Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
The Shortcoming Of Immersive Art
The “immersive entertainment” industry, which includes nondigital experiences such as escape rooms and other content in which the participant feels a sense of presence...
Radical Change As Threat? It Wasn’t Always So…
When we do imagine radical change, it is usually dystopian, and often, at least implicitly, predicated on ecological catastrophe. Seen from this vantage point,...
Pivot To Video Is Changing The Performing Arts
“You get something different from film. We want to be specific in our storytelling: we want it to be close-up and we want to...
Ireland Launches Universal Income Plan For Artists
The program will cover two thousand arts and culture workers for a span of three years. The government has earmarked €25 million ($28.3 million)...
Africa’s Cultural Institutions Leading The Way On New Ways Of Presenting Culture
These visionary entrepreneurs, who represent some of the continent’s best talent in professions ranging from architecture to finance, are creating new models of preserving...
Indie Movies Are Quite Odd Right Now
Let’s call them “bizart-house movies,” for lack of a better term — unapologetically odd and original creations, led by a gifted group of rebel...
What Canadian Orchestras Are Doing Online
A majority (69%) of orchestras are planning a hybrid (digital and in-person) season for 2021-22. Once halls return to full capacity audiences, 45.9% of...
Social Media Is Flooding Us With Addictive Junk News
A digital drug for anyone with a phone, and especially young people, the TikTok app uses random reinforcement — similar to a slot machine...
The Weird Spat Over A Star NPR Reporter’s Report On The Supreme Court
In her own telephone conversation with The Daily Beast, Nina Totenberg—a towering presence at NPR who has been there since 1975—responded to NPR's public...
Why Spats In Academia Are So Nasty
Reviewers are faced with essays that are additions to their already heavy workloads that could have used more time. And the inclination to take...
Artists To “Meta”: We Don’t Trust You
Many have begun fleeing Instagram... They expressed skepticism that Meta, a social-media behemoth, could develop, launch and manage a marketplace where they weren’t looking...
Medical Humanities — Using Art To Build Better Doctors
“Things like disease, disability, death, the processes of scientific experimentation and discovery, they don’t happen in a vacuum. They take place in the context...
Report: Why Did The Glasgow School Of Art Burn Down In 2018?
Following an investigation lasting more than three years, the final report concluded that the cause of the second blaze remained "undetermined". It said this was due...
Omicron Is Wreaking Havoc With Touring Broadway Shows
“Touring, when we can perform, is going great — the audiences are showing up, and the audiences are enthusiastic. Touring is not going great...
COVID Is Changing The Way Film Festivals Work (For The Better)
Now that the movies being showcased at festivals might end up spending their opening weekend screening on your iPhone anyway, does it matter if...
Why Is Canadian Architecture So Dreadful?
Today, barring the newish Halifax and Calgary central libraries (which opened in 2014 and 2018, respectively), one wonders whether the average Canadian could name...
Broadway Fires Its Harry Potter
The show on Sunday issued a statement saying that James Snyder, who played the title role for about a year before the pandemic and...
Having Trouble Focusing? Here’s Why
Our brains aren’t designed to absorb so much at a time: In one study, 136 students took a test; some had their phones turned...
Catch The “Vibe”
Once, vibe, mood, and energy were watchwords of the counterculture. Today, this vocabulary has diffused beyond any niche group. - The Drift
What We Learned About Teaching Music Online
Going online has forced music educators to adapt existing ideas, or adopt existing technology, to discover, invent and share ways to reach students to...
Can American Audiences Still Do Ambiguity?
We want thinking and imagining lives that are active rather than passive, evolving rather than static. A flourishing shared cultural life is one in...
Despite Omicron, LA Art Fairs Push Ahead
Typically this weeklong coagulation of art fairs in mid-February — dubbed Frieze Week — draws art makers, sellers, collectors and spectators from around the globe, which...
The Value Of Stephen Sondheim’s Estate
The “West Side Story” songwriter’s assets totaled approximately $75 million, according to papers accompanying his 2017 will filed in Manhattan Surrogate’s court last month....
San Francisco Arts Organizations Wondering At Delays In City Funding
Over the past few months, arts administrators across the city have become increasingly distressed by the significant delays they’ve experienced while trying to get...
How The FBI’s Art Theft Team Works
Despite the United States’ status as an art market leader with a 42% share of the global pie today, the FBI Art Crime Team...