Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Is San Francisco’s Arts Scene Dying or Thriving
“There’s been a lot of conversation about a false doom narrative … surrounding our city’s art scene. I counter that assertion. I want to...
How Trump Used Comedy To Win
While Jimmy Kimmel cries and Jon Stewart rants, the right wing in the U.S. has successfully depicted itself as the new home for free speech and cutting...
The Frightening Power Of AI Agents To Manipulate Us
This is a moment that philosophers have warned us about for years. Before his death, philosopher and neuroscientist Daniel Dennett wrote that we face...
Another Way To Review The Year? Twelve Objects That Caught Our Attention
I’ve set out to perform the annual ritual of assessing and unpacking the year gone by through the objects that captured our attention. Here, then, is...
Lithuania Banned “Nutcracker” In Solidarity With Ukraine. Now It’s Back…
Darius Kuolys who was the first culture minister after a 1990 declaration of independence, said it was obvious that the Kremlin often exploited culture...
Botto, The AI Artist, Has Already Made $4 Million. Now He’s Getting A Personality
Botto is a decentralized semi-autonomous artistic agent created in 2021 by the German artist Mario Klingemann; Simon Hudson, a media entrepreneur; and Ziv Epstein, a computer scientist and designer....
How Encyclopedia Britannica Evolved (And Thrives) In The Age Of AI
Britannica has figured out not only how to survive, but also how to do well financially. Jorge Cauz, its chief executive, said in an...
Lin Manuel Miranda’s Daunting Task: Reinventing “Lion King”
The songs form the basis of the highest-grossing musical in the history of Broadway. Thirty years on they remain embedded in our collective consciousness, so Lin-Manuel...
When Arlene Croce Took On Bill T. Jones (When the Critic Famously Didn’t See...
In her contentious essay, Croce, one of the finest dance critics of the 20th century, railed against what she called victim art: “By working...
Times Square Was Turned Into A Giant Immersive Experience
Suddenly, at exactly 11:57 p.m., 92 electronic billboards all around Times Square stopped pulsating with ads for Coca-Cola, Broadway plays, and fashion brands, and...
Publishing World Divided On Using AI To Make Books
Spines said it aims to help a million authors bring their stories to life—so they can focus on writing great books while A.I. handles...
Four Things Humans Still Do Better Than AI
In speaking to hundreds of experts, consumers, and skeptics of AI over the past few years, four strongholds for humans keep coming up. -...
Skyscrapers Are Sinking Into The Sand In Miami
It examined many large buildings built on the strip, half of which were built in 2014 and after, and found that 35 had been...
Should The BBC Scrap Its License Fee And Go Subscription?
The successful roll-out of fast broadband in the UK has allowed streaming services — led by the US giants, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and...
The Curious Incuriosity Of Multi-Culturalists?
For all they like to talk about the “enrichment” that diversity brings, pro-immigration liberalism in Britain often insists on a studied lack of curiosity...
Diversify Curriculum? Aren’t The Classics Diverse?
One of the wellsprings of the English canon is, of course, classical literature. Where does this start? With Homer, who, if he existed, was...
Did You Know You Could Buy The Oldest Ten Commandments Stone Tablet?
Expected to sell for an estimated $1 to $2 million, the tablet fetched a whopping $5 million. - ARTnews
Reconsidering Schoenberg @150
We still don’t quite know how to sell Schoenberg. There is the scary modernist Schoenberg — inventor of the 12-tone system, replacing traditional harmony...
The Year And Reading About Dance
As in last year’s column, a couple of these books were published recently; the others earlier in the century. All, in one way or another,...
In 2024 The Gaming Industry Fell Apart
In 2023, more than 10,000 developers lost their jobs; one-third of game-makers surveyed at the beginning of this year reported they’d been affected by layoffs in...
Why Composers Are Drawn To Writing Religious Music
Whether it’s chestnuts roasting on an open fire or a white Christmas, many of our classic Christmas images are drawn from songs written by...
In Canada The Wait To Check Out Library Books Can Be Over A Year
Despite offering 75 copies of the e-book, the library's waitlist currently sits at about 1,200 people. With a maximum borrowing period of 21 days,...
How Big Publishers Killed The Novel
It’s convenient to assume that readers are to blame for killing literary fiction, and publishers have abandoned it because book-buyers are stupid, have bad...
Can Novelty Scores Change How Scientific Publishing Works?
The novelty score is calculated using an algorithm that compares the combinations of keywords and cited journals in a scientific manuscript with those in...
Is Spotify Feeding Listeners “Ghost” Artists?
Spotify, the rumor had it, was filling its most popular playlists with stock music attributed to pseudonymous musicians—variously called ghost or fake artists—presumably in...
