In a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server this week, researchers at the University of California Berkeley demonstrate how they designed AI that, given video of an expert dancer and an amateur, can transfer the moves from one to the other and create convincing video of the amateur pulling off some seriously impressive rug-cutting. But that’s not all.
Tag: 08.24.18
Will US Tariffs Kill Sales Of Chinese Art?
The latest list of targeted Chinese goods ran to 205 pages. It included sand blasting machines; eels, fresh or chilled (excluding fillets); hats; and, at the bottom of the last page, paintings and drawings executed entirely by hand, original sculptures, and antiques more than 100 years old. The tariffs would apply to all artworks that originated in China, regardless of how they entered the United States. That means American buyers could be required to pay 25 percent more for a Ming dynasty bowl sold by a British owner at an auction in New York, as well as for a painting by a young Beijing-based artist at a gallery in Hong Kong.
Huge Data Set On Audience Buying Behavior Released
There are now more than 600 organisations participating in Audience Finder, including “performing arts venues, touring companies, museums, galleries, festivals, outdoor arts and many other kinds of cultural organisations”. Their ticketing data has been gathered over the past seven years and dates back to 2011/12, although data from these early years is less comprehensive and accessible than more recently gathered information.
I Avoid Rereading My Old Books, But When One Was Made Into A Movie, I Had To
Meg Wolitzer: “As a rule, I rarely reread my own old writing, but instead I tend to ignore it, much the way someone might sidestep an old flame seen on the street years or even decades after a relationship has ended.” But with the film version of The Wife coming out – and already generating Oscar buzz – Wolitzer realized that she’d have to revisit the book in order to do press interviews. Here’s how she experienced the process.
Helpful Hints For Classical Musicians To Keep Press Interviews From Going Bad
It takes serious, intense study to become a professional classical musician – but that study doesn’t usually include media training. And being able to communicate with the press is important: the days of the genius artiste who can get away with doing publicity poorly or not at all are over, and a media misstep can be disastrous for a career. Writer Anya Wassenberg gets some experienced publicists to offer counsel.
George Walker, 96, Pioneering African-American Composer
“Walker was a trailblazing man of ‘firsts,’ and not just because of the Pulitzer [he won in 1996 for Lilacs]. In the year 1945 alone, he was the first African-American pianist to play a recital at New York’s Town Hall, the first black instrumentalist to play solo with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the first black graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.”
Site Of Deadly Nerve Agent Attack Uses Arts To Reclaim City
“Six months on from the shock of the nerve agent attack on the Skripals, the people of Salisbury are attempting to use the power of the arts to reclaim the streets, work through the trauma of the assault and draw visitors back to the cathedral city.”
Despite Felony Conviction Of Its Founder, Brazil’s Great Sculpture Park Carries On
“It seemed like a potentially dispiriting blow: a government move to take over massive works of art, acres of land and multiple gallery buildings at the Inhotim Institute, a vast sculpture park and botanical garden in southeastern Brazil whose founder faces a prison sentence for laundering donations. Yet Inhotim is soldiering on despite the downfall of its creator, the mining tycoon Bernardo Paz.”
Marcel Proust, Art Critic
During his mid-career crisis, Proust actually worked as an art critic, and In Search of Lost Time includes hundreds of aperçus on visual art and even a death scene that takes place in front of a Vermeer.
How Playwrights Deal With Productions That Muck With The Text
“Rajiv Joseph recalls the advice delivered in a class taught by none other than Edward Albee: ‘Be as explicit with instructions for delivering lines as possible.’ But at that point in his career, Mr. Joseph didn’t completely buy in to the opinion of a playwright known for exerting extreme authorial control. … His experience with Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo led him to think twice about Albee’s warning.” Journalist Stuart Miller talks with Joseph, Lynn Nottage, David Henry Hwang, Sarah Ruhl, David Lindsay-Abaire, and Lucy Thurber about how they deal with stagings they weren’t involved with that go places they didn’t intend.