The ruins of the Parthian city, located 70 miles southwest of Mosul, were occupied by ISIS from 2015 to 2017; as usual, they destroyed every ancient statue they could get their hands on. Three large Hatra sculptures have now been pieced back together, with more in progress. - The Art Newspaper
Consultants who "choreograph" sex scenes and ensure actors feel safe performing them are becoming common in film, TV, and theatre, but this production at Scottish Ballet is thought to be a first for classical ballet. And for this piece, Kenneth MacMillan's The Scandal at Mayerling, it makes sense. - The Scotsman
"Percy the Porcupine, the two-story creation, is covered in 2,000 foam quills and has an articulated nose the size of a 2-ton Volkswagen. And that's just the animal's head. The five fabricators (at Jim Henson's Creature Shop) ... decided to leave the body out of the equation." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
After several years of well-documented turmoil, WNYC had a new president and needed a new top editor. The newsroom badly wanted someone, preferably of color, who knew both the city and public radio deeply. They got a white Californian who'd spent her whole career at commercial newspapers. - Columbia Journalism Review
Executive Editor Scott Freeman: "In the summer of 2020, we were in another bad spot and it became obvious that our board planned to shutter ArtsATL. ... (Patti Siegel) suggested we put together a new board of directors and take over the publication. And that's exactly what we did." - ArtsATL (Atlanta)
"Russia has blocked TV Rain (also known as 'Dozhd,' Russian for 'rain'), its last independent news network, along with Echo of Moscow, one of its oldest radio stations, declaring them to be foreign agents." - Nieman Lab
"For more than 60 years, his prose distinguished the arts pages of the Financial Times, always with eloquence, panache, expertise and astounding wit." His colleague Alastair Macaulay describes him as "brilliant, outrageous, erudite, shocking, hilarious, mercurial." - Financial Times
In the 12 months since, something like $44 billion has been spent on about six million NFTs, usually issued to certify digital creations but sometimes for physical objects like paintings and sculptures.
With Bandcamp’s model, buying an album feels like an investment in both the music and the artist, and as a result it’s the best place to buy music on the web. - Fast Company
Leaving nothing to chance after the previous book banning, the new works will be written, drawn and edited by what’s described as a group of writers and artists from “diverse racial backgrounds.” - Deadline
Spotify said Wednesday it has closed its office in Russia indefinitely because of the “unprovoked attack on Ukraine.” Social media companies with more than 500,000 daily users must have local offices in Russia, according to that country’s law. - Deadline
The war has become content, flowing across every platform at once. A single tweet earned the clip more than ten million views, but it could also be found on YouTube, TikTok, and the sites of various news publications. - The New Yorker
Could it be that the internet is not best seen as a lifeless artifact, contraption, gadget, or mere tool, but as a living system, or as a natural product of the activity of a living system? - Wired
"'Acting is what pays the bills,' he says." (In fact, it just paid for a house in New Orleans.) "'All the other stuff is too experimental or unusual' — collaborative albums, a narrative podcast featuring a singing brain tumor — 'to actually make a living.'" - New York Magazine
Both birdsong and language are passed culturally to later generations through vocal learning. Geographically distant populations of the same bird species can make small tweaks to their songs over time, eventually resulting in a new dialect. - Smithsonian
