Friday, September 21, 2018

Reckless, risky and richer


MoMa at Victorian Art Gallery attracts lines of art lovers ...

In an international exclusive, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) presents a major exhibition of modern and contemporary masterworks from New York’s iconic Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in the world-premiere exhibition MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art, opening 9 June 2018 at NGV International in Melbourne. 
Co-organised by the NGV and MoMA, the exhibition features more than 200 works – many of which have never been seen in Australia – from a line-up of seminal nineteenth and twentieth-century artists, including Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Louise Bourgeois, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Diane Arbus, Agnes Martin and even Slavic Andy Warhol. Bringing the exhibition up to the present are works by many significant twenty-first century artists including Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Gursky, El Anatsui, Rineke Dijkstra, Kara Walker, Mona Hatoum and Camille Henrot.


Andy Warhol, American 1928–87, Marilyn Monroe 1967, screenprint, edition of 250. 91.5 x 91.5 cm (image and sheet), Publisher: Factory Additions, New York Printer: Aetna Silkscreen Products, Inc., New York. The Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of Mr. David Whitney, 1968 © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ARS. Licensed by Viscopy, 2018

Every age offers its own cures for the previous generation’s supposedly poor parenting. The corrective du jour: Keep kids safe, but not too safe Common Sense  








EU Passes Controversial Copyright Law With ‘Link Tax’ And ‘Upload Filter’


"The reform is called the Copyright Directive and it was first proposed in 2016. On Wednesday, members of European Parliament voted 438-226 in favor of adopting the directive. The law is meant to be an overhaul of copyright rules, aimed at making sure publishers and artists are compensated by platforms like Google or Facebook. ... The controversial directive contains two articles" — known as the "link tax" and the "upload filter" — "that open internet and free speech advocates believe could fundamentally alter the way the internet works. Here's what they mean." …[Read More]




What predicts inter-caste marriage?: the education of the groom’s mother.  And note this: “Even in 2011, the rate of inter caste marriages in India was as low as 5.82%.”

Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg are launching a new audio company


Pronounced dead for over three minutes following a horrific car crash, Sam Cawthorn survived despite all the odds stacked against him. The accident resulted in his right arm being amputated, and caused permanent damage to his right leg. He was told he would never walk again; a setback that would surely defeat many. Proving the doctors and critics wrong, through sheer determination Sam regained his ability to walk just over a year later.
STORYSHOWING - How to stand out from the storytellers



“A work is a tragedy, Aristotle tells us, only if it arouses pity and fear. Why does he single out these two passions?” That seems wrong to me. For one thing, it is overly subjectivist. Why start with the passions of the audience? What do they know?

I think of a tragic story as embodying a few elements:

1. The downfall represents some kind of principle

2. Some aspects of the downfall are, in advance, quite expected in the objective sense.

3. The actual story combines both inevitability and surprise in a somewhat contradictory manner. (I reintroduce the subjective ever so slightly here.)

4. The villain probably should have some sympathetic and/or charismatic qualities.

5. There should be a quite particular logic to how the actual events unfold, as they might be related to the above-mentioned principles in #1.
6. A confluence of aesthetic and metaphysical and personality-linked forces should “conspire” to bring about the final outcome. There should be a melding and a consilience to the evolution of the story.
Some near-perfect tragedies are Don GiovanniThe Empire Strikes BackThe Sopranos(evokes nostalgia in me rather than fear or pity), and King Lear, among other works of Shakespeare.  Don’t forget Homer, Melville, and the Bible.
Just stay away from Aristotle on this one.
 TED talk by philosopher William MacAskill on how best to help the world

Blogs and Sunlight: To be or not to be Afraid ...



Five steps to creating compelling stories with data
ENGAGEMENT: Data in interactive formats is an avenue to educate, inform and influence. But to succeed, it needs to communicate a compelling story.

Managing the highs and lows of data overload
RESEARCH: In a world of data excess, using dashboards helps avoid common biases that are triggered when we focus too much attention on recent events.