As our electronics shrink, we more and more insulate ourselves from the outside world. “Each of us populates a personal tech-bubble of one. Solo-tech-travelers often are unaware that others occupy the same dimensions as them — that’s why they often bump into others, in their cars or on foot. If you don’t jump out of the way, they’ll jostle you with the outer edges of their bubble while text-messaging someone about something urgent — like, ‘wnt pzza 4 dnnr?’ “
Category: ideas
The Great Big Music Debate
Last week, composer James MacMillan and alternative rocker Alex Kapranos got into something of a public slapfight over the relatve merits of popular music and modern classical works. Unfortunately, what could have been a serious debate wound up being little more than the usual name-calling between artists on opposite sides of the populist divide. “At the end of the day, we’re left with no more than a difference in taste. And that matters, because these disputes feed into a very serious dispute about public funding for the arts.”
Cameron: A Culture Without Challenge?
Are there lessons for the arts to be learned from last November’s American elections? Ben Cameron says yes: The “through-line of the arts right now is really a byproduct of things revealed in the last election we did not understand. What we’re hearing is audiences are less willing to tolerate ideas and viewpoints other than their own — there’s an intolerance I can’t remember seeing in a long time in the arts. Plays making unflattering references to subjects, or dealing with topics that are uncomfortable for people — well, they just start climbing over each other to get out of the theatre.”
Is There Still A Role For Art Criticism?
Get a group of critics together today and they’re as likely to talk about the sad shape of criticism as they are about art. “The arguments today are no longer over whether one view of art is better than any other. Rather, the argument has turned on what should be the most ‘appropriate’ relationship between a writer, his writing and the work of art. Instead of a discussion about the desirable future of art and culture, we’re presented with the cautious ethics of the responsible critic.”
Are Video Games The New Music Tastemaker?
Where do kids get their music these days? Increasingly less from MTV. No, the new music guru is video games. “Recent surveys show that more than 40 per cent of game players have bought a CD from an artist featured in a game, 40 per cent have learned of a new band from a game, and 27 per cent have gone out and bought the CD.”
Do-It-Yourself Everything
“Neil Gershenfeld, a physicist and computer scientist who runs the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT, envisions a time when many of us will have a “fabrication center” in our homes. We’ll be able to download a description of, say, a toaster — perhaps one we designed ourselves — to our computers, and then feed the designs and the raw materials into a personal fabricator. At the push of a button, almost like hitting “print,” the machine will spit it out.”
Is Architecture A Red Herring In The Ground Zero Debate?
The struggle to rebuild Ground Zero has frequently been portrayed as a clash between a visionary architect and a powerful New York developer, but “Philip Nobel argues that our obsession with the architect-as-healer has led us to ignore more important, if less emotionally appealing, questions about ground zero: How should the site be used? How much focus should there be on office space, on cultural space, on a memorial? In giving aesthetic speculations more weight than material concerns in our critical and public discussions, he says, we have virtually guaranteed that the site will end up looking like every other New York real estate development.”
Who Owns What (It’s Very Complicated)
“While it was once believed that Marxism would overhaul notions of ownership, the combination of capitalism and the Internet has transformed our ideas of property to an extent far beyond the dreams of even the most fervent revolutionary. Which is not to say that anything resembling a collectivist utopia has come to pass. Quite the opposite. In fact, the laws regulating property—and intellectual property, in particular—have never before been so complex, onerous, and rigid.”
The Worst Day Of The Year, Scientifically Speaking? (Relax, It Was Yesterday)
We thought about putting this story up yesterday, but decided nah… why ruin the day? Anyway, a professor devised an equation to determine the worst day of the year. And came up with January 24. “The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.”
We’re Watching You (Always)
A new book details the extent of the new security realities in America. A ‘security-industrial complex” is being built to tie together massive amounts of private information about everyone. It details the “far-reaching consequences for ordinary Americans, who must cope not only with the uneasy sense of being watched (leading, defenders of civil liberties have argued, to a stifling of debate and dissent) but also with the very palpable dangers of having personal information (and in some cases, inaccurate information) passed from one outfit to another.”