“The concepts and ideas we celebrate — like our spiritual beliefs and daily habits — are a choice, though sometimes it feels like we “have” to celebrate them, even if we don’t feel like it. Culture is ours to do with as we choose, and that means that we can add, subtract, or edit celebrations or holidays as we see fit — because you and me and everyone reading this makes up our culture, and it is defined by us, for us, after all.”
Tag: 12.30.14
Meet The Philosopher Who’s Helping Keep Google Out Of Court
Oxford professor Luciano Floridi is helping Google comply with the EU’s right-to-be-forgotten ruling by helping the search engine’s programmers and attorneys change the way they understand and think about the issues involved – including the nature of identity in the Internet age.
Could “The Interview” Change The Way We Get Movies?
These dynamics could evolve over time, of course, as viewing habits do; if so, “The Interview” will surely be seen as a watershed moment in the evolution of film distribution.
The Art Newspaper’s Five Predictions For The 2015 Art Market
Economic chaos! Dealers endangered! Leaderless sale rooms!
Macedonians Form Human Chain To Protect Modernist Building From Added Baroque Façade
“The protest was part of a series of events starting in 2013 that have attempted to stall this aspect of the creeping Skopje 2014 project, a controversial and costly plan to give the city’s buildings makeover in the neoclassical or baroque style.”
Ricardo Porro, 89, Visionary Architect Championed, Then Spurned By Fidel Castro
“[He] lived long enough to see his two National Art Schools – begun during a utopian moment in the Cuban revolution, then abandoned as counterrevolutionary – newly embraced around the world as the crown jewels of modern Cuban architecture.”
How Do We Arrive At A Science Of Consciousness?
“Philosopher Alva Noë explores ideas in a new book that suggests consciousness and self is best looked at by combining insight from Western science, Indian philosophy and contemplative practices.”
African And Black Writers Need No Instructions From Ben Okri On Liberating Their Minds And Their Subject Matter
Somali-American literary scholar Sofia Samatar: “It’s beyond depressing to hear a writer of Okri’s stature, who himself writes powerfully about overwhelming subjects, board this broken-down train. … If, as Okri insists, ‘we must not let anyone define what we write’, why should black and African writers listen to Ben Okri? The essay’s demands and commands make it impossible to read as the expression of a quest for freedom.”
Jazz In 2014: A Culture Of Complaint
“Jazz in 2014 — or more accurately, the discourse around jazz in 2014 — often resembled a crescendo of gibes and gripes, with each new affront calling forth a fresh wave of umbrage. In the end it wasn’t any single skirmish that led to my air of weary resignation, but rather a brisk accumulation of them, quickening into a blur. And what surprised me was the exasperation I felt not only with jazz’s cynical assailants, but also with its gallant defenders.”
The Art Of Great Theatre Posters
“Whether it’s the sexed-up photograph of Neil Patrick Harris on Broadway or the pared-down treatment of a domestic drama in a regional theater, the best posters convey the conceptual complexities of the plays they serve.”