Museums are updating their approach to wall texts amid 8-second-long attention spans

A researcher thinks she knows why people keep touching museum exhibits

A museologist who studied unauthorized touch at the British Museum concluded that people may feel it's difficult to learn about things "unless you handle them" and that people are trying to connect with the past, viscerally. Her work has included interviewing British Museum visitors who committed unauthorized touches and spending extensive periods observing people touching prohibited items across 2004 and 2005.

'Instagram traps' are changing art museums

In the creator economy era, it feels like anyone has the potential to become an influencer—if they can just capture the right content. Naturally, some places are better suited for an Instagram photo than others. Museums-turned-photo-backdrops (think: the Museum of Ice Cream) are the best of the best.

Integrating mixed reality has made art galleries and museums more interactive and accessible

The technology bridges the gap between history and modernity in such spaces by attracting new, younger audiences while preserving cultural heritage through risk-free immersion. Mixed reality experiences, such as visiting reconstructed historical scenes or seeing virtual twins of lost paintings, can be programmed with software features for visitors with disabilities.

The theory behind public art

Proponents of public art, including graffiti, argue that its free access and visibility breaks down the elitism and financial barriers of galleries and museums, allowing people to interact or ignore the work as they see fit.

Meet the psychologist who reads people through the art they live with

Dimitrios Tsivrikos, an academic psychologist at University College London, says the art someone hangs in their home reveals as much about them as a bookshelf would. He advises going on a first date at a museum and asking each other about the work on the walls.

‘The Artist Is Present’ is one of the most famous performance pieces in history

The exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art invited visitors to sit in silence in the company of a master performer. Many shed tears or gestured affectionately, claiming to have felt a profound connection with Abramović. (This resource contains some artistic nudity.)

Americans touring the Louvre were inspired to create their own grand museums

The one-time royal residence was first transformed into a public museum in 1793 amid the French Revolution. Americans visiting in the early 1800s were both turned off by the aristocratic grandeur and compelled by the open access to the public. James Fenimore Cooper, the author of "The Last of the Mohicans," apparently came and measured the length of galleries.

An immersive curation of the world's rock art

A living archive of humanity’s ancient art and symbols, our shared history that is embedded as rock art and cave art in the landscape

Some art critics believe that Liminalism, a form of art exploring the uncanny yet familiar, defines our present moment

While analyzing images of abandoned malls or empty hallways, art historians and critics argue that this style captures the feelings of this moment in time. Liminalism, they propose, expresses prominent themes in our age like anonymity, alienation, and anxiety.

Why the Met changed its free admission policy

Why does a museum with an endowment of over $3 billion need to charge admission? In 2018, the Met changed its longstanding policy of free admission to charge a mandatory entrance fee for non-New York State residents. This article looks into the reasoning behind the decision and explores the different economic and demographic factors at play, including the museum’s long-term plans and how similar policies have played out at other institutions.

A massive list of wildly specific museums

The definition of a museum varies depending on who you ask and where you find yourself. Need proof? Check out this list of over 80 museums—dedicated to niche interests like hand fans, hovercrafts, and celebrity leftovers (really).

A reading of ancient Rome's best graffiti

Graffiti has been surprisingly common throughout history, and even the grandeur of ancient Rome's walls wasn't spared. This clever and funny video reads through some of the more notable messages relayed via graffiti in ancient Rome, from tidbits of wisdom like "A small problem gets larger if you ignore it" to more unsavory observations of lovers, friends, and enemies.

The Louvre in Paris has its own particle accelerator for art analysis

The Accélérateur Grand Louvre d'analyse élémentaire serves as a noninvasive tool for identifying and quantifying trace elements present in artworks by analyzing how particles backscatter off targets. This information can help detect forgeries and determine a piece's provenance. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Get lost in these historical libraries

The internet has changed a lot about how we learn, explore new ideas, and conduct research, particularly when it comes to the spaces we learn in. While few of us would trade our smartphones for a walk in a historical library, a walk through some of the beautifully designed cathedrals of learning could remind us to put them down sometimes. Explore 10 of the world's magnificent libraries with this quick video survey.

A look at Barcelona's contemporary art scene

Barcelona is no stranger to influential artists: Antoni Gaudi, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso, to name a few. It was the cradle of the Catalan Modernism and Art Nouveau movements in the 19th and 20th centuries. Art continues to be an important form of expression in Barcelona, but style is always evolving. This piece introduces readers to the obscure neighborhoods and budding galleries shaping Barcelona's contemporary art scene.

Watch a guided video tour of the Museum of Malware Art

The site includes installations, sculptures, textiles, musical pieces, and galleries inspired by malicious software and related technologies, including the ILOVEYOU virus, encryption protocols from ransomware attacks, and the Industroyer malware framework used by Russia to cut power to Ukraine.

Eliminating distractions is essential to improving one's attention span

Setting a baseline, removing distractions, establishing focus rituals, taking breaks, and finding purpose in your task are five science-backed practices that can help address a short attention span. Bestselling author Daniel Pink breaks down how to approach each part of the plan and introduce these habits to your life today.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

The history of music explained in 8 minutes

Traditional music history focuses on composers and sees music as an object. Historian Michael Spitzer focuses on music's role in everyday activity and sees it not as an object, but an activity. This brief history illuminates the fundamental role music plays in human culture, and sounds a hopeful not for music in the internet age.

Why aren’t students reading?

It's not just anecdotal: Current students struggle to read longer texts and report lower reading levels for enjoyment than past generations. This brief explainer from the Chronicle of Higher Education diagnoses some of the possible causes (increased screen time and learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic among them) along with how some educators are trying to correct the problem.

Breaking down the Bauhaus' minimalist, modern aesthetic

The Bauhaus style valued objects' functions above all else and, as such, largely did away with the ornate decoration of previous styles such as Victorian, colonial, or Art Deco. Instead, Bauhaus used primary colors, clean lines, and exposed industrial elements to create simple but sleek buildings, products, and typefaces.

The evolution of the em dash, a now-controversial piece of punctuation

The curious form of punctuation was originally used to replicate humans' naturally broken—and sometimes scattered—way of speaking, with Shakespeare often using it in his plays and Emily Dickinson deploying it for numerous effects. But as large language models like ChatGPT began using the em dash, real humans began viewing it as a tell of non-human writing. This podcast episode dives into the strange turn of events.

The 'second screen' effect has realigned the writing for Netflix's original shows

As more subscribers put Netflix on in the background, the company has encouraged more expositional dialogue in its original scripts. Filmmaker Justine Bateman claims the streamer doesn't "want anything on your show to distract [viewers] from their primary screen."

LonelyWiki compiles obscure Wikipedia articles with fewer than 2,000 annual readers

LonelyWiki calls itself a museum of forgotten knowledge. A "lonely article" features real prose, at least 500 characters, no stub placeholders, and under 2,000 annual views. Each one represents a person who decided something was worth documenting without editorial commission or trending news.

Basquiat's art was text heavy

Like his graffiti, Basquiat’s drawings and paintings often featured words and phrases among images. Art historian Robert Farris Thompson said, “[i]t’s as if he were dripping letters.” Below is 1983’s Horn Players, which includes portraits of jazz greats Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, along with words Basquiat associated with them.

'Context rot' explains why AI conversations degrade the longer they run

Research shows that as a large language model's context window fills up, performance declines, and models begin over-indexing on content at the start and end of a conversation while losing track of what's in the middle. The practical fix is simpler than you'd think: start a fresh chat more often.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.