“In Goethe’s 1810 treatise on color he wrote, ‘red-yellow gives an impression of warmth and gladness.’ He added that ‘the feelings they excite are quick, lively, aspiring.’ His idea that visual attributes, like color and form, cause universal responses in viewers has influenced art theory ever since. But a study published earlier this year in the PLOS ONE journal contested the idea that everyone experiences the same emotions when viewing abstractions.” – ARTnews
Tag: 08.05.20
How Can Online Journalism Get Ad Revenue Back? Maybe By Tossing Its Cookies
That’s what worked — shockingly well — when Dutch public broadcaster NPO tried it: when it eliminated cookies, and thus the means to target ads to particular users, revenue soared. Here’s why contextual advertising (what NPO sold instead) brought in more money than targeted advertising — and why, says one American ad pro, this would not (yet) work in the United States. – Wired
Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Shirley Grau Has Died At 91
Grau, who won the 1965 prize for her fourth book, The Keeper of the House, wrote “stories and novels [that] told of both the dark secrets and the beauty of the Deep South.” – Los Angeles Times (AP)
Meme Me – How Memes Work
The chaotic creativity of remixed internet memes and the new linguistic structures that rapidly evolve from them allow us to express certain states of mind and have others immediately get it and respond in kind. This has been called an “asynchronous, massively multi-person conversation.” – JSTOR
Helen Jones Woods, Trombonist With Groundbreaking All-Women Jazz Band, Dead Of COVID At 96
“In addition to their pioneering role as women on the jazz circuit, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm were an interracial band in the era of Jim Crow. Their extensive itinerary through the South, where they traveled by sleeper bus, reportedly inspired jazz piano giant Earl Hines to call them ‘the first Freedom Riders.’ They also toured Europe, playing in occupied Germany for American soldiers — both white and Black, though not at the same time.” (After the band broke up in 1949, Woods, who was biracial, joined the Omaha Symphony — and was fired after her first concert when management saw her Black father pick her up.) – WBGO (Newark, NJ)
Kristy Edmunds: Why We Need Artists To Help Fix Things
“With the calamities facing the world, rebuilding what has been is no longer our most pressing goal — reimagining the future moving forward is. The ever-changing present requires the arts to accelerate our well-practiced ethos of compassionate vision, intellectual honesty and moral ingenuity. These are urgently required for shaping the road ahead.” – KCET
When Fans Of A Show Become Its Owners
Fans come to see themselves not just as the audience for, or patrons of, a given “intellectual property” but (to paraphrase the old WestJet slogan) as owners too. This feeling of ownership is often vindicated by the franchises themselves, which deliberately pander to the hopes and expectations of their core audiences. – The Walrus
An Opportunity To Diversify Your Theatre
“The reluctance to produce shows with casts that are all or largely non-white disproportionately affects shows written by Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) playwrights and composers. And the problem ripples outward beyond writers and actors. Predominantly white institutions (PWIs) all too often seemingly forget about directors, designers, stage managers, and dramaturgs of color entirely.” – Howlround
The World’s Nightlife On Hold. (And Yet…)
The problem is that urban nightlife — no matter how risky — isn’t something that just allows itself to be canceled. The need to socialize, relax, mingle, hear music and dance is a powerful force, especially among young people in cities. If regulated venues are shuttered, unregulated ones take their place. “In cities where there are no legal alternatives,” the VibeLab report concludes, “dangerous illegal alternatives are found.” – Bloomberg
What A Profound Design Revolution Curb Cuts Were
“The need for accessible streets and sidewalks has utterly reshaped the contemporary cityscape, and the most profound change is also the most modest: the curb cuts that you’ll find now at many street corners in cities all over the world. The revolution in street corners seems like an obvious civic good now, a common‐sense softening at the edges of the built environment, a simple solution to buffer the concrete shape of a world built with homogenous users in mind. But it would not have happened without disability activists’ long, hard fight.” – Bloomberg