“To be sure, cultural power customarily follows financial power. From this perspective, it is hardly surprising that postwar New York should have assumed the preeminence that Paris had enjoyed in 1900, or Rome in 1600. But what was remarkable was that a country with such a long record of philistine indifference to visual culture could move in a single generation from art’s provincial periphery to its very epicenter.”
Tag: 01.06
Reconciling Mozart
“Our feeling of disconnection from Mozart the man—what Copland speaks of as our inability to ‘seize’ him—extends to the works themselves. Except for the greater sophistication that came with age, there is no readily apparent relationship between the expressive qualities of Mozart’s music and the emotional landmarks of his life.”
Using Warhol In An Artistic Way
Artists build on other artists’ work. So the Warhol Foundation has a double standard when it comes to the use of Warhol’s work. The Warhol Foundation is “vigorous in enforcing our rights when it comes to people wanting to use Warhol’s art for commercial purposes,” Wachs said. But when it comes to artists and scholars, the rules are very different. “We permit artists to use and reference Warhol work without charge and without challenge.” And “we let scholars use Warhol imagery for just a nominal fee to cover the cost of administering the rights.”
The Machine That Sees Inside Your Head
“Functional magnetic resonance imaging – fMRI for short – enables researchers to create maps of the brain’s networks in action as they process thoughts, sensations, memories, and motor commands. Since its debut in experimental medicine 10 years ago, functional imaging has opened a window onto the cognitive operations behind such complex and subtle behavior as feeling transported by a piece of music or recognizing the face of a loved one in a crowd. Now fMRI is also poised to transform the security industry, the judicial system, and our fundamental notions of privacy.”
Jerry Rice Dances With The Stars
Jerry Rice, one of the NFL’s best receivers ever, is dancing. He starts this week as a contestant on the TV show “Dancing with the Stars.” “They approached my agent and we thought it would be something that would be interesting. It is something that really takes me out of my comfort zone and I felt like it would be very challenging. And that’s been true. It’s very challenging. It’s been more than I expected. Just because you have rhythm doesn’t mean you can ballroom dance and all of that stuff.”
A World Of Dangerous Ideas
Each year John Brockman asks 100+ very smart people a question. This year “what you will find emerging out of the 119 original essays in the 75,000 word document written in response to the 2006 Edge Question — ‘What is your dangerous idea?’ — are indications of a new natural philosophy, founded on the realization of the import of complexity, of evolution.”