Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The Crucial Quality Missing From Google's Translator

The practical utility of Google Translate and similar technologies is undeniable, and probably it’s a good thing overall, but there is still something deeply lacking in the approach, which is conveyed by a single word: understanding. Machine translation has never focused on understanding language. Instead, the field has always tried to “decode”—to get away without worrying about what understanding and meaning are.



Article source here:Arts Journal

Giant Building-Size Murals And Hipster Culture

Like other novelties of the post-hipster age, the source of the value is not just the finished work, but also the tedious and rarefied conditions of its production. The spectacle of painters hanging from a wall is as much Colossal’s product as the murals themselves. Colossal offers time-lapse footage and photos for clients to share on social channels.



Article source here:Arts Journal

The "Best Person" Fallacy

The multidimensional or layered character of complex problems undermines the principle of meritocracy: the idea that the ‘best person’ should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills."



Article source here:Arts Journal

Does The Barnes Have The Highest Admit Price In America?

"At $30, it costs more to enter the Barnes than any other art museum in the country, according to a list compiled by Art News since the decision by the Metropolitan Museum in New York to end pay-what-you-wish ticket prices for out-of-state visitors. The Met now charges $25. But wait. That $30 Barnes ticket is not the “official” admission price — even though you can’t get in without paying it."



Article source here:Arts Journal

We're Reading Less, Or Are We? (Why Do We Think This?)

"I am not aware of a time after the rise of mass literacy when reading did not compete with other forms of leisure: dance halls, theater, and religious revivals, plus cinema, art galleries, and, more recently, video games. It may feel as though we read less now than we did before the advent of smartphones and social media, but statistics do not bear that out. In January of last year, Gallup found that Americans were consuming books at roughly the same rates as in 2002."



Article source here:Arts Journal

America's Dance Companies Are Busting Out Of Their Theaters

Site-specific work isn't new, particularly among contemporary dance circles. The scale, however, of these recent efforts from companies who customarily present work in big, proscenium settings is notable. Choreographers are looking to every corner of their home venues, getting off the stage and changing the rules about how theatrical spaces are used.



Article source here:Arts Journal

Five Trends That Are Changing The Gallery World

If most longtime gallerists continue clinging to familiar patrons and familiar methods, then the art business, as physicist Max Planck once said of science, will only “advance one funeral at a time.” But either way the next generation appears ready to step up and reach out.



Article source here:Arts Journal

The Russian Politician Using His Country's Politics As Satire

Plenty of politicos write novels; but not many write eviscerating self-satires. It was as though Karl Rove had taken the knife to his and George W. Bush’s America in, say, 2005. Surkov, however, wasn’t, and isn’t, simply a Rove. The documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis calls him “a hero of our time” (in praise and opprobrium) for turning Russia’s political reality into “a bewildering, constantly changing piece of theater.”



Article source here:Arts Journal

Is There Really Such A Thing As 'The Self'? Yes, And Science Really Can Study It

The idea that there is no "self" that can be fully apprehended, let alone studied, goes all the way back to David Hume - and up to Daniel Dennett today. In philosophy, it's called antirealism - and Şerife Tekin is here to demolish it.



Article source here:Arts Journal

Shakeup: Scottish Government Defunds 20 Arts Orgs (Including Edinburgh Fringe) And Funds 19 More

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the city’s King’s and Festival theatres and the body that promotes its Unesco “City of Literature” status have had their funding stripped by Creative Scotland. Creative Scotland has dropped 20 organisations from its three-year funding programme, but added 19 following a shake-up of how its £99 million budget is spent.



Article source here:Arts Journal

Academy Decides Not To Bar Streaming Movies From Oscars

The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “left intact Rule Two, the one that established that a film” — in...