ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

IDEAS

Our Most Important Institutional Foundations Are Being Eroded: Truth And Trust

Truth and trust are often treated as virtues, but they function as conditions: the prerequisites for coherent societies, functional institutions, and stable international systems. Without them, even the most advanced technologies fail to deliver progress. - Time

Is This The Future Of Entertainment?

Domed screens, with comfortable seats and bar food, are actually the present for some (sports) fans. But the test run was “when the domed screen transformed into a high-resolution recreation of Michelangelo’s fresco paintings in the Sistine Chapel.” - The New York Times

A Famous French Philosopher Says Philosophy Can’t Help You Live Better

“Philosophy allows us to understand the world we live in. But I don’t think that it’s therapeutic, that it’s better to read Socrates than take Prozac. If you want to live better, fall in love, take Prozac or do whatever you want, but don’t turn to philosophy.” - El País English

How Espresso Fueled The Rise Of Modernity

“Milanese café owner Achille Gaggia cracked the code after WWII, with a small, steamless lever-driven machine that upped the pressure to produce the concentrated brew that is what we now think of as espresso.” - Open Culture

We’re Living Through The Last Days Of The Southern Drawl

Alert: The drawl wasn't actually that old. "For white speakers ... the peak southern accent was among ‘Baby Boomers born right after World War II.’ For Black speakers, the accent was strongest among Gen X, and began to disappear only among Millennials and Gen Z.” - The Atlantic

What Is John Mayer Planning To Do With Henson Studios?

Mayer and his business partner, filmmaker McG, have renamed it Chaplin Studios, and they’re not thinking small. “We’re doing our best to create kind of a Warhol’s Factory thing of like-minded artists bumping into each other to do their best work possible.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)

Silicon Valley Is Pivoting To Audio And Away From Screens

The move reflects where the entire tech industry is headed — toward a future where screens become background noise and audio takes center stage. - TechCrunch

Here’s What’s Wrong With Letting AI Take Over Lower-Level Creative Work

What’s the harm, studio executives might wonder, if machines take over work that seems unchallenging and rote to knowledgeable professionals? The problem is that entry-level creative jobs are much more than grunt work. Working within established formulas and routines is how young artists develop their skills. - The Atlantic

The Podcast Trap — Why Have I Stopped Listening To Music?

My change in listening habits comes from a compulsion that many people in my life share: to make every minute of the day as “productive” as possible. By that blinkered calculus, an informative podcast will always trump music. - The Atlantic

2025 Was The Year AI Didn’t Transform Our Lives (Like It Was Supposed To)

Silicon Valley promised 2025 would be the age of tireless AI agents. Instead, they clicked slowly, got lost in drop‑down menus, hallucinated baseball maps, and reminded everyone that the “Year of the Agent” is really the “Decade of Maybe.” - The New Yorker

Study: How AI Spurs Creativity In Humans

“People think of AI as something that speeds up tasks or improves efficiency, but our findings suggest something far more interesting. When people were shown AI-generated design suggestions, they spent more time on the task, produced better designs, and felt more involved. It was not just about efficiency. It was about creativity and collaboration.” - SciTech Daily

Study: Musical Expertise Relates To Other Cognitive Traits

Experienced musicians tend to possess an advantage in short-term memory for musical patterns and a small advantage for visual information, according to a large-scale international study. - PsyPost

Muppet Christmas Carol Is A Classic, Sure, But It’s Also Got Some Real Narrative Weirdness

That’s because … drumroll, please, Animal … "Gonzo’s initial work on The Muppet Show was as a highly abstract performance artist who created acts the audience did not understand. Gonzo’s not really an actor in the traditional sense, unlike the rest of his friends.” - Reactor

Wuthering Heights Can Never Be Successfully Filmed

Spoiler alert: “We are still calling it a love story – a great one! The greatest! It’s being released the day before Valentine’s Day! – when what actually happens is that Cathy rejects Heathcliff because she’s a snob, and he turns into a psychopath.” - The Guardian (UK)

Why It Matters That We Can Interpret Symbols In Art And Literature

“Something profound is lost when we reject the symbolic, that well-spring of human communication since an Australopithecus some three-million years ago found a pebble on the South African savannah and held onto it because the rock happened to look like a human face.” - LitHub

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