Tag: 08.19.20

Reissued Asterix Comics Have An Ugly-Racial-Stereotype Problem

A series of collected strips, in a new English translation, about the funny little Gaul and his fellows resisting the Romans is now being released in the U.S. That’s bringing new attention to an old problem: the way the original artist in the 1960s depicted African slaves. The U.S. publisher wanted to change the drawings, but the rights holder, Hachette France, refused to allow anything but minor cosmetic alterations. – Publishers Weekly

The “Demographic Bias” Built Into The Machine

Recent studies from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have confirmed that computer facial recognition is less accurate at matching African-American faces than Caucasian ones. One reason for the discrepancy is the lack of non-Caucasian faces in datasets from which computer algorithms form a match. The poor representation of people of color from around the world, and their range of facial features and skin shades, creates what researchers have called a “demographic bias” built into the technology. – Nautilus

John Cage, Master Mycologist

Mycologist? That’s mushroom maven to you and me. The late composer was fascinated by the fungi throughout his life, often foraging for them and at one point making money selling his finds to New York restaurants. In 1959, he won the grand prize on an Italian quiz show with his expertise on the subject. He refused, however, to make any connection between mushrooms and music. – The Guardian

That Fine Line Between Collecting And Hoarding

People don’t gather ‘surplus’. Instead, they collect cars, harvest grain or store canned foods. In reality, accumulation is practised and thought about in relation to the specificity of the material world. Only in the abstract models of scholars does ‘surplus’ mean anything without reference to the real world of things. For that reason, the theory that mere ‘surplus’ somehow launched civilisation is wrong. – Aeon

Now This Is Zoom Opera That Works — And It’s For Young Kids

“Admittedly, preschoolers, Zoom and opera don’t immediately sound like the makings of a successful project, but each installment I watched of Opera Starts With Oh! — helmed by director, choreographer and teaching artist Emma Jaster and Opera Lafayette community engagement manager Ersian François — kept its grid of budding opera buffs rapt with an action-packed half-hour of activities, performances and assorted operatic antics.” – The Washington Post

Male Film Critics Still Get Published Twice As Much As Female Ones: Study

“Female film critics contributed 35% of the film reviews across print, broadcast and online outlets, up 1% from 2019, according to the report, titled Thumbs Down 2020: Film Critics and Gender, and Why It Matters. Though the increase in numbers of female film critics seems marginal, the numbers show a marked improvement from the 73% male to 27% female breakdown in 2016.” – Variety

White Leaders At Some U.S. Theaters Are Ceding Their Jobs To People Of Color

“The theaters are mostly small, and it remains unclear how calls for change in the industry will (or won’t) affect life at larger institutions, many of which have been programmatically and financially hobbled by the coronavirus pandemic.” But this year’s calls for equity are starting to have an effect. Says William Carden, outgoing artistic director of New York’s Ensemble Studio Theater, “The key to antiracism is sharing power. It takes a lot of work and a lot of humility, and it requires that white people step aside.” – The New York Times

14,000-Year-Old Engravings Are Oldest Art Ever Found In British Isles

Well, as long as Jersey, 14 miles off the coast of France but 85 miles from England, counts as the British Isles. “The designs were scratched into small ornamental tablets known as plaquettes … [which] were made by the Magdalenians, a hunter-gatherer culture thought to have expanded out of Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) and southern France after the peak of the last Ice Age.” – BBC