“While New Frontier has shone a spotlight on VR for the past five years, 2017 represents a particularly crucial juncture for the technology. This year’s showcase comes after a full year of availability for all sorts of hardware dedicated to VR viewing. What throughout its tortured history seemed about as commercially viable as jetpacks is now a reality, bringing a newfound urgency to the content exhibited at New Frontier.”
Tag: 01.24.17
Pop Culture’s Fascination With Makeovers (But There’s A Dark Side)
“A fixation with ‘the makeover’ has been present in popular culture for decades. Its depiction in film, television and online has been a barometer of the shifting understandings of what it means to be an individual in the modern world, in response to changing norms of gender, youth, work and identity.”
The World’s Tiniest Art Biennale (On An Island That’s Disappearing)
It’s on the tiny Ilet La Biche, a tiny spit of land off the coast of the main islands of Guadeloupe in the West Indies, is rapidly being subsumed by the sea. “There is no land, really. You can walk around the structure but you walk in the water, basically.” The idea, he added, is that “each artwork will die on the island.”
Matthew VanBesien To Leave The New York Philharmonic
Matthew VanBesien, 47, who has been with the Philharmonic for nearly five years, has said “he will leave to become the president of the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan, a respected campus-affiliated arts presenter. His decision to step down before his contract is up in 2018 leaves the Philharmonic with vacancies in its top managerial and artistic ranks as it prepares to face its biggest challenge in decades. The turnover at the orchestra is staggering, which threatens to make the planning process more chaotic, and give potential donors pause.”
This Year’s Oscar Nominations – Some Surprises
“Amid all the yuk-yuks and song-and-dance numbers, there are some highly-coveted gold-ish statuettes to be handed out, and this year the largely white, largely old, largely male Academy, which has taken recent steps to diversify, seems to have learned a lesson from the loud #OscarsSoWhite backlash: black stories matter.”
Sydney Morning Herald And Melbourne’s The Age Will Stop Printing Weekday Papers, Says Analyst
An Australian analyst for Credit Suisse tells The Australian (a national daily owned by a rival, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.) says he expects Fairfax Media, owner of the Herald and The Age, to “formally outline its plans for a move to a digital only weekday model for the metro titles.”
Owner Says Sydney Morning Herald And Melbourne’s The Age Will Keep Printing ‘For Some Years Into The Future’
While Fairfax Media has indicated in the past that ending print runs of weekday papers could be part of a long-term strategy, a spokesman for the chain said that “We have no plans to change from daily printing and we expect that to be the case for some years into the future.”