Today’s AJ Highlights

Good morning. Since the early days of the internet, people have been trying to figure out how our screen lives compare to our real-life versions. Clearly there are differences: “The upshot of device-mediated encounters is that they may be benign in single instances but collectively they are alarming. The larger question is where we are headed with such encounters. How do they impact our capacity to love, to be present to one another, to sort out what deeply matters about oneself and life?” More here.

Here are more highlights from today’s stories:

1. New Science Is Revising Stories Of The People Of Ancient Pompeii
   Scientists analyzed ancient DNA extracted from skeletal remains and pieced together fragments of five people’s identities, rewriting the romantic stories of who they were and how they were related. – Washington Post
2. Popular Glastonbury Tries A New Scheme For Online Ticket Sales After An Increasingly Chaotic Process This year, they will now visit a holding page before the start of the ticket sale, “at least a few minutes before the sale opens,” according to organizers. Once the sale begins, each person “will randomly be assigned a place in a queue to access the booking process.” – The Guardian
3. MacArthur “Genius” Violinist Johnny Gandelsman Has Commissioned A Multi-Composer Portrait Of America
   The project, titled “This Is America,” is a collection of 28 works Gandelsman has been commissioning, performing, and recording since 2020. He gave each composer a $5,000 fee and a request to compose a piece responding to the times we’re currently living through in the United States. – The New York Times
4. Sotheby’s Sells AI-Created Artwork For $1M On November 7, the artwork A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing (2024) by the humanoid robot artist Ai-Da sold for $1,084,800 during the auction house’s Digital Art day sale. There were 27 bids for the portrait. – ARTnews
5. Film Festival In Istanbul Cancelled After Daniel Craig Film “Queer” Is Banned Streaming platform Mubi has cancelled its long-planned Mubi Fest Istanbul at the eleventh hour after the local district governor banned a screening of Luca Guadagnino’s LGBTI+ themed movie Queer, which was to have been the opening film. – Deadline

Skip down to see the rest of today’s stories, grouped by category. See you tomorrow.

Doug