”
Documenta 2017 Was An Unprecedented Success Despite Huge Costs In Athens, Say Officials
The mayor of the German city of Kassel, which hosts and helps fund Documenta, acknowledged that this year’s unprecedented €7 million deficit was the result of extending the show to Athens. (This was the first time Documenta had taken place in any other city.) Even so, the organizers argued that, with total attendance of more than 1 million, this year’s Documenta was the most visited contemporary art exhibition of all time.
Why The New York Times Will Recommend A Play With A Dirty Word In The Title But Won’t Print That Title
When Ben Brantley reviewed a revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’s Fucking A (a take on The Scarlet Letter), he wrote, “since I am not a character in this work but an employee of The New York Times, I shall be referring to this play only as ‘A.’ (The full title places an Anglo-Saxon adjective before the ‘A,’ one commonly used on cable television but not considered fit for print here.)” Commenters were not impressed: “Given the rather grisly subject matter, I’m wondering if the people who might attend the play would get the vapors if they were to see the name in print.” So the standards editor for the Times explains why the paper won’t print “Fucking A.” (The commenters remain unimpressed.)
‘The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!’ Breaks Attendance Record
The show of work by Grayson Perry with that hyperbolic title was, by average daily visitors, the busiest show that London’s Serpentine Galleries have ever held, according to Serpentine management. (Reporter Gareth Harris cites a show from last summer that had higher numbers; a Serpentine spokeswoman gives reasons why that one doesn’t count.)
Disney’s ‘Moana’ Is Giving A Lift To New Zealand’s Indigenous Language
“About 125,000 of New Zealand’s 4.7 million people speak the Maori language … There are concerns that numbers are declining, putting it at risk of dying out. But with one in three Maori people in New Zealand younger than 15, experts said the chance for youth to see a wildly popular movie in their own words” – Disney planned from the beginning to translate Moana, based on traditional Polynesian stories, into Maori – “could turn the language’s fortunes around after more official efforts faltered”