The technology uses a 3-D sensing module and locates and tracks the ear position sending audio via ultrasonic waves to create sound pockets by the user’s ears. Sound can be heard in stereo or a spatial 3-D mode that creates 360-degree sound around the listener, the company said. – Times of Israel
How Will We Protect World Treasures Threatened By Climate Change?
Venice is just one example of the challenges of preserving iconic landmarks that are threatened by the effects of climate change, such as rising seas and recurrent, intensifying droughts, storms and wildfires. In my research as a social scientist, I help heritage managers make tough decisions prioritizing which sites to save when funds, time or both are limited. – The Conversation
Spain’s Language Academy Acknowledges, Then Backs Away From, Gender-Neutral Pronoun
Late last month, the Royal Spanish Academy launched the Observatory of Words, a web portal that discusses terms and expressions which are coming into regular use in Spanish but which the Academy isn’t ready to officially include in dictionaries. The media quickly noticed that among the words indexed in the new Observatory was elle, coined as a gender-neutral alternative to el/ella (he/she). Within four days, elle was gone. Here’s why. – Global Voices
Here’s One Country Where Theatre Is Alive And Well Despite COVID
“When the second wave of [the pandemic] hit, theatres in South Korea remained open. How? By approaching theatre as a controlled event, says New York-based director Sammi Cannold, who observed Seoul’s approach first-hand.” – The Stage
Study: Americans Feel Positive About The Arts, But There Are Demographic Differences
“The extensive survey, coordinated by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’s Humanities Indicators project, … [found that] 80% of American adults hold a ‘very favorable’ or ‘somewhat favorable’ view of the arts … but only 11% of them said they visit art museums or attend arts events regularly, while another 29% said they do so ‘sometimes.'” Interestingly, Black and Latinx Americans are far more likely to attend poetry and literary events than are their white compatriots. – Hyperallergic
Another COVID Casualty: Toronto Company Dancemakers Closes Permanently
“Starting as a summer project in 1974, Dancemakers went on to curate award-winning Canadian and international performances and play host to a multiyear resident artist program, as well as many presentations and workshops. More than 4,000 audience members and artists passed through each year.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Chinese Gov’t Is Cracking Down On Hong Kong’s Public Broadcaster
“Amid the political turmoil since the pro-democracy movement erupted last year and the national security law was enacted in July, [RTHK] has been under fire from various quarters as the government appears to tighten its grip.” Producers have been taken for questioning, programs have been cancelled, staffers (who are considered civil servants) are being made to take a loyalty oath, and the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China is now played every day before the 8 am news. – Global Voices (Hong Kong Free Press)
Tower Records Returns Online
The new online version of Tower Records was originally scheduled for introduction at the 2020 South by Southwest, but pulled back when that event was curtailed by the pandemic. It was also envisioned as a series of pop-up shops, an idea also delayed by the coronavirus. – Deadline
How Cities Will Change, Permanently, Post-Covid
Abandoned office towers. Empty subway cars. Shuttered cafés. And the absolute gutting of services for urban workers. “Since the remote workers will not all return, North America is liable to see a ‘labour-market Armageddon—the loss of tens of millions of urban service jobs.'” – MacLean’s (Canada)
Turning The Kirk Douglas Theatre Into A Center For Filming Streaming Plays Wasn’t Easy
Just ask production manager Christopher Reardon, who worked with playwright Luis Alfaro and his retold/set in L.A. Greek trilogy of play to turn them into this stage-to-screen event. “As great as it was to return to the theater, it was scary, too. … Everybody is overjoyed, but in this weird mental place of always being on edge.” – Los Angeles Times
How This Powerful Artistic Couple Makes Work Separately And Together
The artists were sharing a wall at an exhibition when they realized they had something in common – the tragic loss of two friends. Soon, they shared both life and art as well. – Los Angeles Times
New Stressor: Pandemic Holiday Cards
Seriously – both the greeting card companies and the writers have a lot to figure out in striking a tone for this very different year. – The New York Times
The Pandemic Has Leveled The Playing Field For Smaller Theatres
How did a theatre in West Yorkshire get Derek Jacobi, Stephen Fry, Alfred Enoch, Rebecca Front, Celia Imrie and Griff Rhys Jones? Well, streaming makes some things a little easier. It even snagged a review in The New York Times. And it’s not alone: “With live performances either difficult or impossible since March, many other agile theatre-makers have also been experimenting with recorded audio and video works that blur the traditional boundaries.” – BBC
Considering Alexander Hamilton’s Legal World, And The World Of The Musical
“Hamilton’s life in ‘musical-theater land,’ as Miranda cast it, and Hamilton’s reincarnation in legal-literature land, as Tucker framed it, remind us that where we stand determines what we see. Perspectives change. As they do, so does our understanding of history.” – Washington Post
Bronx Museum Of The Arts Names A New Director
And it’s the same name as the interim director – Klaudio Rodriguez, born in Nicaragua and raised in Miami, who joins a small but growing coterie of Latinx museum directors in the U.S. – The New York Times
The Story Of That Viral Image Of Ruby Bridges And Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris
The idea came from a 62-year-old Black man, the art from his collaborator, a 23-year-old white woman. “Not long after the photo illustration went viral, Bridges shared it with a comment on Instagram. ‘I am Honored to be a part of this path and Grateful to stand alongside you,’ she wrote.” – Los Angeles Times
How One Theatre Tried To Make Waiting In A Georgia Voting Line A Little More Fun
The theatre chosen as a polling place wanted to make sure first-time voters had a good time just the way they tried in non-Covid times to make sure first-time theatregoers enjoyed their time. So: Snacks, apolitical music, “line-warming” activities, a slideshow, and more. “One of the women working with me day of said, ‘More theaters should run voting. This is what the voting experience should be.'” – Slate
Social Media’s Promise Was All About Connection
Instead, it’s turned us into separate – and sometimes extremely hostile – factions. “Particularly when we’re scared, we regress further into tribalism and tend to trust the information relayed to us by our tribe and not by others. Normally, that’s an evolutionary advantage. Trust leads to group cohesion, and it helps us survive.” Not so on social media. – Fast Company
Lynn Kellogg, Debutante Turned Hippie In ‘Hair,’ Has Died Of Covid-19 At 77
Kellogg played Sheila in the Broadway run of the countercultural musical. Hair “has always been an ensemble show, but Sheila is the closest thing it has to a female lead.” – The New York Times
Life Might Just Find A Way
That is, biological organisms may be making choices with goals in mind. This is a big change in the mindset of biology researchers. “The latest research suggests that it’s wrong to regard agency as just a curious byproduct of blind evolutionary forces. Nor should we believe that it’s an illusion produced by our tendency to project human attributes onto the world. Rather, agency appears to be an occasional, remarkable property of matter, and one we should feel comfortable invoking.” – Aeon Magazine
In Nigeria, A New Museum And Archaeology Project – With Help From The British Museum
The indelible museum scene in Black Panther might come to mind, except in this case, the British Museum is going to “work with Nigerian teams on the creation of a new Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA) and accompanying archaeology project.” But will Britain give back more than 950 Benin bronzes? Hm. – BBC
Google Arts And Culture As An Agent Of Ethnic Cleansing
In early November, Azerbaijan declared victory over Armenia in the area of Nagorno Karabakh, known as Artsakh to Armenians. “There are thousands of unprotected and inadequately documented ancient Armenian monuments in the recently conquered territory. … These include khachkars, monasteries, and churches that have been in use longer than almost any religious buildings in the world.” They’re at risk of being destroyed. And Google Arts & Culture’s info about the area appears to have been written by Azerbaijan. – Hyperallergic
Thinking About Indie Bookstores
One bookstore near the High Line in New York: “The last day we were open, I asked customers where they were from. Turned out that they were all British flying back home. The last sale was to an Englishman, who bought Albert Camus’ The Plague. We wished each other luck.” – The New York Times
Is Mask-Wearing An Impingement On Our Freedom?
Western political thinkers ranging from Herodotus to Algernon Sidney did not think that a free society is a society without rules, but that those rules should be decided collectively. In their view, freedom was a public good rather than a purely individual condition. A free people, Sidney wrote for instance, was a people living “under laws of their own making”. – The Conversation
The 1800’s Version Of Live Theatre Streaming
From 1893 to 1925 the London Electrophone Company streamed the sound of live theatre into the home using a telephone device known as an Electrophone. – The Conversation