Trips to a ball park and trips to a museum require visitors to be physically present. In the same way as watching a game on television, seeing a painting on a screen is a wholly different experience from seeing it in real life.
Read MorePLASTICS: What We Lose When Reality Isn't Important
So many things are shot on various kinds of virtual sets that actors and directors less frequently get to fully steep in a sense of place. That doesn’t mean modern creative teams can’t do good work; they clearly can. But over time, I think there’s something eroded in the foundations of culture every time a prop or a throne room gets inserted electronically by work done in a quiet computer lab isolated from the living, breathing crew.
Read MoreART IN A TIME OF SMOKE AND CINDERS
No matter what Election Day may bring —and I’m conscious that on whatever date you may be reading there will likely remain massive uncertainties ahead — it would be irresponsible to pretend that the travails of the day can just be ignored. They cannot be ignored. Artists especially cannot avert their eyes, even as the balm of creative work promises a cloak of comparative purpose, or at least meaningful pursuit. To pretend that our collective, human induced problems are not substantial would be to assert an abdication of civic engagement.
Read MoreINFLUENCERS
A culture capable of even casually reading anything — car magazines, gossip magazines, music magazines, newspapers— meant its citizens were capable of simply focusing on something—anything—for more than a fleeting moment, by which I mean minutes not seconds.
Read MoreTHE SAVAGE ARTS
If you simply want to get a job done, you can choose to metaphorically phone it in or use some sort of pre-existing template. Of course, you can’t be surprised if nobody comes back to you for repeat business, or if your name and your work gets forgotten amid the swirling sands of time. Mediocrity rarely deserves much attention.
Read MoreOPENING CEREMONIES, DECONSTRUCTED
Yes, there were missteps. Yes, there were some ill considered choices, aesthetically, technically, and narratively. I rolled my eyes at a few of them with amusement and let most of them roll off my back at the same time. But ultimately I must applaud vigorously. With the risks of spicy big art being reduced by commercial tendencies into a tasteless pablum, this particular show asked a global audience to stretch in so many exciting and invigorating ways.
Read MoreA DOCUMENT TRAVELS THROUGH TIME
This scrap of paper and ink captures my imagination. Here’s an encapsulation of an ordinary moment, apparently compiled in haste or in an incremental process of additive notation. Its relative vacuity describes the majority of our lives, the big masses of interstitial goo that hold our more substantial bones together.
Read MoreFREE SPIRITS
Free spirits do not always seek more choices. Many free spirits will be perfectly content to eat the same plain yogurt and strawberries for breakfast most every day for the rest of their lives.
Read MoreTHE RECURSIVE PROBLEM WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
I’m not opposed to modernity, or the soul of a new machine. I fully embrace the inevitable process where innovation forces new ways of working that are destined to replace older modes. My specific concern is that the embrace of AI’s siren promise for innovation seems uncaring about its implications while simultaneously acting as a transformational agent.
Read MoreWHAT, ME WORRY?
Talent alone is like simply having access to cool tools: access without practice does not independently confer greatness. Discipline and repeated effort are much more vital, and those are traits that most people are unwilling to invest in adequate measure to rise above the masses.
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