Cultural institutions are a kind of technology – a social technology. Just as physical technologies – agriculture, the wheel or computers – are tools for transforming matter, energy or information in pursuit of our goals, social technologies are tools for organising people in pursuit of our goals. While we are fascinated and sometimes frightened by the pace of evolution of physical technologies, we experience the evolution of social technologies differently. – Aeon
Tag: 02.10.20
Travel Is A Mind-Expanding Cultural Experience. But What If It’s Killing Us?
Over-tourism is damaging popular cities and cultural attractions. Instagram is sending mobs to previously bucolic places. Then there’s the carbon cost of all that air travel, which is killing the planet. The best thing you can do for the planet? Maybe stay home! – Post Alley
Entire Hong Kong Arts Festival Is Cancelled Due To Coronavirus Epidemic
“Due to officially open on February 13 with a concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the month-long festival was to have featured more than 120 performances of dance, music, theatre and opera. Last year’s festival drew a combined audience of nearly 90,000 people.” – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
Meaning Is More Important Than Happiness (The Path To One Is The Other)
Given that psychological pain is so ubiquitous, we should focus less on what might make us happy, and more on achieving a sense of meaning, regardless of how we’re feeling. – Aeon
Singing & Signing: How Christine Sun Kim Brought Her Whitney-Biennial “Rage” to the Super Bowl
After making a powerful impression at last year’s Whitney Biennial with her six drawings of pie charts plotting Degrees of Deaf Rage, deaf artist Christine Sun Kim reached a much wider, more diverse audience — at the Super Bowl. – Lee Rosenbaum
Protests Over Plans To Kill New Zealand’s Only Classical Radio Station
The station draws about 170,000 listeners a week in New Zealand, heavily skewed towards those aged 65 and older, according to the broadcaster. But fans mobilised last week when Radio New Zealand proposed to throw out its classical arm’s FM station in May, replacing it with a youth radio channel in August. Some 18 jobs would be eliminated, with new roles created at the youth station, RNZ said. – The Guardian
A Black, Gay Writer Takes On The Traditional Campus Narrative
Brandon Taylor always felt that he had to choose between science and writing. “Throughout his undergraduate years at Auburn University at Montgomery and graduate school in Wisconsin … science often won. But when he received an acceptance letter from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he decided that, this time, writing would win. ‘I could survive not having science, but I couldn’t survive not having writing,’ he said.” – The New York Times
Anonymous Used To Be A Woman, But Now Is A Secret Identity For Spill-All Political Writers
It’s not just politicians, of course, in our age of surveillance and social media. “Here is someone who – by concealing their identity – can reveal the complete and shocking truth. Many anonymous authors say this is precisely why they’ve chosen to remain hidden. The Secret Barrister, whose anonymous exposé of the [British] criminal justice system was published in 2018, explains from behind the barrier of email: ‘Anonymity means I can criticise institutions, organisations and players in the justice system without feeling that I have to modify my commentary with a nervous eye on my real-life practice.'” – The Guardian (UK)
An Art Critic ‘Accidentally’ Destroys A Piece She Doesn’t Like At A Mexico City Art Fair
The critic, Avelina Lésper, shattered the installation by Mexican artist Gabriel Rico with an empty soda can. – The Guardian (UK) (AP)