Tag: 05.31.19

The Radicalization Of YouTube (All To Sell Ads)

“As of August 2017, more than 70 percent of viewing time was being driven by automatic recommendations. And the content that gets promoted is even more aggressively selected for engagement gravity, meaning the sensational and divisive gets pushed to the top of the feed. One unintended consequence of YouTube’s endless pursuit to sell more ads, Zeynep Tufekci has argued, is that the platform has become “one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the twenty-first century,” pushing unsuspecting viewers deeper and deeper into politically unhinged, conspiratorial rabbit holes just to keep their attention for a few more minutes.” – The Baffler

Take Me To Dance Church

“In 2010, Kate Wallich was a 22-year-old choreographer in Seattle, … [who] had started her own dance company, Studio Kate Wallich, but hated how insular the contemporary dance world felt (dancers were the only ones who came to class or performances). So she made a bold decision: she opened up her Sunday morning company class to, well, anyone — and soon Dance Church was born. … The ‘church’ part has nothing to do with religion — the name stuck because the class happens on Sunday mornings and because it felt like a weekly ritual.” – Dance Magazine

A “Commercial” Case For Investing In The Arts

“Despite the constant avowal and assertion of the intrinsic value of arts and culture, funding for art and culture is still often treated as a discretionary spend which is somehow secondary to the needs of what are defined as being more essential services like the NHS. But art and culture do not only make a huge contribution in their own right to the taxation which funds those essential services. They are also the principal reason for the constantly acclaimed commercial success of the creative industries, which make an even larger contribution to the public purse, which funds those essential services we all value.” – Arts Professional

Music From The Brain’s Perspective

The first sound that results in the primary auditory cortex is a standard pitch. Other regions of the auditory cortex add more complex elements like timbre and specific sound quality. To add to the complexity, prior research has revealed that multiple areas of the brain become activated by listening to music — many of them not specific to music processing, such as emotional processing. Rhythmic processing on its own involves multiple overlapping structures of the brain. – Ludwig Van

‘I’ve Always Been An Outsider To This World’: Pam Tanowitz On Choreographing For Ballet Companies

“‘I’ve always been attracted to those ballet steps, and using them as a framework, or form, but then changing stuff within that,’ she says. Nevertheless, breaking into the ballet world wasn’t a clearcut goal of hers. … When asked when she became interested in working with ballet companies, Tanowitz answers, laughing, ‘When they hired me!'” – Pointe Magazine

The Opera That Won The Venice Biennale Is Running Out Of Money, With Number Of Performances Slashed

The creators of Sun and Sea (Marina) at the Lithuanian pavilion say they had never really expected more than 15 visitors at a time and certainly never expected to win the Golden Lion or draw crowds. So the funding plans they had weren’t adequate to what actually happened. They’ve cut down from daily performances (when the press and judges were in town) to once on Saturdays; they say that “[adding] a Wednesday performance is our maximum ambition.” – The New York Times