At the Madhavendra Palace, just outside Jaipur, “floral murals, elaborate arches, patterned columns, dark paneled doors, and stone-lined courtyards serve as maximal backdrops for sculptures — many of them site-specific — that simultaneously respond to the environment and introduce challenging new ideas into the space. Beauty and contemporary politics collide in room after room; visits to the palace become opulent treasure hunts.” – Artsy
Noam Chomsky Talks Language (And Not Politics)
At age 90, the MIT professor has been an éminence grise of the American left for so long that it’s easy to forget that he is, above all, an academic linguist who has made major (if controversial) contributions to his field. Amy Brand, director of the MIT Press (and a former student of Chomsky’s as well as editor of his books), talks with him about language versus birdsong, linguistics and machine learning, and his most famous (and most misunderstood) sentence: “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” – The MIT Press Reader
How Kristi Edmunds Disrupts The Arts World
“In my late twenties (living in Portland, Oregon as an artist and emerging curator), I recognized that the art institutions at the time had settled on mission-priorities that would follow the conventions of art-historical successes which were long proven and regionally familiar. This left a rather large gulf between the ideas and work of living artists, and the towering significance of the established canon.” – Authority Magazine
500 Years Later, We’re Still Fascinated By Leonardo (With Good Reason)
“His inventions and scientific theories, as well as his painstaking painting technique, were all of a piece: science and art were not separate modes of thinking. His investigations into geology and botany were not digressions but crucial to understand universal principles that he incorporated in his paintings. Multidisciplinary and boundlessly inquisitive, Leonardo used all that he learned to create sublime art that still captivates.” – Clyde Fitch Report
Are You Ready To Take Advice On Morality From Machines?
“Some scholars herald artificial moral advisors as vast improvements over morally frail humans, as presenting the best opportunity for avoiding the extinction of human life from our own hands. They demand that we should take listen to machines for ethical advice. But should we?” – 3 Quarks Daily
Artists Join Protests In Hong Kong
Since the protests began on June 9, artists have been wondering about their role, and many have taken up the job of disseminating information to the wider public. – Artnet
Artists Join Protests In Puerto Rico
“It is impressive how the process has been turned into memes and audiovisual content with such extraordinary speed. There are artists creating posters and songs and whatnot, but artists also provide work strategies that contribute in many ways to these processes that don’t necessarily entail creating work for or inspired by the political processes.” – ARTnews
Who Gets To Fund Culture? (Is There A Scale Of Evil?)
“Museums depend heavily on philanthropy. How do they start dissecting what’s okay and what’s not in terms of their policies?” says Komal Shah, a trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Tate Americas who worked for many years in the tech industry. “There’s no black and white. Since I come from the tech world, I’m wondering if at some point Google or Facebook was deemed evil, do museums stop taking their money? And what is considered evil? How do you really define?” – Artnet
Memoir By Kurdish Prisoner In Australia’s Offshore Migrant Camp Keeps Winning Book Awards (Which He Accepts Via WhatsApp)
Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains, which recounts his escape from Iran to Indonesia and onward to Australia by boat, has just won the $25,000 National Biography Award, the fourth prize it has received in a year. Boochani composed the book text message by text message, which he sent from the detention center on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. – The Guardian
Major NHS Hospital In UK Institutes Arts-As-Patient-Care Program
“University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust’s board agreed to continue funding a pilot scheme initiated last year, suggesting that creative activities could reduce the need for certain types of pain relief, help tackle major challenges such as loneliness and mental health, and reduce financial strain on the NHS.” – The Stage
A New Vision For City Halls Of The Future
“A group of designers, architects, and city planners are rejecting that vision (of the old citadel of democracy) and replacing it with something more human and playful. To their mind, city hall is a space for citizens to act out democracy alongside their elected officials—and perhaps grab a coffee or see a show while doing it. In the face of global unrest, online polarization, and the increasing commercialization of public space, city halls are quietly becoming the communal living room of the future.” – Fast Company
Pay-TV Providers Lost 1.5 Million Subscribers Last Quarter
The tally marks is up dramatically from the 420,000 losses in the second quarter of 2018. LRG based the figures on its findings for companies representing 93% of the total marketplace. – Deadline
Iris would have been 100 last month
It’s difficult to remember when I first met Iris Murdoch and John Bayley – in my experience, they were inseparable. – Paul Levy
Fact-Checking, Debunking, Truth-Telling And The Illusions Of Objectivity
The adversarial scene of debunking breaks down into a strange collaboration between debunker, charlatan and dupe. This collaboration leaves us with a different way of thinking about ‘modernity’ itself. – Aeon