Cultureteca 24.11.19

When the Wallace Collection in London was bequeathed to the nation in 1897, one of the conditions of the bequest was that no work should ever leave the collection, but should remain ‘kept together unmixed with other objects of art’. The Wallace Collection opened to the public three years later, with its paintings by Titian and Rubens, Velázquez, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt, Watteau, Canaletto, Delacroix, and Turner, and its extensive array of 18th-century French art, and it kept to the conditions of the bequest until earlier this year the board of trustees – reinterpreting Lady Wallace’s will – announced that they would for the first time loan works on a temporary basis.

Announced this week, the Wallace Collection’s inaugural loans will see perhaps its most celebrated work, Perseus and Andromeda by Titian, head across town to the National Gallery for a blockbuster exhibition of Titian’s mythological paintings. The exhibition Titian: Love, Desire, Death, opening in the spring, will bring together Titian’s series of six mythological works known collectively as poesie for the first time since the late 16th-century. In return, the Wallace Collection will receive from the National Gallery A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning by Peter Paul Rubens, reuniting the landscape for the first time in two hundred years with its companion piece Rainbow Landscape. A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning will show alongside Rainbow Landscape at the Wallace Collection from May until September, in partnership with VISITFLANDERS.

* * *

Tuesday brought the launch of Google Stadia, the cloud-based service that seeks to revolutionise video gaming by streaming games in up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, thereby doing away with traditional hardware in the form of games consoles and high-end computer architecture. Stadia stills costs in the vicinity of $130 for a kit including a controller and specially adapted version of Chromecast Ultra, plus three months of access to Stadia Pro, which otherwise costs $9.99 each month and enables 4K streaming. Games cost extra, and Stadia launched with an expanded library of twenty-two including popular titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Final Fantasy XV, and Football Manager 2020. Streaming makes discs and download times things of the past. But the service also launched without a raft of promised features, including an achievements system and support for existing versions of Chromacast Ultra, while early reviews were unanimous in citing graphical and latency issues and describing the service at best as a work in progress.

* * *

The triple-double is one of the clearest and catchiest metrics for evaluating performance in all of basketball. It indicates that over the course of one game, a player has achieved double-digit scores in three of the sport’s most crucial categories: usually points scored, number of assists, and successful rebounds, though occasionally steals and blocked shots also come into the equation. The triple-double was first recorded as an official NBA statistic during the 1979-80 season. Magic Johnson brought the metric to prominence, in recent seasons Russell Westbrook has led the way, while Oscar Robertson stands in retrospect as the NBA player to have tallied the most triple-doubles. But at Staples Center on Tuesday night, en route to the Los Angeles Lakers’ 112-107 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder, LeBron James made history by becoming the first player to achieve a triple-double against all thirty of the NBA’s teams. He said:

‘I really don’t know what to think about it to be honest. I’ve had some great teammates and great coaches to put me in a position to be able to facilitate. My teammates have made shots for me throughout my career. Coaches have put me in position to be successful scoring the ball. I was just trying to read and react to the ball off the rim as far as getting rebounds. And hopefully throughout all those triple-doubles I have a winning record in those games.’

* * *

After rumours of an early leak, on Wednesday the nominations for the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards were officially announced, and leading the way were a trio of first-time nominees in the forms of Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and Lil Nas X, with eight nods and six apiece. Ariana Grande and H.E.R. each received five nominations, and there were the usual airings of grievances, nice surprises, and perceived snubs, with Lana Del Rey, Bon Iver, and Vampire Weekend leading an indie charge, a lack of rap beyond the genre categories, and notable absences leaving Taylor Swift and BTS fans more than a little upset. BTS and Taylor – who wouldn’t you know it, got to perform after all amid an ongoing row over record ownership – got over the slight with success at the American Music Awards over the weekend. Some critics saw in the slew of first-time nominations a changing of the guard, with old hands like Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow also left out. The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards will air live from Staples Center, Los Angeles on 26 January.

* * *

In a week of ups and downs for SpaceX and tech magnate Elon Musk, the company’s Starship prototype – a spacecraft and reusable launch vehicle which together with the Super Heavy booster intends to send cargo and passengers into deep space – made both its first and last breath. After experiencing the first of a series of pressure tests on Monday evening at SpaceX’s South Texas site at Boca Chica, on Wednesday during a subsequent test Starship Mk1 blew its top. SpaceX said that the outcome was ‘not completely unexpected’, while Musk confirmed that the company will now retire Mk1 and focus on Starship Mk3, which will be powered by six rather than three Raptor engines and is intended for flight.

Starship and the Super Heavy booster will both be fully reusable, and when Starship is complete it will replace the existing Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon 2 spacecraft, with enough room for cargo, astronauts, or up to one hundred passengers on trips to the Moon, Mars, or beyond. The company received an external boost at the start of the week as it was selected by NASA to join the agency’s list of Commercial Lunar Payload Services providers, tasked with delivering scientific instruments and technology to the Moon. To be eligible for the programme, providers must be capable of delivering at least 10 kg of payload, and SpaceX will now get the opportunity to bid for projects alongside Blue Origin, Ceres Robotics, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, who were also selected on Monday, and Astrobotic Technology, Deep Space Systems, Draper, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, Lockheed Martin Space, Masten Space Systems, Moon Express, and Orbit Beyond, who were selected as providers last year.

Meanwhile Tesla suffered a mishap of its own, as Musk saw fit to introduce the Tesla Cybertruck – an electric battery-powered light commercial vehicle – by pelting its windows with metal balls. The shiny new thing with a starting price of $39,900, capable of towing from 3,400 kg to 6,350 kg at its tri-motor configuration and intended as a futuristic substitute for the gas-guzzling truck, was being unveiled at Tesla Design Studio in Hawthorne, California on Thursday when it was subject to a series of toughness tests, starting out with a sledgehammer which barely marked its stainless steel. When attention turned to the Cybertruck’s ‘armor glass’ windows however, there was more than a chink as a metal ball smashed both front and rear windows, causing Musk to exclaim ‘Oh my fucking God’. Shares in Tesla fell quickly by more than 6%, but they were rebounding by the weekend thanks to 200,000 preorders for a vehicle that won’t be ready until 2022.

* * *

The Copa Libertadores, the most prestigious club football competition in South America, was decided in dramatic fashion on Saturday night as two late goals by Gabriel Barbosa handed the trophy to Flamengo, who triumphed 2-1 versus River Plate.  This was the first time the final of the competition had been scheduled as a single match, replacing the traditional two-legged home-and-away format, and the Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos in Santiago, Chile was set as the destination before civil protests in the country – fomented by rising subway prices as Chileans challenge growing inequality – prompted a change of plan. The final was switched instead, after some deliberation, to the Estadio Monumental in Lima, Peru.

There it was River Plate, the reigning Libertadores champions from Argentina, who opened the scoring as Rafael Santos Borré slotted home following a pull-back from Ignacio Fernández. River Plate were dominating the match, and while Flamengo surged on the counter attack, the Argentinians led until the 89th minute, when trickery down the left from Bruno Henrique and a prodded ball across goal from Giorgian De Arrascaeta allowed Barbosa to finish into an empty net for the equaliser. It looked like the game was headed into extra time, but in the second minute of injury time a long ball forward caused confusion among the River Plate centre-backs, and Barbosa stole in to snatch the victory for Flamengo. There was still time for a scuffle which resulted in Exequiel Palacios and Barbosa both being sent off.

* * *

In a conversation with theoretical physicist Sean Carroll on his Mindscape podcast at the start of the week, the musician Grimes commented on artificial intelligence, artificial general intelligence, and the future of art, saying:

‘I feel like we’re in the end of art, human art […] I mean once AI, once there’s actual AGI, it’s just going to be so much better at making art than us […] once AI can totally master science and art, which could happen in the next ten years, probably more like twenty or thirty years.

[…] 

Ultimately AI will get to a point where it will be able to emulate all our hormones, all our feelings, all our emotions, and it’ll be able to see great art and it’ll be able to understand what true innovation is probably even better than we are […] and I think this is both great and bad, but I think part of the reason it’s great is that I feel like we’re kind of in this amazing time where we might be the last artists ever.’

Grimes seemed to be less extolling this possible artistic hinterland, more discussing with a certain degree of excitement its apparent inevitability, with she and Carroll also discussing digital avatars and drawing analogies with the computerisation of chess. Nevertheless Grimes’ comments prompted much debate on social media, as artists including Devon Welsh, Zola Jesus, and Joanne Pollock contemplated ‘Silicon fascism’, artificial intelligence as a tool of oppression, technological innovation, performative imperfection, the sustainability of live music, the act of creation and the connective tissue of art.

* * *

After months of demonstrations, spurred by the introduction of an extradition bill with mainland China before coming to encompass other threats to regional autonomy and civil liberties, on Sunday the people of Hong Kong went to the polls to vote in the region’s local elections. Ever since the creation of eighteen district councils in Hong Kong back in 1982, local elections in the region have been a relatively tame affair, with turnout rarely approaching never mind surpassing 50%. The last election in 2015 saw an increased turnout of 47.01%, with a strong victory for the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), and pro-Beijing candidates coming away across all eighteen district councils with 298 of 431 seats. A broad pro-democratic coalition of candidates won 105 seats, with 17 additionally won by new parties formed predominantly by young people in the wake of the 2014 Occupy protests.

This time it was different. With the district council elections widely viewed as a sort of referendum on the ongoing demonstrations and the government’s response, turnout rose to 71.23%. And the 2.94 million voters overwhelmingly backed the pro-democracy camp, with pro-democracy candidates winning an astonishing 388 seats while pro-Beijing candidates were reduced to just 62. The previously dominant DAB was decimated, taking just 21 seats, a loss of 96. The New People’s Party led by Regina Ip – a member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong, the cabinet body which advises the chief executive – failed to win a single seat, and other prominent pro-Beijing candidates lost their bids for re-election. Pro-democrats now control 17 of 18 district councils, whereas previously the pro-Beijing camp controlled them all.

The Chief Executive of Hong Kong Carrie Lam said that the government would ‘listen to the opinions of members of the public humbly and seriously reflect’. District council elections are the most democratic in Hong Kong, with virtually all seats directly elected, unlike in the Legislative Council where half of the 70 members are indirectly elected by special interest groups. The people of Hong Kong also do not get to elect their chief executive, who is instead chosen by the Election Committee, a body of 1,200 members drawn mostly from different sectors of public life. The Election Committee has often been criticised for being undemocratic and stacked with pro-Beijing members, but Sunday’s elections will see 117 district council subsector seats swing in favour of pro-democrats. Young people have been heralded for getting out to vote on Sunday, as new movements, first-time candidates, and prominent protesters backed up established parties like the Democratic Party and the Civic Party, both of whom significantly increased their seats.

* * *

The Davis Cup, once undisputed as the premier international team event in men’s tennis, wore a controversial new look this week as it debuted in Madrid in a condensed format. Previously the top sixteen national teams in men’s tennis met across four weekends over the course of the season, in a knockout competition with each tie determined by best-of-five matches and traditional best-of-five sets. Qualification for the World Group comprising the sixteen top teams took place regionally following a similar format. The Davis Cup as it was played a unique role in the tennis calendar: with ties played locally on a home-or-away basis, the event brought quality tennis to unfamiliar locations and infused with national spirit, ties were often fiercely partisan. But with months separating the four knockout rounds, and some of the top players occasionally abstaining or unable to hoist up their more limited national counterparts, advertisers baulked and investors stepped in for a rebranding.

The new-look Davis Cup is the brainchild of Barcelona and Spain footballer Gerard Piqué, and his Kosmos Tennis holding and investment group. They have pledged $3 billion dollars over twenty-five years in the hope of taking the 119-year-old event decisively into the twenty-first century. The problem is that this version of the Davis Cup seems entirely alien, sharing none of the old format’s cherished characteristics. Instead, after a qualification weekend early in the year, it features eighteen teams playing across one week in one location: this time around La Caja Mágica in Madrid, also home of the Madrid Open. Ties are now best-of-three matches and shorter best-of-three sets. The teams are divided into six groups of three, with group winners and the two best runners-up competing across quarter-finals, semi-finals, and one grand final.

With a tagline optimistically describing the event as the ‘World Cup of Tennis’ and prominent branding courtesy of the Japanese online retailer Rakuten, the changes were controversial before the week got underway, with top players including Roger Federer, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Daniil Medvedev missing out whether by design or convenient accident. Management companies and sponsorship considerations come into play – as the event is not part of the men’s tour, participation is optional, and Federer and Zverev opted instead to play before sold-out crowds in South America – but this Davis Cup comes tacked-on to the end of a long season, with other team competitions now on the horizon. The Laver Cup, spearheaded by Federer and in its third year an official ATP Tour event, echoes the Davis Cup’s roots as an annual tournament between Team World and Team Europe, while the ATP Cup is set to premiere in January.

In Madrid this week, the Davis Cup was hampered by low attendances and late finishes. Television broadcasting was erratic even in Spain, and especially in the United States, the sport’s single biggest market. Kosmos Tennis are already contemplating changes to the format, including ways to solve attendance and scheduling issues, and a potential further reduction of the event from eighteen to eight qualifiers. But on the court at Caja Mágica, there was still plenty of room for excitement. World number one Rafa Nadal pulled double duty in the singles and deciding doubles match to help Spain come from behind in their quarter-final against Argentina. Meanwhile Vasek Pospisil inspired Canada to victory over an Australia side without the injured Nick Kyrgios, and Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev of Russia beat out Novak Djokovic and Viktor Troicki to send Serbia packing. When Canada edged out Russia in the semis and Spain managed the same versus Great Britain, the two teams met in what turned out to be a one-sided final, Nadal’s success over Denis Shapovalov spurring early Spanish celebrations.