France’s Student Protests in Photos
The defining images of the nationwide movement, New York drag artists celebrate queer politics and joy, and the scoop on Hyperallergic’s Halloween plans.
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Stories on the color orange, the data center rush, a local hero, the AI labour takeover, and a boy dinner subreddit.
Barbara Ward’s vision
She was among the first to argue that prosperity, equality and the protection of nature are inseparable planetary goals - by Or Rosenboim Read on Aeon
Thin friction and thicker walls
Civilized culture is based on a thin sort of friction. You don’t yell at the library, act boorish at a restaurant or hassle a minor celebrity at the supermarket. It’s just not done. The result of these human layers and inferences are cues and norms that add up to a connected,
David Byrne’s New Book Explores the Strange Afterlife of Good Ideas: From Vermeer’s Paintings to Roman Concrete & Dark Matter
David Byrne will always be most widely known as the co-founder and frontman of Talking Heads. That may count among the greatest possible achievements for any artist — to the minds of many an Open Culture reader, at least — but it must occasionally frustrate the man himself.
Sleeping Beauties: David Byrne on Why Transformative Ideas Fall Dormant and How They Awaken to Change the World
Each time you look up at the night sky, you see only ancient signals — by the time a photon has reached your pupil, the star that emitted it may be long dead. The great wonder is that its light can traverse immense expanses of space and time to gladden the darkness of today, to
In 1996, the Blondin family drove all around the US,...
In 1996, the Blondin family drove all around the US, blogging about it all before “blog” was even a word . “We were doing something that had no name and no manual, and we were doing it over a dial-up modem while living in a motorhome.”
Improvisation and the Quantum of Consciousness
Inside the brain's secret portal to remembering the future.
Chasing a Plane Across the Moon
Agustín Ferrando Trenchi became a little obsessed with the moon as a kid. As an adult, he’s taken tons of photos and hundreds of hours of footage of the moon. After seeing an airplane fly close to the moon while he filmed, Trenchi began a quest to capture a plane flying across
How to Remake Yourself When You Are Undone: Lincoln and the Gift of His Suicidal Depression
Life-affirming inspiration from a man who knew intimately “that intensity of thought, which will some times wear the sweetest idea thread-bare and turn it to the bitterness of death.”
Mary Deleary Named Director of IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
Plus, the Boston Public Art Triennial’s curatorial team, Kinosaito fall artist residents, and Mariah Carey’s “Last Supper” selfie in this week's Art Movements.
15 Defining Photos From the Student Protests in France
Painted signs and trash bins have become a visual lexicon of resistance as protesters call for educational reform and an immediate end to police violence.
Abolish Frat Culture. “This is going to be uncomfortable...
Abolish Frat Culture . “This is going to be uncomfortable for anyone with a kid in a fraternity to hear: If your son finds himself in a group that would send a ‘free pussy’ text, it’s too late. The group is the disease, the text is the symptom.”
The Ritual Joy of Queer Performance Refuses to Give Up
Reigning diva Amygdala brings Brooklyn drag to Manhattan in “Pleasure Dome: Continuum,” a fête of therapeutic sound, vaudeville tributes, and queer politics.
EMΣT in Athens Wins European Art Museum Award for Social Impact
Greece’s National Museum of Contemporary Art edged out institutions such as the Rijksmuseum and FENIX Museum of Migration in the Netherlands.
Congressman Calls on Smithsonian to Document Trump’s “Narcissistic Self-Worship”
Democrat Jamie Raskin’s proposed bill asks the institution to preserve items related to Trump’s “propagandistic assault on American history.”
Any Human Ever randomly picks an average person from some...
Any Human Ever randomly picks an average person from some point in human history and tells you about what their life was like. Mine was a woman born in 1547: “Of all the sounds of her life, the loudest were thunder and the church bells.”
Woo Jin Joo Conjures Mythic Tales from Uncanny Sculptures of Fiber and Found Objects
Stumbling upon a battered end table or lost mitten is an opportunity for magic in Woo Jin Joo’s mind. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Woo Jin Joo
Mamdani’s “Richard Scarry Socialism” Can Make City Life...
Mamdani’s “Richard Scarry Socialism” Can Make City Life Simple Again . “It is an astonishing indictment of our times that the cities of our picture books can seem like a radical utopia.”
Frank Gillette’s Anthropic Blues
Elegiac, urgent, and infinitesimal, the videos and Polaroids in "Spectra Obscura" express distinct sorts of disappearance, decay, and fleeting natural phenomena.
Medical Imaging and Art Meet in the Exhibition “Overexposed”
The concurrent emergence of cinema and X-ray technology radically transformed how we see and understand the human body.
I Wanted a Different Betty Parsons Exhibition
It might have made a more fascinating exhibition to explore her balancing act as a gallerist, but this show focuses on her less interesting art.
Inside the Subreddit Where Men Share Their Dinners—And Their Most Intimate Feelings
"A months-old subreddit called r/BoyDinnerDiares has drawn over 4 million users and become a place for men to spill their guts. Why there and why now?"
Psychedelic Paintings by Rafael Silveira Explore a World of ‘Visual Synonymies’
Silveira juxtaposes objects and organisms in unlikely scenarios to challenge how we perceive the world around us. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article
Bertrand Russell Shows How to Respond to Fascists Who Want to Debate
Late in his life, the prominent English mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell was subject to an attempt in the early 1960s by Oswald Mosley to provoke him into a debate about the merits of fascism. Before WWII, Mosley had founded the British Union of Fascists. BUF had
The Global Rise of Electoral Dictatorships. Is the U.S....
The Global Rise of Electoral Dictatorships. Is the U.S. Next? “Electoral dictators — who identify as presidents and prime ministers — hold uncompetitive and unfair elections after aggressively suppressing political opponents.”
The People of Utah vs. Kevin O’Leary
"Mr. Wonderful wanted to build the world’s largest data center. The neighbors had other ideas."