Bland Bloodsuckers

I’m no maestra of the avant-garde, and consequently, my interest here is in offering neither definitions nor death knells. To mourn the loss of the avant-garde — or to seek the shock of transgressive aesthetics in increasingly arcane crannies — is an evergreen endeavor. As Roland Barthes wrote, “être d’avant-garde, c’est savoir ce qui est…

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‘Barbie’ Was Born Out Of The Anxiety Of Modern Filmmaking | Defector

Movie studios favoring familiarity and profitability over artistry is nothing new or particularly innovative. At the moment, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are on strike against Hollywood’s profit-driven and margin-squeezing madness, throwing the craven greed of the executive class into even sharper…

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What Was Twitter, Anyway?

Credit…Photograph by Jamie Chung. Concept by Pablo Delcan. Whether the platform is dying or not, it’s time to reckon with how exactly it broke our brains. Credit…Photograph by Jamie Chung. Concept by Pablo Delcan. April 18, 2023 Listen to This Article Audio Recording by Audm The trouble began, as it usually does, when I saw…

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Photographer admits prize-winning image was AI-generated | Sony world photography awards | The Guardian

A photographer is refusing a prestigious award after admitting to being a “cheeky monkey” and generating the prize-winning image using artificial intelligence. The German artist Boris Eldagsen revealed on his website that he was not accepting the prize for the creative open category, which he won at the Sony world photography awards. The winning photograph…

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Inside the push for a nationwide ban on abortion medication

 (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images) Right-wing officials insisted their push to overturn Roe v. Wade was an effort to respect states’ rights and the democratic process. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R), who represented her state in its successful effort to invalidate Roe, wrote a November 2021 op-ed in the Washington Post claiming…

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