9th Feb 2020
NESTA on The Future Of Creativity and Innovation. Topics covered in this piece include – ‘We’ll see more unlikely collaborations between humans and non-humans’ ; ‘We’ll find ourselves doing more scrappy, experimental work; and ‘Creation will exist alongside loss in an era of ecological disaster’.
How Andy Warhol invented American art – pop art’s leading figure harnessed the energy of consumerism..and if you are in London in the next few months this is certainly worth seeing, at the Tate Modern – A new look at the extraordinary life and work of the pop art superstar.
Three pieces from 1843 magazine. ‘An 18th-century moral panic sounds surprisingly familiar – The novel was once deemed as damaging as screen time is today‘ ; Grayson Perry’s My Life in Six Objects (the teddy bear that is like a god to me..); and ‘The Sweet Sound of Success’ – ‘hearing is a “special sense”, argued R. Murray Schafer, a Canadian composer, because it can’t be shut out at will. Sound persists after we close our eyes to sleep, and it’s there before we wake up: “There are no earlids,” he wrote.
CN Traveller and Google’s new tool, shows the impact of climate change on World Heritage Sites.
‘Docu-tainment rising’. Across industries, documentaries are being elevated as content for a class of truth-seeking consumers.
A Madrid-based production company creates a menagerie to accompany Spotify’s algorithmically-curated playlists for lonely stay-at-home pets.
From @faris – ‘Hindsight is so 2020: Why advertisers are doubling down on nostalgia.’ Brands reaching for quotes of their past advertising successes hints at our continued failure to think about the future and start investing in assets for the long term.
From The New Yorker. Why I Wrote The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Oct 14th 1996. ‘I am not sure what “The Crucible” is telling people now, but I know that its paranoid centre is still pumping out the same darkly attractive warning that it did in the fifties…it may simply be a fascination with the outbreak of paranoia that suffuses the play— the blind panic that, in our age, often seems to sit at the dim edges of consciousness.’
Nice new campaign from Eurostar, which revives its ‘challenger mentality’. An ostrich stars in ads with the strap-line – ‘you see more when you don’t fly….’
How Glossier turned itself into a billion-dollar beauty brand. ‘People were becoming increasingly interested in the idea of personal style, and using clothing and makeup as a means of creative expression. They no longer wanted to be told by a brand or expert how to pull off a full look; they wanted to see other people mix things up.’
Fabulous. Footage of De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci at the very first table read of The Irishman, with Scorsese back in 2013.
All the 2020 Super Bowl Commercials in one place (reg may be necessary)…and this perspective suggests this year’s ads were a bit ‘meh’ – ‘I think there were a lot of good ads, I’m just not sure they were very good Super Bowl ads…many of the ads themselves were competent. They did what they needed to do, but they didn’t really fit with the sort of stupendousness of the moment, they kind of played it safe, low key.’ …and this from The Drum : From holograms to wearables: how we’ll be watching the Super Bowl in 10 years time.
‘The Bruce Lee vs. Cliff Booth fight scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has great acting, funny one-liners and tension that masterfully builds-up to a wonderful climax.’ But it also includes a 4 minute single take, that you don’t realise is there.
Short video from Radio 4. The Libet Experiment: Is Free Will Just an Illusion? Are our ‘conscious decisions’ just reports on what is already happening? (ps. if there is no free will, there may at least be a ‘free won’t.’)
As you may have observed, last Sunday (02/02/2020) was a palindrome day and the first such in 909 years.