The Art World Has an AI Problem
A diatribe against AI-generated art writing, MIT professors bedazzle security cameras, and Art Basel Paris goes into lockdown.
Headlines
- All
- Africa
- Asia
- Business
- Culture
- Environment
- Europe
- Gaming
- Markets
- Middle East
- Movies & TV
- Music
- Politics
- Science
- South America
- Tech
- World News
Toward depth
Juan Tamariz and Wendell Berry recently passed away. Between them, they had more than 170 years of generous contribution. Juan was a card magician. His students are generally considered the best working in the world today. Wendell was a farmer and a writer. His essays on
In 1897, London’s Lampposts Dispensed Hot Coffee, Tea, and “Fluid Beef”
Any reader of Victorian literature will wonder how much a ha’penny was actually worth in those days. For a little more than a year at the very end of that period, it could buy you a cup of coffee, cocoa, milk, tea, or “fluid beef” — which would pour out of a lamppost on the […]
Sears Sold 75,000 DIY Mail Order Homes Between 1908 and 1939, and Transformed American Life
Two of the books that most shaped American culture both happened to bear the nickname “The Big Book.” While the second of these, the A.A. Manual, published in 1939, changed the country with 12-Step recovery groups, the first of these, the Sears Catalog, transformed America with
How to Be Un-Dead: Notes on Waking Up from the Trance of Near-Living
"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."
Álvaro Urbano Honors the Lost Specimens of Mexico City’s Iconic Casa Cueva
Álvaro Urbano presents an homage to the innovations of Casa Cueva, an icon of modernist Mexican architecture. 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
Live From the Lavender Lake
Dispatches from open studios events across town and the Tompkins Square Dog Halloween Parade.
I remember this 90s TV commercial for 93.7 The Edge, a...
I remember this 90s TV commercial for 93.7 The Edge , a Minnesota alternative radio station, very well. It features very non-alternative old people reciting lyrics like “bow down before the one you serve” and “Winona’s got herself a big brown beaver”.
Dear Art World, We Can Tell When You’re Using AI
Institutions, especially well-resourced museums, foundations, and cultural organizations, have no excuse for relying on generative tools instead of paying writers.
Why Do Some Places Just Feel Right?
Gregory Wieber does these engaging, info-rich videos on tech history — I posted his HyperCard Changed Everything video back in the spring. For one of his latest videos, Wieber goes through a short history of Christopher Alexander’s landmark book, A Pattern Language ( Bookshop
Bathing With the Nymphs
Olivia Zubko combines our favored legends with humankind’s most sacred pillars: beauty and bathrooms.
New book from James Gleick about the history of the...
New book from James Gleick about the history of the telephone . “It gave us the party line, the busy signal, dial tones, wiretapping, the late-night DJ, and the booty call. It magnified the possibilities of government, of business, of friendship, of love.”
Sunset Park, Where You Can Still Get an Artist Studio for Under $600
At the Brooklyn neighborhood's Open Studios festival, artists showed off the works they make in converted factories, warehouses, and three-story walk-ups
V&A Museum Staff Set to Strike Across All Four London Sites
Allegations of “Amazon-style” working conditions and calls for pay raises prompted unionized workers to authorize yet another strike at the UK museum network.
‘The Department of Objects’ Brings the Charm of Sleep-Away Camp to Chicago
Wyatt Hersey, Melissa Lakey, Esther Pearl Watson, and Anna Valdez joined Joy Machine at Camp Wandawega for five days of arctic magic. 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
“Astronomers for the first time have identified a green...
“Astronomers for the first time have identified a green star , documenting a dense stellar remnant called a white dwarf that became a ghostly shade of chartreuse after ingesting rocky debris from planets that once had orbited it.”
The MIT Professors Bedazzling Security Cameras to Highlight Campus Surveillance
The intervention is responding to the university’s recent $3 million investment in more than 500 new AI-integrated campus surveillance cameras.
The Best Monopoly Strategy, Tested on 300 Million Games
Perfect Play ran over 300 million games of Monopoly to determine the best strategy and the most common mistakes players make. I turned eight classic Monopoly strategies into computer players and made them play 312,898,560 games against each other. At a table of four, the best
Protestors Criticized For Looting Businesses Without...
Protestors Criticized For Looting Businesses Without Forming Private Equity Firm First . “It’s disgusting to put workers at risk by looting. You do it by chipping away at their health benefits and eventually laying them off.”
The Man Who Taught Us How to Pay Attention
"The works of the British art critic John Berger offer the antidote to our age of infinite scrolling."
How to Grow Old without Letting Life Become a Parody of Itself
"In old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves."
The Constitution of the Inner Country: Leonard Cohen on Language and the Poetry of Presence
"The poem is nothing but information. It is the Constitution of the inner country."
Art Basel Paris Undergoes Lockdown Ahead of Opening
Police ordered the Grand Palais to briefly shut down amid the nationwide student protests.
To Be Alone With Your Thoughts in '70s New York
Fred Camper's contemplative film "Suicide Note" was born out of grief and a city in collapse.
Using an LLM’s “superhuman ability to parse through...
Using an LLM’s “superhuman ability to parse through galactic quantities of data”, a very amateur astronomer has found a possible exoplanet candidate . MIT is going to point their satellite at the candidate planet to collect more data soon.
Applications Open for the MFA in Studio Art at Maine College of Art & Design
Apply by January 17, 2027 to be considered for a full-tuition scholarship.
Revisit Claes Oldenburg’s Seminal ‘Six Themes’ 50 Years After Its Debut
'Six Themes' at Paula Cooper Gallery celebrates the artist's seminal sculptures. 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 Revisit Claes Oldenburg’s Seminal
How Japanese Dried Bonito Is Made
This workshop founded in 1882 still makes dried bonito like they did back in the Edo period . How katsuobushi — Japanese dried bonito, said to be the world’s hardest food — is made in Nishi-Izu, Japan. Inside Kanesa Katsuobushi Shoten, a workshop founded in 1882,
How to Stop Waiting and Start Living: A Jolt from Henry James
"It wouldn't have been failure to be bankrupt, dishonoured, pilloried, hanged; it was failure not to be anything."
Brewster Kahle argues against news sites blocking the...
Brewster Kahle argues against news sites blocking the Internet Archive from archiving their sites . “Impeding the Wayback Machine’s preservation work will not prevent powerful AI companies from gathering training data.”
Death by a Thousand Dams
"Tens of thousands of small barriers hamper fish recovery in the northeastern United States."