Parle De Son Art "Jean Renoir Interviewed by French New Wave director - Jaques Rivette - about the technical progress in art. The dangers of realism and perfectionism related to the the technical advances in cinema." In this short interview (15mins.) Renoir considers such questions as "What if our tendency to imitate nature is simply a tendency towards ugliness?" and "Why is it that when technique is primitive everything is beautiful, and when technique is perfected almost everything is ugly?" In French with subtitles.
posted by vronsky on Sep 22, 2009 - 12 comments

Is Barack Obama An American Citizen? "...because Obama’s claim to American citizenship is only supported by evidence and logic, he must not be an American citizen."
posted by anotherpanacea on Jul 29, 2009 - 243 comments

The SF Signal Mind Meld feature poses science fiction related questions to a number of SF luminaries and the scientist, science writer or blogger. Subjects have included the best women writers in SF, taboo topics in SF, underated authors and the most controversial SF novels of the past and present. The also cover lighter topics, such the role of media tie-ins, how Battlestar Galactica could have ended better (bonus Geoff Ryman) and the realistic (or otherwise) use of science on TV SF shows.
posted by Artw on May 6, 2009 - 17 comments

The Reality Tests. "A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it?"
posted by homunculus on Jun 4, 2008 - 82 comments

Geoff Ryman on mundane science fiction. [previously, via]
posted by brundlefly on Sep 22, 2007 - 82 comments

Learning From Ike: What a Republican realist could teach George Bush. "If we hope to succeed, we manage evil. We minimize, mitigate, and manipulate evil. But efforts to pre-emptively eliminate evil are prone to end in overreaction and destabilization, with consequences that are often worse than the original problem."
posted by Sticherbeast on Apr 18, 2007 - 36 comments

William Pfaff argues against American utopianism in foreign policy--a form of "manifest destiny" not limited to the Bush administration. The Bush administration defends its pursuit of this unlikely goal ["ending tyranny in the world"] by means of internationally illegal, unilateralist, and preemptive attacks on other countries, accompanied by arbitrary imprisonments and the practice of torture, and by making the claim that the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities, and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities. ... Other American leaders before George Bush have made the same claim in matters of less moment. It is something like a national heresy to suggest that the United States does not have a unique moral status and role to play in the history of nations, and therefore in the affairs of the contemporary world. In fact it does not. Pfaff has been a columnist for the International Herald-Tribune, based in Paris, for the last 25 years. His website includes an archive of past columns. Previously.
posted by russilwvong on Jan 31, 2007 - 5 comments

Ethical Realism. Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman (formerly of the Heritage Foundation) make a bipartisan attempt at a more realistic foreign policy, based on prudence and an understanding of others' interests, instead of a utopian belief in democratization. "It seemed to us that in [foreign policy] at least, the United States was almost coming to resemble some Latin American countries of the past, where rival hereditary political clans of 'Conservatives' and 'Liberals' clashed bitterly and even launched savage civil wars with each other - but in terms of real policy were virtually indistinguishable and equally wrong." [more inside]
posted by russilwvong on Nov 5, 2006 - 13 comments

Big Man is the final sculpture in a current exhibit on Melancholy - Genius and Insanity in the Western World at the Grand Palais in Paris. Hyper-realist Ron Mueck creates imposing figures by playing with large and small scale. (warning: art nudity)
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 27, 2005 - 18 comments

"Romantic"...or "Neo-National-Socialist" Realism? If the following representations can whatsoever be called 'realist', then wherefore the campy ideological vulgarity of their subject matter, which make Leroy Neiman's works - yes, you may remember him accurately from the notorious Burger King collection of the late 1970's - seem as profound as Salvador Dali (156 MB - and "obscene" - MPEG file)? To wit: "Romantic Realism, the movement which renews the high esthetic standards and techniques of pre-20th century ateliers, brings a rebirth of comprehensibility, beauty, romanticism and stylization to contemporary subject matter." Linked from Instapundit. (Do political posts rendered as purely aesthetic questions merit "newsfilter" warnings? Consult the zeitgeist! And apologies for the question sounding like the title of a Paul Zindel play.) Qu'est-ce que c'est, le 'degenerate art', vraiment?
posted by objet on Oct 11, 2005 - 32 comments

Not Ready for Their Close-Up. Quote: "On the brighter side, TV will lose a certain amount of its power over us - I can promise you that. HD won't do advertisements quite the same way. Ask any Catholic priest, or Jung, or Scott McLoud about the power of icons, and they'll explain it the same way. Too much detail, and they lose their ability to induce our identification."
posted by gsb on Jun 14, 2005 - 41 comments

Idealist and realist: What we can learn from Albert Einstein's free spirit. "Einstein was a Freigeist, and his self-appointed, conscious task was to be a liberator –- a Befreier. In this he continued a great German cultural tradition established by Kant, Goethe, and simultaneously with Einstein, by Ernst Cassirer." [via]
posted by monju_bosatsu on Mar 11, 2005 - 4 comments

If you've ever wanted your first-person shooter to feel a little less real, NPRQuake may be just what you need. The blueprint and brushstroke versions are nice, but for my money you can't beat sketchy Quake. Unfortunately, the NPR in the name stands for Non-Photorealistic Rendering, not that other NPR, so don't expect Robert Siegel or Linda Wertheimer skins any time soon. (via haddock.org)
posted by jjg on May 17, 2001 - 4 comments