Douglas McLennan

Douglas McLennan
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Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal

The High Life Of The Emmys Is Over

If last year’s combined 191-day writers’ and actors’ strikes, with all the vitriolic exchange between creatives and management, has not convinced you that television’s...

Why It’s So Difficult To Spot Liars

One reason we are such poor lie detectors may be because we tend to believe others are telling the truth more often than we...

AI Is Great At Creating Personalized Children’s Stories For Your Kids. Here’s The Problem…

The main version of ChatGPT has, since its launch last year, been able to write a children's story, but GPTs allow parents—or anyone, really—to...

Proposal For A New Law To Protect Artists From Being Digitally Cloned By AI

If signed into law, the proposal, called the No AI Fraud Act, could curb a growing trend of individuals and businesses creating AI-recorded tracks using...

Why Scientists Can’t Give Up Their Chalkboards

No one appreciates the power of this venerable technology better than physicists and mathematicians, who infinitely prefer the humble blackboard to its high-tech rivals....

Want To Be The Next Director Of The British Museum? Here’s The Job

Applicants must have a “vision for the future of the British Museum and its purpose as a national and a global museum in the...

Is Teresa de Keersmaeker The World’s Best Dancer?

Arguably the world’s most celebrated dancer and choreographer, De Keersmaeker has produced a vast body of work over four decades, from major theatre productions...

Why You Need To Learn To Think In Probabilities

One of the most important conceptual developments of the past few decades is the realisation that belief comes in degrees. We don’t just believe something...

The Audacious Scheme To Sell The World’s Most Expensive Painting Ever

Of the multiple schemes and fabrications attributed to Bouvier in court the most audacious involved Dmitry Rybolovlev’s acquisition of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which...

Algorithms Are Increasingly Choosing Our Culture. Here’s How They Fail

To build algorithms that more effectively predict user preferences and better enhance consumer well-being and social welfare, organizations need to employ ways to measure...

Britannica Once Published “The World’s 102 Great Ideas.” Ambitious, Yes, But Also A Flawed...

Devised at a time before computers were widely available, the index was certainly an impressive achievement. It had taken 24 researchers some five years...

How Consolidation Has Changed Book Publishing

Up to the immediate post-WWII period, publishing was a fairly local, personal business, with houses founded by whiskered men shipping out books to stores...

Fraught: Museums Are Changing How They Collect Antiquities

Acquiring older cultural objects through purchase or donation can be risky for museums if they suspect the art or artifacts might have to be...

New Tax On UK Orchestras Touring In Europe Is The Latest Brexit Blow

A new Brexit tax hike set to hit U.K. orchestras later this year could make trips to Europe “unviable” and undermine their activities back...

Study: How Music Puts Us In “Sync”

“I am interested in how being ‘in sync’ with other people through the experience of music-making and other forms of artistic expression supports a...

Generative AI Is Still In Its Infancy. We Need To Treat It Like A...

A.I. is in the phase when kids live like tiny energetic monsters, before they’ve learned to be thoughtful about the world and responsible for...

Just Because Western European Culture Has Been Dominant For A Long Time Doesn’t Mean...

First was the original ‘world order’ created by Genghis Khan (and his house) in the 13th century. If there is indeed an ‘East’ that is distinct...

Why The LA Public Library Bought A Book Publisher

The LAPL, which manages 73 branches and houses more than 8 million books, has lately been much more ambitious than even the average big-city...

Russian Billionaire’s Aide Testifies In Court About Sotheby’s Alleged Role Convincing Him To Overpay...

An adviser to a Russian billionaire asserted in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday that he and his boss had been tricked by a Swiss...

A New Center To Give Shape To Creativity Of Lakota Artists

The Artspace is the latest manifestation of a resurgence of Native cultural traditions and ceremonies and the increased national and international visibility of Indigenous...

Jonathon Heyward On The Future Of The Baltimore Symphony

I don’t want it to be an art form where people feel like it’s only for certain types of people. Because it’s not. I...

When AI Comes For Culture (Who Cares Who Gets Hurt?)

If A.I. is the key to a gleaming utopia or else robot-induced extinction, what does it matter if a few poets and painters got bilked...

The Musical Mind Of George Lewis

George Lewis is one of the most formidable figures in modern music: a composer of international renown, a legendary improvising trombonist, a computer-music pioneer,...

Just How Classical Are India’s Classical Dance Traditions?

Although Indian classical dance is commonly assumed to be ancient and reverential—and there is a documented history of devotional dancing extending back more than...

Can ‘The Nicest Guy In Show Biz” Make Lower Manhattan’s New Arts Center Work?

“Amazing work happens at the grassroots level, but how can an organization and people with positional sway and a multimillion-dollar budget do that without...