Lauren MacDonald

2 months ago | theartnewspaper.com | José Da Silva |Louisa Buck |Lauren MacDonald

The adventures of the British artist duo Gilbert & George in Communist Russia and China are detailed in a new publication by the art dealer James Birch (with the journalist Michael Hodges). Birch has previously written about his attempts to put on a Francis Bacon show in Moscow in 1988 and this new biographical book follows on from that period.

Oct 4, 2024 | designboom.com | Lauren MacDonald

studio sanne visser explores human hair as sustainable materialMaterial design research practice Studio Sanne Visser introduces Locally Grown, an interactive installation exploring human hair as an innovative, sustainable material.

Aug 20, 2024 | aei.org | Brent Orrell |Lauren MacDonald

Today, The Verge profiled a new Tesla project aimed at training robots for routine materials movement. The company is hiring workers between 5’7” and 5’11” to move 30-pound packages while wearing sensor arrays and virtual reality goggles. These workers will provide the motion capture data to train Tesla’s Optimus robots, which will eventually begin taking over this work. Motion capture has typically been used in video games and movies to create realistic human movements in digital characters.

Aug 20, 2024 | aei.org | James Pethokoukis |Lauren MacDonald

A baseline belief of mine: Many fervent privacy activists who criticize “surveillance capitalism” are at least as concerned about the capitalism part as the surveillance aspect. These folks seem to oppose online advertising on principle, even when it aims to show users more relevant and potentially useful ads for products or services they might want. The now hoary phrase, “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product” is frequently used to attack targeted online advertising.

Aug 20, 2024 | aei.org | Desmond Lachman |Lauren MacDonald

On Wall Street, it is said that the longest river in the emerging market countries is “De Nile.” However, before we poke fun at those countries, we should ask whether we ourselves are not in denial about how our country is beginning to display emerging market tendencies. Take, for a start, the dismal state of our public finances. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), we are presently running a  budget deficit.