ArtsJournal - Newsside

Is Our Reality Real? (Or Only The Reality We Create?)

IDEAS Posted:

“In the room we have a whirlwind of physical states. This whirlwind contains a lot more than a human being could ever perceive—atoms, neutrinos, photons, quarks, strings, quantum fields; a huge range of possibilities. When the body comes into the room, its sensory capacities carve out one possible subset of that whirlwind. Or, looked at the other way round, one possible set within the whirlwind finds, relative to the body, a suitable causal path along which to roll. So the table and the apple are born! My body brought them into existence in the sense that it selected them and only them from the whirlwind. Entirely ignoring all kinds of other stuff.”

At This Point, Tech Start-Ups Are Basically Conceptual Art

IDEAS Posted:

Damien Hirst turned himself into a high-value business (with Charles Saatchi as his venture-capitalist backer), argues Ian Bogost, and collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps play with form and procedure every bit as much as a work by, say, Yoko Ono. These days there are young tech companies whose ideas seem more conceptual art than practical idea.

The Worries About Violent Video Games Are Basically A Moral Panic

MEDIA Posted:

“For a while, the only time you’d ever see a psychologist comment publicly about video games was in the context of blaming violent ones for all manner of societal ills – most famously, for school shootings.” Now a pair of psychologists is arguing that such blame is – well, not quite as ridiculous as “reefer madness,” but …

A Political Whitney Biennial? Sure, But Not In A Partisan Way…

VISUAL Posted:

Reviewers have criticized past biennials for being too politicized and ideological. Director Adam Weinberg says that the biennial isn’t meant to lean left or right. The goal is to find “voices that really get very close to the bone of American culture…from an aesthetic point of view,” he says, “and also from a larger, cultural point of view.” He adds, “The exhibition is not a finger wagging, and it’s in no way trying to be hectoring or lecturing.”

Pulling Back The Veil On Streaming Music’s Payment Systems For ‘Exclusives’

MUSIC Posted:

What’s it worth to Apple to have a two-week exclusive with a young, famous musician? Well, about half a million dollars. Chance the Rapper, who revealed that info about his “Coloring Book,” wrote, “I think artist can gain a lot from the streaming wars as long as they remain in control of their own product.”

When Net Neutrality Falls, Expect What Net Freedom We Have Left To Fall As Well

ISSUES Posted:

This will probably not end well for consumers. “Companies like AT&T and Verizon already give special treatment to their own video services, and T-Mobile lets select providers slip past its data limits, a practice called zero rating. At stake today is the ability of smaller companies to compete with internet service providers themselves.”

Who’s The Next (Er, First) Woman Director To Go From An Indie To A Film With A $100 Million Budget?

ISSUES Posted:

Not all of the directors in this piece agree, but at least one thinks it might happen soon: “I think right now is a very encouraging time because doors are being opened and people are realizing that women are powerful and we have a right to be here and we can tell really good stories. That’s always been the case, but I think now people are really, fully believing in women.”

Were The ‘In Cold Blood’ Murders Contract Hits?

IDEAS Posted:

Wait, what? Convicted murderer Richard Hickok left behind an unpublished memoir that claimed a man named “Roberts” contracted the hits. It’s probably not true, but … “Documents on file at the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka and the New York Public Library, along with letters of Mr. Capote and interviews with people who knew Mr. Nations, suggest that Kansas prison and law-enforcement officials sought to thwart the Hickock/Nations book while enabling Mr. Capote’s.”

Should Every Day Be ‘Baby Day’ At The Theatre?

AUDIENCE, THEATRE Posted:

Perhaps. Check out Belfast’s Young at Art theatre festival to see what it could be like instead of what theatre often is like. “Parenthood can leave even the most ardent theatregoers feeling unwelcome as theatres seldom court families, often seeing prams and young children as a burden not a blessing. Too often theatres present themselves as grownup spaces, cut off from everyday life.”

Disney’s Live-Action Movies Are Very, Very Successful – Including For Their Actors

MEDIA Posted:

The studio may be cheap with its actors about some things (stories abound), but “with such past box-office winners in its fold including Cinderella ($544 million) and Jungle Book ($967 million), stars are clamoring to sign on for the studio’s live-action offerings.” This weekend’s huge take for the live-action “Beauty and the Beast” may only accelerate that trend.

Several Key Republicans In Congress Are Not OK With Cutting The NEA Or NEH

ISSUES Posted:

This is probably not the last word, but GOPers in important positions don’t think this is a good plan. And, despite Pat Buchanan’s glee at the budget cuts, “The contours of the political battle itself have changed since those earlier fights in the 1980s and ’90s. The arguments then were over ideology, taste, free speech and the size of government; today they are about economic investment, federal priorities and how people feel about Mr. Trump remaking America to his liking.”

What Happened To One Muralist’s Piece In Oklahoma City, And What That Says About The Public Art World

VISUAL Posted:

Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh writes on Instagram, “My America Is Black mural was taken down in Oklahoma City because, despite having permission to install the work from the building owner, all murals in OKC must go through a proposal process and be approved by the OKC Arts Commission. The OKC Arts Commission has 15 commissioners. 14 of which are white. 11 of which are men.”

‘Miss Saigon’ Returns To Broadway, This Time Without Using Yellowface

THEATRE Posted:

That doesn’t mean all is forgotten and forgiven, but some of the changes reflect how the industry has, at least sometimes, changed. Tony-winning actor BD Wong says that at the time, when “Miss Saigon” was in London’s West End, “We said, surely the show will come to the United States, but the yellowface will never happen here, because that’s the kind of thing that only happens in England now.”

Publishers Are Newly Buoyant As London Book Fair Opens

WORDS Posted:

“While it was too early to tell at this year’s book fair, more than one publisher was whistling a happy tune as they entered the Olympia exhibition centre on Tuesday. With print books having a higher average price point than ebooks, and with a weaker pound benefitting exporters – German publishers in particular bought big this year – the mood among the hundreds of publishers was optimistic.”

State Of California Proposes Debt-Free College. Can It Succeed?

ISSUES Posted:

“Lawmakers unveiled plans on Tuesday aiming to eliminate college debt for more than 390,000 students in the University of California and California State University systems. Their plan also calls to reduce costs for the roughly 80,000 students receiving aid to attend the state’s community colleges. The plan has been reported as the most “generous” and “ambitious” from any state; perhaps it will act as a catalyst for what’s become a nationwide problem: As of 2015, seven in 10 college seniors graduating from public and nonprofit colleges in the United States had student loan debt, with an average of $30,100 per borrower, according to the Institute for College Access and Success.”