Links for mid-week
On reflection, my idea last weekend of splitting the week’s links into two (here and here) is probably not the way to go. Simply put, I like the eclecticism of a single list; plus, one post is easier to promote than two. So in another attempt to avoid an elephantine offering, and at the same time to keep the links current, I’m going to try posting a list mid-week as well as one for the weekend. Which is what I’ve done here – any thoughts on which approach is better would be much appreciated. Let’s start with How art history is failing at the internet in which President and CEO of the J Paul Getty Trust James Cuno laments that ‘scholars, curators and conservators of art are not exploiting the new technology to research differently.’ Take a look too at the fairly astonishing web application that he references, Closer to Van Eyck (above). As usual, there’s much more across the jump, with hat-tips for links due to, among others, @gkllday, @Chi_Humanities, @hannahrudman, @gilesedwards and (inevitably) both @filmstudiesff and @TheBrowser.
• Father of modern space art Chesley Bonestell: you won’t have heard of Mr Bonestell but his astounding imaginary images of other worlds will almost certainly be familiar (especially if you were a boy growing up in the ’50s and ’60s) – Julie Le Baron at The Creators Project has his story.
• Victor Pasmore’s pioneering public artwork celebrated in Durham: Alan Sykes for the Guardian has the story of artist Toby Paterson’s engagement with Pasmore’s remarkable Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee, built in 1969. (When our colleague Ian Serfontein went to film it for our film The Sculpture 100, he nearly ended up being beaten up by a gang of local kids.) Here’s a virtual tour of the pavilion from Beaumont Brown Architects.
• Why is Rem Koolhaas the world’s most controversial architect?: a very fine illustrated essay by Nicolai Ouroussoff for Arch Daily.
• 15 of our favourite pictures from Paris Photo: a rich selection by Paul Laster for Flavorwire of contemporary work.
• We Can’t Go Home Again: a remarkable piece by Bill Krohn at Kino-slang about Nicholas Ray’s final film, made between 1972 and the director’s death in 1979.
• Kiarostami’s Tokyo: Ian Buruma for The New York Review of Books on how Abbas Kiarostami has created ‘the best film by a foreigner in Japan’.
• Skyfall – conformity, rebellion and the British post-colonial trauma: really smart thoughts from Richard Drayton at Lenin’s Tomb (that’s the name of the blog) about M, Melanie Klein, miscegenation and ‘postcolonial melancholia’; for another suggestive psychoanalytical take on the film, see Aaron Balick, In Skyfall, M stands for mother.
• Steadicam progress – the career of Paul Thomas Anderson in five shots: this is really great – a video essay commissioned from Kevin Lee by the BFI’s Sight & Sound; there’s a transcript too.
• When do we ‘get it’?: New York Times film critics A O Scott and Manohla Dargis debate ‘the experimental turn’ in today’s movies.
• How to invent in an age of information overload: an edited transcript of a Radio 4 talk by the excellent Maria Popova, Editor of Brain Pickings, about ‘the convergence and cross-pollination of knowledge that drives progress’.
• Napster, Udacity and the academy: the latest essential post from Clay Shirky, on disruption in higher education, lessons from the music industry and why ‘we’re probably going to screw this up as badly as the music people did.’
• Research reveals popularity of live blogging: Roy Greenslade for the Guardian on a very interesting City University report (available in full here).
• The feature of the future – breaking out of templates to build customized reading experiences: from Kevin Nguyen at Neiman Journalism Lab on new forms for online news and features; he references ESPN.com’s The long strange trip of Dock Ellis which is also well worth a look.
• In conversation – Tina Brown: terrific interview by Michael Kinsley for New York.
• Anonymous, Karl Rove and the 2012 election fix?: now this a truly tremendous conspiracy story (by Tom Hartmann and Sam Sacks for truthout) – can ven some of it possibly be the case?
• House of Cards: seen this? It’s the trailer for the forthcoming David Fincher-Kevin Spacey version of the 1990 BBC political thriller – which was much influenced by Richard III; the premiere is on Netflix in February.
John,
Re “House of Cards,” the trailer is less-then-impressive, so I can only assume that the series will be the same.
As gifted an actor that Kevin Spacey is, it will be difficult for him to fill the shoes of the late Sir Ian Richardson, whose evil Francis Urquhart just leapt off the screen (especially his “I couldn’t possibly comment.”). Furthermore, the British political system is significantly more captivating than the US system with its fixed terms.
I don’t know why Americans attempt to copy some of the successful dramas of the BBC — “Traffic” comes to mind, as well. It always comes across as second rate.
Thanks for posting.