Researchers at Rutgers University’s Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory not only created the software, “[they] showed the generated artworks to a pool of 18 people to judge, mixed with 50 images of real paintings – half by famous Abstract Expressionists and half shown at Art Basel 2016.” Not only did the panel prefer the AI paintings, they thought that many of the Art Basel works had been created by the computer. (As Claire Voon puts it, “zombie formalism is real.”)
Category: AUDIENCE
Why Male Crime Novelists Are Now Using Female Pseudonyms
Historically, of course, cross-gender pseudonyms for writers typically went the opposite direction. Now, Sophie Hilbert reports, publishers have found that novels by women writers (real or ostensible) tend to sell better – yes, even crime novels.
People Who Enjoy The Arts Are More Likely To Give To Charity And Volunteer, Says Study
“New research into the connections between the arts and ‘prosociality’ – whereby individuals are likely to donate their time or money to charitable causes – found … that [attendance at or participation in] the arts had a stronger connection to prosociality than other demographic variables.”
Seattle Voters Reject Sales Tax For Arts
“Proposition 1, which requested a 0.1 percent sales tax – or a penny for every $10 spent – was being rejected by 55 percent of [King County] voters, with 45 percent approving.”
How They Make Swimming Pools, Drill Halls, Soccer Fields, Car Parks And Other Weird Spaces Safe For The Edinburgh Fringe
“Since every one of these spaces will be open to the public, each one has to meet the kinds of safety standards that are common in theatre buildings across the country … And ensuring that this vast archipelago of pop-up spaces comes up to the mark requires a huge amount of work.”
Data: Online Ticket-Buyers Are More Likely To Donate
The average percentage of online ticketing transactions that included donations was 15% last year, while only 3% who booked tickets over the counter or on the phone added a donation to their transactions. Of these, concert hall attenders were the most likely to donate online (19%) but among the least likely to donate by phone or in person (1%).
Facial Recognition Software Eliminates Anonymity. Now The Battles For Privacy Regulations
“Facial recognition’s use is increasing. Retailers employ it to identify shoplifters, and bankers want to use it to secure bank accounts at ATMs. The Internet of things—connecting thousands of everyday personal objects from light bulbs to cars—may use an individual’s face to allow access to household devices. Churches already use facial recognition to track attendance at services.”
Why, Why, WHY Are You Talking (And Eating) At The Theatre?
So this stream of Angels in America went well. For someone. “There is nothing like the silence of a highly dramatic moment—such as when a young man, seriously ill with AIDS, finds a point of contact with his ex-lover’s lover’s Mormon mother — punctuated by a man burping and gurgling, and sounding as if he is going to gag.”
Are Trigger Warnings Censorship (Or A Good Idea?)
If you search for” books with trigger warnings” you will hit an interminable list of titles which include, and are not restricted to, suicide; self-harm; eating disorders; grief; miscarriage; addiction; racism; rape; sexual violence; incest. Where do you draw the line?
The Strange Tastes Of Bookstore Shoplifters (Kierkegaard And Wittgenstein?)
Sure, thieves make off with expensive coffee-table books and textbooks, but, says the manager of the London Review Bookshop, “Our most-stolen authors, in order, are Baudrillard, Freud, Nietzsche, Graham Greene, Lacan, Camus, and whoever puts together the Wisden [Cricketers’] Almanack.” One booklifter who got caught said as he was escorted from the store, “I hope you’ll consider this in the Žižekian spirit, as a radical reappropriation of knowledge.”