Media Redux

Apropos of my Media Prophecy, here's a round-up of good magazine articles I've found lately (all discovered in the print edition first):

I should have read Dave Hickey by now. This piece in The New Yorker, wherein Hickey's Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy is called possibly "the most influential works of art theory and appreciation published in the last decade," is a testament to significant art that still occurs on the fringe. (It makes me want to visit New Mexico, which must be a first.) [The link will probably disappear soon, as the NewYorker.com doesn't archive their issues online.]

Art Forum has a tete-a-tete about Frank Gehry, half of which is online.

Metropolis has an excellent design-as-politics piece, "A Call For Design Activism." Similarly, I picked up a copy of the journal Trace: AIGA Journal of Design, which makes the case for the necessity of a politics of design better than anyone since Tom Vanderbilt.

Film Comment has two good stories (not online): a comprehensive review of A.I. and a double-historical analysis of the porn movie and Hollywood as myth-maker comrades.

The Wire has a transcript (not online) of Jaques Attali speaking at a Net.Music conference in London last May, where he talks about potential models of distribution for music in the future. (His website, which I'll write about in a future post about academician websites, is one of the coolest examples of a professor reaching out to people through a popular medium.) His book Noise has influenced my thinking about music and economics more than anything I've ever read. At the conference he says: "Music is a metaphor for the management of violence. When people listen to music, they listen to the fact that socity is possible: because we can manage violence." (There's also a Radiohead cover story that's worth reading.)

And, finally, NewScientist.com, which is a must-read for anyone who has even a passing interest in science and technology, has redesigned.