London’s mistreatment of its nightlife is such a tragedy. A city without clubs is a colorless place, and allowing them to disappear means marginalized communities vanish; young people flee the city, and arts and creativity suffer. With London fast becoming a playground for developers and a city that only the rich can afford it would do well to replicate Berlin’s example. – CityLab
Category: issues
Why Big Media Couldn’t Extend Copyright Terms Yet Again (And What It Means To The Public Domain)
The rise of the Internet and its remix culture means that a lot of people now benefit from a growing public domain in ways that weren’t true in 1998. That includes big companies like Google, but it also includes grassroots communities like Wikipedia editors and Reddit users. – Ars Technica
The Water’s Rising, The Buildings Are Decaying, And The Inhabitants Are Leaving — Can Venice Still Be Saved?
Salvatore Settis, former Director of the Getty Research Institute and author of If Venice Dies, says maybe, if authorities start following policies they’ve shown no real interest in. (Meanwhile, the directors of an artificial intelligence project called the Venice Time Machine take the opportunity to plug their work.) — Apollo
Venice To Charge Day-Trippers Entry Fee
Of the city’s 30 million visitors each year, fewer than a third stay overnight (and pay hotel tax). Now the other 20 million, mostly cruise-ship passengers, will also contribute to covering Venice’s ever-soaring costs for serving and cleaning up after all that tourist traffic. — The Daily Beast
Major Cultural Figures In China’s Xinjiang Province Are Disappearing Into Uyghur Prison Camps
“Since April 2017, an estimated one million of Xinjiang’s 11 million Uyghur population” — including most of its Uyghur artists and writers — “have disappeared into what the government calls ‘re-education’ camps, without recourse or documentation, where they are reportedly tortured into denouncing Islam and their Uyghur identity, and accepting Communist Party rule and Han Chinese dominance.” — The Art Newspaper
Artist Ai Wei Wei On The Need To Strengthen Human Rights
“If we truly believe in values that we can all identify with and aspire to – a recognition of truth, an understanding of science, an appreciation of the self, a respect for life and a faith in society – then we need to eliminate obstacles to understanding, uphold the fundamental definition of humanity, affirm the shared value of human lives and other lives, and acknowledge the symbiotic interdependency of human beings and the environment.” – The Guardian
How Americans’ Attitudes About Life Have Changed (As Chronicled By 80 Years Of Polling)
“We looked in those archives to find a range of questions, dating as far back as 1938, that explored how earlier generations felt about everything from fashion to faith in Congress to fear of technological change. Then, in conjunction with YouGov, we asked 1,000 Americans today to respond to those same queries. – Huffington Post
The UNESCO World Heritage Label May Be Prestigious And Coveted, But Is It Effective?
A Q&A with Lucas Lixinski, a scholar of international cultural heritage and human rights law, argues that the UN body’s project to designate important pieces of cultural heritage is very effective — except for the communities whose culture the label is meant to protect. — Hyperallergic
Indigenous Performing Artists From All Over North America And Australia Gather In New York (Just In Time For APAP)
“In drawing attention to the breadth of contemporary Indigenous performance — with works spanning dance, theater, performance art and genres in between — the [First Nations Dialogues New York/Lenapehoking] are something rare for New York, if not unprecedented. Describing what to expect is not easy and not intended to be.” — The New York Times
Nirvana Versus The Designer Over The Smiley Face
The latest pop culture lawsuit that might make its way to a courtroom is the case of Nirvana and Marc Jacobs, with the band suing the designer over a smiley face image. – New York Magazine