Paying Attention

I'd like to try all--ok, most--of these exercises.

I've given the "Look really, really slowly" assignment to Art History students before, only for me it was 20 or 40 minutes, not three hours.

"Repeat your viewpoint" reminds me of some pivotal moments in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.

I think the one I'm going to try immediately is the "Misuse a tech tool" with the compass.

Panama Papers, Modigliani, and Nazis

I've been a bit confused about all the hubbub surrounding "The Panama Papers." Yes, the leaked documents has shown precisely which wealthy people have used precisely which off-shore tax havens, but it's certainly not news that tax havens exist and are used by wealthy people for a number of reasons. Two of the most popular tax havens are the state of Delaware and the City of London. You don't have to actually go off shore to go off-shore.

But anyway.

One interesting thing that has turned up is the ownership of a Modigliani painting allegedly looted by Nazis and possibly being reclaimed. If I'm reading the news reports correctly, the Nahmad family has claimed that they do not own the painting in question, but that it is owned by a company called IAC. Only ow it's been leaked that IAC is owned, and has been owned for decades, by the Nahmad family.

Why not make art funny?

These GIFs make funny little cartoons out of a few of art's most somber pieces. Enjoy.

A new painting from Rembrandt

The Next Rembrandt is a project that used a lot of data and algorithms to make a very good, and original, Rembrandt painting. I have to say the product looks pretty good.

It's an interesting (and scary) project. Be warned, though: the video and project are basically an ad for ING and Microsoft.

GTA Deer

I don't quite know how this all works, but an artist inserted a wandering and unstoppable deer into a famous video game. So, you know, yeah.