CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

With New Congress, Resale Royalties Bill Is Dead (Again)

This week, the 114th Congress took its seats, meaning that any bill not passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed by the president is a dead letter. This is the fate of many bills—indeed most. Art Law Report has followed two proposed laws for four years now, each of which have been introduced in some form in successive Congresses, only to lapse when a new Congress stepped in. (Read more from Art Law Report.)

Can the First Amendment Survive the Internet?

The internet presents First Amendment quandaries that seem fundamentally different from those society faced previously. But are they really? Once only people wealthy enough to own a newspaper or a broadcast station could reach a large audience. Now anyone with access to a computer or even a cellphone—in other words, just about everyone—can reach a large number of people almost instantly. It used to be, too, that serious research often required a trip to a distant library or museum. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

US Artists That Use Drones Could Be Grounded

Artists in the United States could have less than a year left to freely use drones in their work. Although current flight restrictions apply only to commercial, not artistic, use of drones, the Federal Aviation Administration is working on new regulations that are due to be submitted to Congress by September. The clampdown comes in the face of the drone’s growing accessibility. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

See What the Artworks See

As museum goers, we’re used to looking at art, but a new project from the filmmaker and artist Masashi Kawamura inverses the traditional relationship of viewer to artwork. For his blog What They See, Kawamura has taken photographs from the perspectives of famous artworks, inviting us into their visual fields. Among the works represented so far are Degas’s The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, who apparently spends her days at the Metropolitan Museum gazing at the arch of a doorway, and Modigliani’s Reclining Nude, who gazes sideways at the paintings on the opposite wall. (Read more from Hyperallergic.)

Describing Art: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Effects of Speaking on Gaze Movements during the Beholding of Paintings

Ever since the Renaissance, speaking about paintings has been a fundamental approach for beholders—especially experts. It is unclear, however, whether and how speaking about art modifies the way we look at it; this was not yet empirically tested. The present study investigated in what way speaking modifies the patterns of fixations and gaze movements while looking at paintings. (Read more from PLOS One.)

How to Survive a PhD Viva: Seventeen Top Tips

Handing in your PhD thesis is a massive achievement—but it’s not the end of the journey for doctoral students. Once you’ve submitted, you’ll need to prepare for the next intellectually grueling hurdle: a viva. This oral examination formally ensures that there’s no plagiarism involved, and that the student understands and can explain their thesis. It involves lots of penetrating questions and conceptually complex debates—and is infamously terrifying. (Read more from the Guardian.)

Ask the Art Professor: How Can I Study to Become a Professional Artist on My Own?

I am 23 years old and a beginning visual artist. I really want to get to a professional level but have no idea how to teach myself to get to that level. I can’t afford to go to art school and don’t have much money for local classes and workshops. Is there any way I could do this on my own? (Read more from the Huffington Post.)

Writing with a Heavy Teaching Load

Rachel Toor’s essay “The Habits of Highly Productive Writers” contains practical information for academics seeking to boost their written output; it also approaches the topic in a way that, for me, makes the whole endeavor seem a bit less daunting. I can imagine many readers came away from her column thinking, “I can do this.” And yet, I can also imagine that many full-time faculty members at community colleges and other teaching-focused institutions found themselves also thinking, “That would be nice—if only I had the time to write.” (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)