The average person “consumes about 34 gigabytes across varied devices each day” — some 100,000 words’ worth of information. “Neither deep reading nor deep thinking can be enhanced by the aptly named ‘chopblock’ of time we are all experiencing, or by 34 gigabytes of anything per day,” Maryanne Wolf argues.
Tag: 10.04.18
For The First Time, Met Museum Exhibits Native American Art In American Wing
“The pieces, which represent the diverse cultural heritage of a wide range of indigenous peoples throughout the ages, have traditionally been displayed in the galleries of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, but a milestone show at the Met is now seeking to situate Native American works within the broader narrative of American art.” The objects come from the collection of Charles and Valerie Diker, who required that they “be presented as American art rather than tribal art.”
Is Twitter A Malign Influence On Theatre?
“The whole idea that you have a medium that is based on rapid response, and yet has lack of nuance built into its form, is very difficult, and is leading to a very binary culture, which I think makes it difficult to be truthful in art. I think that for a writer, you have to be constantly aware of how unbinary and complex every issue is, so the loss of nuance generally I think is quite dangerous.”
Folk Music Is Protest Music. So Why Isn’t It Taking On Environmental Crises?
Why doesn’t folk play a larger part in environmentalism? There is wonderful and powerful music already out there; Karine Polwart and Nancy Kerr are among the artists writing environmental material. And there’s a fascinating new project, Songhive, that highlights the plight of Britain’s native bees. But much more can be done to poetically explore the environmental challenges we face as a species, the politics that underpin the damage we are doing and how as humans we are responding.
How A Cheap Ticket Scheme Changed London’s West End Theatre
At a time when internet bookings were beginning to become more popular, here was a way to get people to come to the theatre box office to buy tickets. Who doesn’t like a queue outside the theatre to make a show look popular? Also, having people arrive early in the day to buy tickets helps you shift a few extra when you’re not quite as busy as you would like. Many’s the time a box office will sell beyond the allocation of day seats to fill a draughty stalls.
Free Will, A Concept (You Decide)
We don’t try to reason with bears or babies or lunatics because they aren’t able to respond appropriately. Why do we reason with people? Why do we try to convince them of conclusions about free will or science or causation or anything else? Because we think – for good reason – that in general people are reasonable, are moved by reasons, can adjust their behaviour and goals in the light of reasons presented to them. There is something indirectly self-refuting in arguing that people are not moved by reasons!
Libraries Are Becoming Effective Delivery Vehicles For Culture
Collectively, councils still spend over £1 billion a year on cultural services, making them the largest public funders of culture outside London. But where this money is spent has changed. While most arts and cultural services are not statutory services (councils are not legally required to provide them), libraries are. While this fact alone has not been able to preserve all libraries, councils are getting smarter at using libraries to deliver a variety of artistic and cultural programming.
When Tech Knows More About You Than You Do
“I think that we are now facing really, not just a technological crisis, but a philosophical crisis. Because we have built our society, certainly liberal democracy with elections and the free market and so forth, on philosophical ideas from the 18th century which are simply incompatible not just with the scientific findings of the 21st century but above all with the technology we now have at our disposal.”
Why Is Museum Attendance Falling In London?
London’s issue with cultural tourism stands in contrast to other global cities, like New York City and Paris, where museums are seeing steady growth and record-breaking numbers of visitors. The Metropolitan Museum of Art even saw a record 7.35 million visitors in last year’s fiscal year. The Louvre welcomed 8.1 million visitors last year, up 10% from 2016.
How Conductors Are Like Theatre Directors
Ideally, conductors and directors enable musicians and actors to express themselves as individually as possible, while inspiring them to do so along a route that they have chosen for the group as a whole. Managing a broad coalition that still has a distinct vision as its aim might appear a contradiction to some, but achieving this – without any sense of artistic compromise – is definitely the goal.