ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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How Do We Make Culture Visible? Who Controls Visibility?

Visibility is only part of the equation. Who controls it? How are cultural narratives shaped? What systems determine access? If we don’t ask these questions, we risk treating discoverability as just another distribution challenge, rather than a fundamental issue of power, representation, and digital agency. - Linked.In

America’s Oldest University Is Threatened. Can It Survive?

Harvard is the flagship of American higher education ...and what started as a crisis of speech and authority on campus has grown into a fear that internal conflict, amplified by outside pressures, can run it and the whole fleet of American universities aground. - The New Yorker

French Government Cuts Funding For Culture Pass By Half

“The French Government has announced a 50 percent cut in their lauded Culture Pass, four years after its nationwide launch for young people aged fifteen to eighteen to take up cultural activities.” - ArtReview

New Zealand University Students Protest Decision To Use AI To Replace Traditional Lecture Slides

Three AI programs are set to replace lecture slides in the University of Auckland’s Digital Marketing 304 class when the first semester of the year begins on Monday. “Complete bull****,” one student enrolled in the course said. - New Zealand Herald

It’s Expensive To Make Culture. We’re Falling Behind

"We’ve now seen years and years of austerity, and it’s not just the arts that have taken a hit – it’s anything that sits on the periphery of the mainstream route to work. There do need to be questions asked about how we’re valuing the arts in this country.” - The Guardian

Cultural Excellence Is Fragile (And Under Threat In America)

It can be fractured, confined, and eroded—perhaps not all at once, but over time if the conditions are not right for genius to flourish. Politicians can exercise their influence for short-term gain but if we look at the experience of the Soviets and the Nazis, such influence leads to long-term loss. - Nightingale Sonata

Great Documentaries Uncover Truth, But Unregulated AI May Kill The Very Idea Of Truth

“With no standards in place for transparency, we fear this commingling of real and unreal could compromise the nonfiction genre and the indispensable role it plays in our shared history.” Indeed, the generative AI companies even present this footage as fact. - Los Angeles Times

Has Hollywood Become Too Afraid To Touch Hot-Button Documentaries?

Ahead of the Oscars, the West Bank-set documentary No Other Land was tipped to win - but it still has no U.S. distributor. It's "a bleak comment on the state of a documentary market that has seen buyer interest and dollars shrink.” - The Guardian (UK)

The BBC Is Accused Of An Anti-Israel Bias As The Fallout Over A Gaza Documentary Continues

“The corporation apologized and removed Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, about the lives of three children caught in the Israel-Gaza war, from its streaming service BBC iPlayer” after news broke that one of the 13-year-old subjects is the son of a Hamas official. - The Hollywood Reporter

Should A Fashion Company Produce Movies?

If Emilia Pérez doesn’t win much tonight, at least it looks good: "Saint Laurent clothes played pivotal roles in the wardrobes of various characters, including a faux fur coat worn by Selena Gomez and a red suit worn by Zoe Saldaña.” - The New York Times

Macron Brings Attention To Plight Of French-Algerian Writer

“French president Emmanuel Macron has said he is concerned about the 'arbitrary detention’ and health of Boualem Sansal, days after the French-Algerian author began a hunger strike over his imprisonment in Algeria.” - The Guardian (UK)

The Year When The Oscars Narrative Ate The Oscars

“In the past, there were two basic species of Oscar narrative.” Now? Anything can happen. - Variety

Can Saudi Arabia Successfully Market Its Pre-Islamic Past After Decades Of Suppressing It?

The kingdom’s status as the birthplace of Islam is the very basis of its identity; as such, its pre-Islamic past was largely taboo. Yet current Saudi leaders see the ancient rock-hewn monuments of the Nabataeans (who also built Petra in Jordan) as the linchpin of a developing tourism industry. - History Today

Was There Ever A Festival Disaster As Epic As The Fyre Festival? Well, Welcome To Fyre 2

Whatever you think about the first Fyre – with its limp cheese sandwiches, its disaster-relief-tent accommodation, the absence of advertised headliners, the $26m of unpaid debt, you have to admit it lived up to one promise: it was legendary. - The Guardian

The Crisis At What Was The Kennedy Center

“The real crisis we’re facing, in addition to people rescinding their membership, is that we’re normally finalising our season at this time and it’s been completely turned upside down. You see performers pulling out and that has real ramifications for staff and morale. We feel like we’re walking on eggshells. - The Guardian

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