Douglas McLennan
@ajdoug.bsky.social
ArtsJournal editor. AI, tech, journalism, arts (not in that order)
Five observations about the state of the arts in America in 2026. A sample: artists now need to have AI riders in their contracts to protect what might happen to their work. www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
The Great Renegotiation: Five Ideas about where Culture is going in 2026
If 2025 is the year that 20th Century culture models stopped working, 2026 is the year we turn to building something new.
www.artsjournal.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:17 PM
Five observations about the state of the arts in America in 2026. A sample: artists now need to have AI riders in their contracts to protect what might happen to their work. www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
We gathered more than 6000 stories across the arts in 2025 on ArtsJournal.com. Here are my five grossly over-generalized observations about the state of things... douglasmclennan.substack.com/p/five-year-...
January 1, 2026 at 3:31 PM
We gathered more than 6000 stories across the arts in 2025 on ArtsJournal.com. Here are my five grossly over-generalized observations about the state of things... douglasmclennan.substack.com/p/five-year-...
Engagement doesn’t mean pummeling your visitors with more information. It means listening and reacting, adapting and influencing. The AI Digital Twin turns museums into conversations. www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
AI that turns Museums into Conversations: The Digital Twin
Museums still operate as if interpretation is a one-way stream, produced by experts and consumed by the public. Instead, imagine an exhibition that doesn’t just speak, but listens and respond…
www.artsjournal.com
December 28, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Engagement doesn’t mean pummeling your visitors with more information. It means listening and reacting, adapting and influencing. The AI Digital Twin turns museums into conversations. www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
Watching #GameofThrones on #HBO when dialog switched to Czech! Not just Czech but "described" Czech. Tried to switch back to English but option wasn't available, so I used English subtitles. English returned next ep. Now 3 episodes int S8, it has switched to Chinese! I'm feeling very cosmopolitan!
December 28, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Watching #GameofThrones on #HBO when dialog switched to Czech! Not just Czech but "described" Czech. Tried to switch back to English but option wasn't available, so I used English subtitles. English returned next ep. Now 3 episodes int S8, it has switched to Chinese! I'm feeling very cosmopolitan!
Like it or not, Disney's big deal w/ OpenAI last week portends what a new creative landscape will look like with AI. It may not be pretty...
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
www.artsjournal.com
December 16, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Like it or not, Disney's big deal w/ OpenAI last week portends what a new creative landscape will look like with AI. It may not be pretty...
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
What if we outsourced our art to machines and nobody cared?
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
The AI that has Colonized our Creativity
Everyone’s talking about AI, and you’re being pestered to use it every time you open your phone. But are you aware the extent that AI has taken over how much of what you see and hear on…
www.artsjournal.com
December 8, 2025 at 3:57 PM
What if we outsourced our art to machines and nobody cared?
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
December 5, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Classical music is an opaque mystery for many newcomers. AI that's “studied” the entire repertoire and every recorded performance could answer questions about pieces or performances that relate to one another, and start to interact with your preferences. www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
The Essential AI: Translating the Art of What We See, Hear and Experience
To an AI model, a picture is data, sound and music are data, as is traditional spoken or written language. That data is translatable, interchangeable, and, most importantly, linkable and actionable…
www.artsjournal.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Classical music is an opaque mystery for many newcomers. AI that's “studied” the entire repertoire and every recorded performance could answer questions about pieces or performances that relate to one another, and start to interact with your preferences. www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
When thinking about AI and creativity, it helps to think of systemic/structural change rather than new toolsets. open.substack.com/pub/douglasm...
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 AM
When thinking about AI and creativity, it helps to think of systemic/structural change rather than new toolsets. open.substack.com/pub/douglasm...
A framework for thinking about AI and the arts. Big money changes hands for art. Highlights from the 120 stories we collected across the internet about the arts. douglasmclennan.substack.com/p/roundup-th...
November 23, 2025 at 5:53 AM
A framework for thinking about AI and the arts. Big money changes hands for art. Highlights from the 120 stories we collected across the internet about the arts. douglasmclennan.substack.com/p/roundup-th...
November 22, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Today's ArtsJournal highlights open.substack.com/pub/douglasm...
November 21, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Today's ArtsJournal highlights open.substack.com/pub/douglasm...
If web users can get answers from chatbots directly, why should they visit websites? Here's something I wrote about what's about to happen to journalism business models as AI begins to dominate.
www.postalley.org/2025/10/07/j...
www.postalley.org/2025/10/07/j...
Journalism is in Dire Straits. It’s About to get so Much Worse
If web users can get news from chatbots directly, why should they visit websites? Since Google introduced its AI summaries atop search results, publishers have reported traffic has dropped sharply.…
www.postalley.org
October 7, 2025 at 6:24 PM
If web users can get answers from chatbots directly, why should they visit websites? Here's something I wrote about what's about to happen to journalism business models as AI begins to dominate.
www.postalley.org/2025/10/07/j...
www.postalley.org/2025/10/07/j...
Some of my thoughts on AI and creativity: There’s no question we lose something when tools make what was previously special, commonplace. But if the extraordinary becomes generic then extraordinary has to be, by definition, redefined. And that usually means up.
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
Making the Creative Turn: Is Using AI Cheating?
Throughout the digital age, Big Tech has promised us products that will make us more efficient and save time, which, it is assumed, is always an obvious good. It’s a cliché that tools shape the thi…
www.artsjournal.com
June 30, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Some of my thoughts on AI and creativity: There’s no question we lose something when tools make what was previously special, commonplace. But if the extraordinary becomes generic then extraordinary has to be, by definition, redefined. And that usually means up.
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...
Reposted by Douglas McLennan
A dazzling ocean of tulips stretching endlessly in Hokkaido, Japan...
June 15, 2025 at 6:08 AM
A dazzling ocean of tulips stretching endlessly in Hokkaido, Japan...
Reposted by Douglas McLennan
Really hard to say what the worst part of this NEA grant termination letter is (sent at 10pm on a Friday!) but I think it's finding out the federal government's priority for arts funds is now "fostering AI competency" rather than funding literature.
May 3, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Really hard to say what the worst part of this NEA grant termination letter is (sent at 10pm on a Friday!) but I think it's finding out the federal government's priority for arts funds is now "fostering AI competency" rather than funding literature.
Reposted by Douglas McLennan
Just in case if you missed this printing event in #Mainz: they publically printed a giant page of the Gutenberg bible in the format 5 x 7,20 meter. #bookhistory #skystorians
April 29, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Just in case if you missed this printing event in #Mainz: they publically printed a giant page of the Gutenberg bible in the format 5 x 7,20 meter. #bookhistory #skystorians
Universities organizing to create a mutual defense pact. There are signs law firms are as well (tho sadly not the biggest). Maybe arts orgs ought to get together to form one? NEH, NEA, CPB, Smithsonian, IMLS are getting killed & maybe some collective support wd help?
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/u...
Emerging From a Collective Silence, Universities Organize to Fight Trump
A recent group statement showed that the nation’s academic leaders, at first reluctant to oppose the president’s moves, are beginning to unite.
www.nytimes.com
April 27, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Universities organizing to create a mutual defense pact. There are signs law firms are as well (tho sadly not the biggest). Maybe arts orgs ought to get together to form one? NEH, NEA, CPB, Smithsonian, IMLS are getting killed & maybe some collective support wd help?
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/u...
So dating apps are... dying. The tech has reduced human connection to a transactional ecosystem that feels gamified:
“It makes you feel like you’re connecting with people … you’ve got all this choice. But it’s not nourishing, there’s no actual … human connection.”
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
“It makes you feel like you’re connecting with people … you’ve got all this choice. But it’s not nourishing, there’s no actual … human connection.”
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
Dating apps face a reckoning as users log off: ‘There’s no actual human connection’
In Australia, dating apps have been hit with lawsuits and new regulation, while their profits are declining worldwide
www.theguardian.com
April 27, 2025 at 1:16 PM
So dating apps are... dying. The tech has reduced human connection to a transactional ecosystem that feels gamified:
“It makes you feel like you’re connecting with people … you’ve got all this choice. But it’s not nourishing, there’s no actual … human connection.”
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
“It makes you feel like you’re connecting with people … you’ve got all this choice. But it’s not nourishing, there’s no actual … human connection.”
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
So what is social media if it isn't about sharing? Meta said in its trial that SM has become traditional media, that time spent viewing content posted by ‘friends’ ” has declined in the past two years, from 22% to 17% on Facebook, and from 11% to 7% on Instagram.
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over
During testimony at Meta’s antitrust trial, the Facebook founder’s argument was, in so many words, that platforms like his are not what they used to be.
www.newyorker.com
April 27, 2025 at 1:11 PM
So what is social media if it isn't about sharing? Meta said in its trial that SM has become traditional media, that time spent viewing content posted by ‘friends’ ” has declined in the past two years, from 22% to 17% on Facebook, and from 11% to 7% on Instagram.
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
Major arts foundations are pulling back funding support. “If the arts are a tool of democracy and a powerful safeguard against oppression, then—considering (inflation, corporatization, federal cuts)—the stakes of arts funding couldn’t be higher.”
www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
The Show Can’t Go On
Funding shifts at three of the largest philanthropic foundations have brought turbulence and uncertainty to the intricate New York support system for the performing arts.
www.newyorker.com
April 25, 2025 at 1:14 AM
Major arts foundations are pulling back funding support. “If the arts are a tool of democracy and a powerful safeguard against oppression, then—considering (inflation, corporatization, federal cuts)—the stakes of arts funding couldn’t be higher.”
www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...
Great piece in @theatlantic.com: The cost of hobbies impinges on our social interactions and culture. "They’re choices about whom I spend time with, what communities I invest in or extract myself from, what friendship networks to maintain and which to let wither." www.theatlantic.com/family/archi...
What We Lose When We’re Priced Out of Our Hobbies
For a lot of people, it’s getting too expensive to knit or fish.
www.theatlantic.com
April 21, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Great piece in @theatlantic.com: The cost of hobbies impinges on our social interactions and culture. "They’re choices about whom I spend time with, what communities I invest in or extract myself from, what friendship networks to maintain and which to let wither." www.theatlantic.com/family/archi...
Four supreme court justices seem to think not only is it okay for the government not to pay its bills for work that has already been contracted, approved and COMPLETED, but that it's OK for government to ignore a District Court ruling to comply with an order. Translation: laws no longer apply.
March 5, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Four supreme court justices seem to think not only is it okay for the government not to pay its bills for work that has already been contracted, approved and COMPLETED, but that it's OK for government to ignore a District Court ruling to comply with an order. Translation: laws no longer apply.