Category: 5. Entertainment

In Jürgen Habermas’s Knowledge and Human Interests (1968), the philosopher explores the limits of what he refers to as the technical knowledge of the natural world. ‘No matter how far our power of technical control over nature is extended,’ he writes, ‘nature retains a substantial core that does not reveal itself to us.’ In the age of Donald Trump, a Newtonian worldview feels particularly inadequate; the microscope of the Enlightenment has been shattered by quantum and schizopolitical force. The more deeply we investigate the observable world, the less recognizable it becomes and the hotter the lithium-powered information swarm burns.

Agnieszka Kurant’s ‘COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE’ at Marian Goodman Gallery reckons with the ceaseless copy-pasting of new forms while resisting simple conclusions. Building on her long-standing interest in the phantoms left behind by deleted data, Kurant turns to the natural world, which she re-presents within the unnatural setting of a gallery. Through her distinctly curatorial form of sculpture, she draws associations between nature’s expressiveness and the laboratory’s desire to replicate it. Kurant’s organic matter never takes the form of a landscape. Instead, she suspends nature in mesoscopic systems of aesthetic display, presenting it through cross sections or atop a pedestal. With each representation of the natural world, she reveals an unfinished virtual design within nature’s depths, like a scratched-up copy of a world simulator.

The sculpture Post-Fordite 13 (2025) evokes an ecocidal sublime. This partially polished ‘stone’ made up of fragments of Fordite – an anthropogenic mineral composed of layers of enamel paint slag, accumulated over many years in automotive factories – reveals that the ghosts of industrialization have already replaced the world at the cellular level. Semiotic Life (2022/2025), meanwhile, finds harmony between the real and the copy. An electric blue, 3D-printed bonsai tree twists around the trunk and branches of a living one, alluding to the thicket of cultural objects, images and interpretations in which we find ourselves. This artificial tree’s growth pattern is the product of algorithmic prediction; ‘nature’, here, is more akin to the wall of trees within a video game, whose function is to limit further exploration. We are left remembering that information does not always lead to knowledge.

At times, Kurant’s work stops short, running the risk of leaving us only with the valorization of technology’s ability to integrate with nature, or with the perception of artists as transcendent engineers. The exhibition is most successful when it indexes a non-hierarchical interest in growth, like in Nonorganic Life 8 (2025), which is made of metal salts grown on anodized aluminium. This frieze feels exterior to traditional notions of beauty. It is in these tonalities that the eco-pessimism holds – when the artist seems uncertain of nature, and, refusing to see it as a legible material, instead uses it like an assisted readymade. In these works, Kurant locates an anti-picturesque that resists the impulse to present our environment as cathartic images.

At the exhibition opening, Air Rights 7 (2021), a black rock constructed from powdered stone that levitates above its plinth, was ringed by an audience posting it to their individual social media platforms. Its existence continues as an image, circulating through the vertical column of the screen on our phones; our vision is suspended in short looping videos like the rock above its pedestal. The more ‘COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE’ attempts to keep collectivity in view, the more it unworlds us, releasing technological phantoms. It is when we hold the virtual treeline and the natural one together in our sights that a potential new gaze forms, and we can sense the profound strangeness of both.

Agnieszka Kurant’s ‘COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE’ is on view at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York until 22 August

^{Main image: Agnieszka Kurant, Nonorganic Life 7 (detail), 2025, painting with crystals of metal salts (copper, cobalt, iron, nickel, manganese, chromium) grown on anodized, printed aluminium plates, 1.6 × 1.1 m. Courtesy: the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery; photograph: Elisabeth Bernstein}

PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” – Oscar Wilde

You know the old Biblical anti-war saying from the book of Isaiah: “Beat swords into plowshares.”

However, plowshares are hardly around anymore, and the transformation from swords has not happened. Instead, my wife and I recently saw another play in Stratford, Canada, titled “The Art of War.” It describes the life of a painter embedded into Canadian troops in World War II with the mandate to paint his reactions. He struggled with relevance and personal danger, among other challenges.

The story is based on the actual Canadian Forces Artists Program, still running today. I am familiar with journalists being embedded into American armed forces, but not artists. Journalists generally provide reports of what is going on, while artists provide interpretations, though there can be overlap.

Imagine what artists could provide if they were embedded safely enough in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, Myanmar, Sudan, and other war zones and humanitarian crises.

Artists embedded in mental health care have done—and still can do—something similar, although funding and the business control of medicine has dissipated its presence. Art, especially painting and music, has long been a valuable experiential and interpretive medium, especially for psychiatric patients who have difficulty doing so verbally. Patient art, like conflict-related art, can provide unique psychological information and interventions that cannot be conveyed in any other way.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

Taylor Kitsch is staying off the field.

Roku is launching an ad-free, subscription streaming service.

The service, called Howdy, offers a lower price point than most ad-free streaming services, at $2.99 a month, and launches with a library of close to 10,000 hours of entertainment from partners including Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery and FilmRise, in addition to select Roku Original titles. Initial titles in the library include Mad Max: Fury Road, The Blind Side, Weeds and Kids in the Hall, among others.

Howdy is set to launch Tuesday in the U.S. This joins the company’s Roku Channel, which includes ads on a large library of content, as well as Roku Originals, and was the most popular FAST service in June, according to the Nielsen Gauge. The launch of the platform also follows Roku’s acquisition of paid streaming service Frndly TV in May. Roku has a large potential reach for these services, after hitting 90 million households earlier this year.

“Priced at less than a cup of coffee, Howdy is ad-free and designed to complement, not compete with, premium services,” said Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood. “We’re meeting a real need for consumers who want to unwind with their favorite movies and shows uninterrupted and on their terms. Howdy is a natural step for us at Roku, extending our mission to make better TV for everyone, by making it affordable, accessible, and built for how people watch today.”

“We’re excited to continue our longstanding collaboration with Roku on innovative ways to connect with audiences,” said Jim Packer, president of Worldwide Television Distribution, Lionsgate. “With engagement of over 125 million people a day, Roku is the perfect partner to launch a more accessible complement to the higher-priced SVODs. This service has the ability to scale quickly while providing us with a new way to monetize our content, and we’re proud to be part of this new streaming experience.” 

Donald Trump has been gloating in recent weeks about CBS‘ decision to cancel Stephen Colbert and “The Late Show,” and now he’s targeting another one of the network’s on-air personalities: “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King. The U.S. president took to Truth Social to rejoice over a new report from the New York Post that claims King’s future at CBS is “murky” as ratings for “CBS Mornings” decline.

“Gayle King’s career is over,” Trump posted alongside a link to the Post article. “She should have stayed with her belief in TRUMP. She never had the courage to do so. No talent, no ratings, no strength!!”

The article Trump shared to his followers reads: “CBS faces a growing dilemma over the future of mega-buck anchor Gayle King as ratings for her ‘woke’ morning show collapse — and the struggling network’s new owners vow to root out left-wing bias, The Post has learned. The ‘CBS Mornings’ co-host, one of the fading Tiffany Network’s few remaining stars, is part of a culture that has ‘dug in’ against attempts by higher-ups to move away from polarizing coverage, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.”

Variety has reached out to CBS representatives for comment.

Trump has waged war against CBS for months. He sued the network’s parent company, Paramount Global, and CBS News for $10 billion due to a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that he alleged was deceptively edited to mislead U.S. voters during the 2024 presidential election season. As reported by Variety, Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million in late May in order to settle the lawsuit as its planned merger with Skydance hung in the balance. Both the company and legal experts had said Trump’s position in the lawsuit was weak, but that didn’t prevent the studio from settling.

Then came CBS’ surprise announce in July that it was canceling Stephen Colbert and the entire “Late Show” franchise. The network cited costs, but the decision sparked many to wonder if the Paramount-Skydance merger and Colbert’s constant jabs at Trump were the real reason for his axing. All the while, Trump used Truth Social to celebrate Colbert’s cancellation.

In a post to Truth Social on July 29, Trump claimed that “everybody” thinks he was “solely responsible” for the end of “The Late Show,” an accusation the president declared “not true!” He asserted the reason Stephen Colbert was canceled was due to “$50 Million Dollars a year” in losses and a “pure lack of TALENT.” Trump went on to say the “even less talented” Jimmy Kimmel, who hosts ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmy Live!,” and the “weak, and very insecure” Jimmy Fallon of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” are next on the chopping block.

 “Colbert became a victim to himself, the other two will follow,” Trump concluded.

Skydance Media announced the full slate of 10 directors for Paramount Skydance Corp., the company resulting from its merger with Paramount Global.

The directors will be elected and begin serving on the Paramount board effective at the completion of the proposed merger with Paramount, expected to close Aug. 7. The current Paramount Global directors, including Shari Redstone, will step down upon the close of the combination.

The Paramount board will consist of 10 directors, including three independent directors. The majority of the board is comprised of the largest shareholders of the company, “further underscoring the deep commitment to building long-term value for all stakeholders,” according to Skydance.

As previously announced, David Ellison, CEO of Skydance Media, will assume the role of chairman and CEO of the new Paramount. The Ellison family will have 100% voting control over Paramount Skydance; the deal was largely bankrolled by Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Nonvoting shares of Paramount Skydance will trade under the symbol “PSKY.”

Also joining the board of the new company are Sherry Lansing, former head of Paramount Pictures; Safra Katz, who has served as CEO of Larry Ellison’s Oracle since 2014; and Gerry Cardinale, whose RedBird Capital Partners was a major backer of the Paramount takeover.

The new directors are:

It’s worth noting that Katz stepped down from Disney’s board in 2024. Byrne, meanwhile, has served on the board of Paramount Global as an independent director.

On Monday, Skydance announced key leadership appointments for the new Paramount Skydance. That included Gordon, who leads the West Coast office of RedBird, who will take the role of chief operating officer and chief strategic officer.

David Ellison said in a statement: “We are thrilled and honored to welcome this truly outstanding group of director-designees to our Board. They are dynamic leaders whose impact spans industries and whose reputations resonate across the business world globally. The legacy of Paramount is one of our greatest strategic assets and it is our strong desire and fiduciary duty to honor that history while positioning the business for sustained value creation. These highly qualified, world-class executives share in our commitment and will play a critical role in guiding the future direction of our combined company, and we are deeply grateful for their willingness to serve.”

Terry Reid, the British musician whose soaring and soulful voice earned him the nickname “Superlungs”, and whose career intersected with the likes of the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Page, has died aged 75, as confirmed by his UK representative. He had been receiving cancer treatment in recent months.

Reid never had a hit on the UK charts, but albums such as 1973’s River remain critically acclaimed, and he was held in such high esteem that he was courted by Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple to be those bands’ lead singer, but turned each of them down. Aretha Franklin stated in 1968: “There are only three things happening in England: the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Terry Reid.”

Born and raised in Cambridgeshire, Reid was a singer, guitarist and songwriter from his early teens, initially with local group the Redbeats. After supporting Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, Reid was asked to join the latter band. By 16, he was supporting the Rolling Stones on tour along with Ike & Tina Turner and the Yardbirds, and after breaking away as a solo artist (and befriending Jimi Hendrix), Reid supported the Stones again around the US.

Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy Page admired Reid and asked if he would join a new band he was forming, but Reid turned him down, citing his commitment to the Stones’ US tour. He recommended Robert Plant, singer in Band of Joy, along with that band’s drummer John Bonham: both men joined Page and formed Led Zeppelin. “I was intent on doing my own thing,” Reid told the Guardian in 2024. “I contributed half the band – that’s enough on my part!”

He also turned down Ritchie Blackmore’s offer to be Deep Purple’s lead singer after Rod Evans’s departure in 1969, but acknowledged: “It was very flattering. Ritchie was one hell of a guitar player.” Ian Gillan would become Deep Purple’s vocalist instead.

Reid signed a management and recording deal with svengali Mickie Most, who oversaw his first two studio albums. His debut Bang Bang, You’re Terry Reid contained a song he wrote when he was 14 years old, Without Expression, which would end up being covered by John Mellencamp, REO Speedwagon and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. There were other high-profile tour support slots, with Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull and more. But Reid’s albums were not commercial successes, and Reid, not seeing eye to eye creatively with Most, eventually split from him.

After some years in limbo thanks to a contractual dispute with Most, Reid returned to recording with 1973’s River, the first of three albums that decade, and moved to California. But he put his solo career on hold in the 1980s, focusing instead on session work with artists including Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley and Jackson Browne.

A comeback in 1991 with the Trevor Horn-produced album The Driver was not commercially or creatively successful, and though his cover of the Spencer Davis Group’s Gimme Some Lovin’ appeared on the soundtrack to Tom Cruise movie Days of Thunder, Reid later pronounced The Driver “unlistenable”.

Reid’s earlier albums became favourites of crate diggers and musos, and he was sought out by artists including DJ Shadow and Alabama 3 for guest appearances in his later years. Jack White’s band the Raconteurs, Marianne Faithfull and Chris Cornell were among the artists who covered his songs. He told the Guardian of unreleased sessions made with Dr Dre, who “became fascinated with [Reid’s album] Seed of Memory and invited me into his studio where we reworked it alongside his rappers, a fascinating experience”.

He also continued to tour, but had to cancel a recent run of live dates amid his cancer treatment. A crowdfunding appeal was set up to cover his medical expenses, which read: “Terry’s spirit remains strong, and he’s deeply grateful for the outpouring of care he’s already received.”

Reid is survived by his wife, Annette. Tributes have been paid by musicians including Joe Bonamassa, who said Reid was “one of the greatest to ever do it and a beautiful person and soul”.