Best of hyperallergic.com on Kiwi News
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43 stories from hyperallergic.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 23 November 2023, with 57 upvotes and 8 comments in total. The latest was shared on 26 September 2025. They are listed below, most upvoted first.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- Who Owns the Copyright for an AI-Generated Artwork?
Jason M. Allen is appealing a US Copyright Office denial of protection for "Théâtre d'Opéra Spatial," an AI-generated artwork made with Midjourney that won a Colorado art competition in 2022. The Copyright Review Board upheld the rejection in September 2023 after Allen refused to disclose which parts of the piece were AI-created and which were modified by the artist. Allen's appeal, filed September 26 with the US District Court for the District of Colorado, says he prompted Midjourney 624 times, a process requiring "more than the bare minimal mental effort." His attorney, Tamara Pester Schklar, argues that when a human uses a machine to create a work, the human should still be considered the author.
- A Trump-Musk Feud That’s Ripe for the Meme-ing
The article argues that memes mocking the Trump-Musk feud ridicule the fragile egos of powerful men, but often lean on homophobic and misogynistic tropes. It says the feud began after Trump withdrew his pick to run NASA, Jared Isaacman, a close associate of Musk, and Musk criticized Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" as "pork-filled." On June 5, Musk alleged on X that Trump appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, and the viral content that followed likened the conflict to a feminine rivalry, invoking the "burn book" from Mean Girls (2004).
- Children “In Tears” at Disastrous Wonka Factory “Experience”
Willy's Chocolate Experience, a two-day event in Glasgow, Scotland, drew hundreds of families with AI-generated marketing images that did not match the real event. Ticket buyers, who paid £35 (~$44) each, reported children given only a couple of jelly candies and a quarter cup of canned lemonade in a sparsely decorated warehouse, and police attended the site. The event was shut down and canceled, and the creator, Billy Coull, whose company House of Illuminati was created last November, has promised refunds, though Coull did not respond to Hyperallergic's request for comment.
- Buyer of Maurizio Cattelan Banana Invests $100M in Trump Crypto
Justin Sun, the founder of Tron and the largest holder of Donald Trump's meme coin $TRUMP, announced on July 9 that he is purchasing $100 million worth of the token. Sun said on X that the purchase reflects his "belief in collaborating across ecosystems to grow the crypto landscape." The article notes that Sun also spent a total of $75 million on $WLFI tokens in November 2024 and January 2025, and that he remains involved in a 2023 SEC civil fraud case against him. Ethics watchdogs have raised concerns about the Trump meme coin, and Maxine Waters said Republican-backed legislation would "make Congress complicit in Trump's unprecedented crypto scam."
- Did Art History Predict the Rise of Moo Deng?
Hyperallergic's September 25, 2024 article argues that art history is full of hippo depictions that range from sweet to spooky, and that Moo Deng, the viral Thai baby pygmy hippo, is far from the first hippo to enchant audiences. The piece surveys works from Ancient Egypt's "William" statuette and the Taweret figurine to Adriaen Coenen's 1579 Visboek and Peter Paul Rubens's 1616 "The Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt." It also highlights Obaysch, the 1850s London Zoo hippo who inspired "The Hippopotamus Polka," and Herman Jr., whose 1865 portraits by Frederik Willem Zürcher were drawn after he became the world's first hippo to survive a captive birth.
- Banana Company Artwashes Its Bloody Legacy at Art Basel Miami Beach
Chiquita's sponsorship of Art Basel Miami Beach is an example of artwashing, according to an opinion piece by the authors of Banana Craze, a digital humanities project on banana imagery in contemporary Latin American art. The authors note that Chiquita, formerly the United Fruit Company, was found liable in a civil case in 2024 for financing paramilitary killings in Colombia between 1997 and 2004, and that the judge ordered it to pay $38.3 million to the victims' families. The authors argue that the fair, with its strong Latin American character, should instead spotlight Latin American artists who criticize the company's practices.
- The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World: 2023 Edition
The Hyperallergic "Powerless 20" list for 2023 names people and groups outside an art world that favors the wealthy and privileged, ranging from persecuted artists to Indigenous communities and public sculptures. Entries include Indigenous people whose ancestral remains are held by museums, with Harvard named, and artists silenced by governments, including Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara in Cuba and Osman Kavala in Turkey. The article also cites the Committee to Protect Journalists, which documented dozens of journalist deaths in Gaza in the first 10 weeks after Hamas's October 7 attack, and the UN's description of Sudan as the world's largest displacement crisis.
- Banana Artwork Sells for $6.2 Million
A banana taped to a wall, Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" (2019), sold at Sotheby's in New York for $6.2 million including fees, with a hammer price of $5.2 million. Crypto investor Justin Sun, owner of BitCurrent and founder of the Tron platform, was announced as the buyer in an email blast. Sun said he plans to "personally eat the banana" in the coming days. The work had been offered with an estimate of $1–1.5 million and had changed hands three times since its 2019 debut at Art Basel Miami Beach, where editions sold for between $120,000 and $150,000.
- There’s Something Toxic About Megan Bickel’s Landscapes
Megan Bickel's Orgonon exhibition at Institute 193 in Lexington, Kentucky, uses digitally collaged photographs and layered paint to explore how new technologies disrupt knowledge and visual perception. The reviewer describes the 12 recent paintings as conveying a vibrant, disquieting sense of living now, amid war, environmental destruction and unease with artificial intelligence. The title work's reflective fabric, photographed in grass, was mistaken by the reviewer for a Photoshop illusion, which the reviewer finds unsettling. According to the gallery statement, Bickel's research assesses how Google Vision API would affect climate reporting. The show runs through July 27.
- Trump Is Guilty and the Memes Are Plenty
Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 charges of falsifying business records in an effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. The article, a meme-filled piece from Hyperallergic, presents the verdict as a small victory for justice and says it remains unclear whether it will affect Trump's election prospects in November or his standing with his supporters. It also notes that conservative media is trying to spin the verdict, and that the piece's author suggests the timing is "a little too convenient" according to MAGA supporters.
- New Reports Expose the Global Toll of Censorship
Two 2025 reports document a growing global decline in freedom of expression and artistic freedom. Article 19's Global Expression Report, published in June, finds that 70% of the world's population has experienced declining expressive freedom over the past decade, with 5.2 billion people living in "crisis" or "highly restricted" conditions. Only 35 of 161 countries remain "open," and for every person who gained expressive freedom, 19 lost it. Freemuse's State of Artistic Freedom report documents censorship, imprisonment and harassment of artists, including in the United States.
- New App Turns Mobile Boarding Passes Into JD Vance Memes
A new web generator called Dare Fail lets users turn their Apple Wallet boarding passes into JD Vance memes, with the design built on a blurred version of the meme that border agents questioned Norwegian Mads Mikkelsen over. Tech entrepreneur James Steinberg created the tool to keep attention on Mikkelsen's case, saying "we have to decide if we're okay with bald memes of our vice president in our airports or not." Steinberg told Hyperallergic that 431 people had uploaded boarding passes as of Tuesday afternoon, and that to his knowledge none had been deported. It is unclear whether using the boarding passes is legal.
- Frida Kahlo and Henri Matisse Enter the Public Domain
Works by Henri Matisse, Frida Kahlo, Robert Capa, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway and Mahatma Gandhi entered the public domain on January 1, 2025, depending on jurisdiction. Under the "life plus 70 years" term used in the UK and parts of Europe and South America, Matisse, Kahlo and Swedish sculptor Carl Eldh are now in the public domain, while in the US, works first published before 1978 are protected for 95 years from publication, so films and books from 1929 are included. The article notes that trademarks and the right to publicity can still restrict uses of Kahlo's name and likeness, as Laura Ricciardi, an art law instructor at SUNY Purchase, explained.
- The 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World: 2024 Edition
Hyperallergic's annual 20 Most Powerless list recognizes people and groups in the art community who are overlooked and would benefit from greater visibility. The list includes Asheville's River Arts District, which Jeffrey Burroughs, president of the River Arts District Artists association, said lost the artworks and supplies of over 300 artists when Hurricane Helene struck in September. Other entries cover Sudanese artists amid the civil war and Florida arts organizations after Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed $32 million in arts and culture funding in June.
- The Canonization of St. Luigi
The author's central point is that the NYPD's December 2024 photo of Luigi Mangione's extradition unintentionally echoes Renaissance and earlier paintings of Christ's arrest, turning him into a sympathetic figure. Heinrich Hofmann's 1858 "Arrest of Christ" is cited as a close visual match, with armed officers surrounding a defenseless figure in similar positioning. The piece also argues that public opinion diverges from official censure, noting that nearly 41% of voters in their 20s see Mangione's actions as justified, and it criticizes a New York Times editorial by Bret Stephens that called Brian Thompson "the real working-class hero."
- The Meme Glorification of Luigi Mangione
Memes glorifying Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect in the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, have spread widely across social media platforms. The article attributes the trend to Gen-Z's generational connection to Mangione, frustrations with the US healthcare system, and desensitization to violent imagery, including the murder of George Floyd and images of Israel's war on Gaza. It notes that "Mangione" was the top trending topic on X at the time of writing, and that the memes include saint-style portraits and jokes about alibis and conjugal visits. The author also notes that memes followed an Anthem Blue Cross policy reversal on anesthesia coverage after online backlash.
- Art Basel Miami Beach Returns With Smoke and Mirrors
Hyperallergic's report from Art Basel Miami Beach argues that the fair's sales buzz and polished presentation obscure political uncertainty, shrinking participation and high costs. The article describes Portia Munson's "Bound Angel" (2021) in the Meridians section as a standout work and reports strong sales, including $1.8 million asked for a Mary Lovelace O'Neal canvas at Jenkins Johnson Gallery. It notes that 50 galleries from the 2023 edition were absent this year, while a press release cited 34 first-time exhibitors. Booth fees range from $26,850 to $191,360, and applying costs $600, according to the article.
- When Copyright Transforms the Right to Remember
Images of the "We Are Our Mountains" monument in occupied Artsakh were removed from Wikimedia Commons, which now warns against uploading new photos of it because Azerbaijan's copyright regime is said to lack adequate freedom of panorama. The article argues that the monument's legal status changed even though the sculpture itself did not move. Wikimedia's volunteer-written advice reportedly held that images of monuments from Azerbaijan and Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh were not allowed, and volunteers deleted the images. The article also argues that the sculpture, created in 1967 by Sargis Baghdasaryan, may be in the public domain under Azerbaijan's law, and that Azerbaijan's misuse of it could violate the creator's moral rights.
- Qualeasha Wood Weaves the Online Into the IRL
Qualeasha Wood's exhibition code_anima, on view at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture in Charlotte until September 22, presents her most intimate performance of self to date, exploring the digital and linguistic codes she navigates online. Curated by Leandra-Juliet Kelley as part of the Gantt Center's 50th-anniversary program, the show includes jacquard-woven, tufted and resin diamond-studded works. The centerpiece, "I Still Need That (40 acres)," is a nearly 16-foot weaving depicting fictional terms and conditions for accessing Blackness online, made illegible on purpose. "Linguistics," composed largely of memes Wood saved from Twitter, is described as reading like a visualization of Legacy Russell's argument in Black Meme (2024).
- Market Uncertainty Didn’t Dampen Sales at This Year’s Armory Show
The Armory Show in New York reportedly saw strong sales despite uncertainty in the broader art market, particularly from galleries whose buyers were not reselling or consigning works at auction. Kasmin sold Robert Motherwell's "Apse" (1980–1984) for $825,000, reportedly a high mark of the day, and Ai Weiwei's bronze sculpture at Tang Contemporary Art reportedly went for $450,000. Works by women artists making their Armory debut also sold quickly, including paintings by Emily Weiner and Gabrielle Garland at Miles McEnery that were gone on the first day.
- The Unnatural Link Between Mothering and Technological Surveillance
The article is a curator's reflection on how mothering intersects with technology and surveillance, drawing on the 2023 MIT Press collection Supervision: On Motherhood and Surveillance, edited by Sophie Hamacher with Jessica Hankey. It describes how the book's essays on the baby monitor, the nanny cam and "virtual mothering" informed the curator's online exhibition, Wake Windows: The Witching Hour, presented by the MacKenzie Art Gallery. The exhibition's guide is Edgar, a 42-year-old mainframe computer from Claudia Cornwall's 1982 children's book Print-Outs, revived as an AI companion for a newborn.
- Judge Says Artists Can Sue AI Companies for Using Their Work
A California federal judge ruled that a group of 10 visual artists can proceed with copyright claims against Stability, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway over text-to-image generative AI. Judge William Orrick dismissed the artists' unjust enrichment and breach of contract claims but found the copyright infringement complaints plausible, including claims that their artwork was used to train the companies' AI. The class-action suit, filed in November in the U.S. District Court in Northern California, centers on the alleged use of the LAION dataset of five billion images to develop Stable Diffusion.
- Photos of Olympic Divers’ Faces Have the Internet in Tears
Getty Images photographer Quinn Rooney argues that the distorted facial expressions of Olympic divers are a sign of athletic skill rather than something to mock. Rooney, who covered diving at the Paris Olympics, says the expressions reflect the force and spins of the dives and show the pressure the divers are under, and that photographers aim for the most athletic poses. The photos have drawn online reactions comparing the faces to anger, surprise or toilet-sitting gestures, and one Instagram user commented that it was "kinda humiliating for such amazing achievements."
- Where Is Mavis Beacon, the Woman Who Taught Us to Type?
Seeking Mavis Beacon (2024), a documentary by director Jazmin Jones and computer programmer Olivia McKayla Ross, searches for Renée L'Espérance, the Haitian woman who modeled for the fictional character in the 1987 education software Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and recently screened at BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia. According to the article, the software developers reportedly discovered L'Espérance while she worked at a department store perfume counter and paid her $500 for her image, while the game series sold six million copies between 1987 and 1998. Jones tells Hyperallergic that she came to see the process as "extractive," and the pair eventually considers that L'Espérance may simply not want to be found.
- No, the Olympics Ceremony Did Not Copy “The Last Supper”
The Paris Olympics opening ceremony performance was not a recreation of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper," according to the ceremony's artistic team, which said the scene drew on the separate art historical theme of godly festivities. Conservative critics had claimed the performance parodied the fresco and mocked Christian beliefs. Artistic Director Thomas Jolly said the tableau, called "Festivity," depicts Bacchus, the god of celebration and wine, and a big pagan celebration linked to the gods of Olympus. Historians pointed to earlier paintings such as Jan Harmensz van Biljert's "The Feast of Gods" (c. 1635–40), held at the Musée Magnin in Dijon, France.
- Why Is It So Easy to Buy a Human Skull Online?
Damien Huffer and Shawn Graham argue in their 2023 book These Were People Once: The Online Trade in Human Remains, and Why It Matters that the online sale of human remains has grown largely because social media algorithms treat negative engagement as a signal to show posts to more users. Their research, based on years of monitoring e-commerce sites and social platforms, found that sellers often describe remains as former medical specimens. In a sample of skulls advertised online, ancestry estimation strongly supported the vendors' claimed origins in only a quarter of cases, and in another quarter suggested Native American remains. The authors state that the sale of Native American remains has been a felony under NAGPRA since 1990, and that legality claims by sellers should not be trusted.
- How Memes Unravel the Image of Trump as Martyr
Meme-makers are using the July 13, 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt photo of Donald Trump raising his fist to puncture what the article calls the martyr image Trump's supporters and some critics have built around it. The article says critics such as MSNBC and New York Times pundits have praised Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci's photo as "iconic," while memes mock that framing with images like Trump's bleeding ear shown at a Claire's backdrop. It also notes that some memes link the photo to Trump's record and to the gun lobby, and that the photos are appearing on merchandise and helping raise millions for Trump's campaign.
- The Lost Art of Handwriting
Lesley Smith's book Handwritten: Remarkable People on the Page (2024) collects handwritten documents from notable historical figures drawn from the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford's collection, some dating back to the second century BCE. In her introductory essay, Smith argues that Walter Benjamin was right about the importance of new reproduction technology but wrong about its effects, since originals have become more precious rather than obsolete. The collection is grouped into categories such as Poets and Novelists, Reformers, and Spies and Detectives, and includes a Jane Austen notebook begun around age 11.
- Presidential Debate Memes That Channel Our Never-Ending Screams
Hyperallergic collects social media memes reacting to the June 2024 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, framing the humor as a way to cope with the anxiety the debate provoked. The article says the debate underscored a widely shared belief that Biden's campaign points to elder abuse and that Trump's campaign would send the country toward fascism. The memes span topics including the Adderall shortage, a wax sculpture of Lincoln's head melting in Washington, DC, and Trump's remark about Black jobs during the debate.
- Hacker Group Says It Will Auction Off Christie's Client Data
RansomHub says it will auction off Christie's client data after its cyberattack on the auction house's network, having earlier tried to extort Christie's for an undisclosed sum. The group claimed to have obtained personal information from over 500,000 clients worldwide, and it posted a sample of the data as evidence. According to a Christie's statement shared by representative Jessica Stanley, the attackers accessed client names and, for a subset of clients, other personal identity information taken from passports and driving licenses. Christie's says no financial or transactional records were compromised, and it has notified affected clients and the FBI and British police.
- Lauren Lee McCarthy Swaps Stories of Saliva and Surveillance
Lauren Lee McCarthy's solo exhibition Bodily Autonomy at UC San Diego's Mandeville Art Gallery uses humor and hyperbole to show how biosurveillance is common, both voluntary and covert. The show is built around two ongoing series, Surrogate (2021–ongoing) and Saliva (2022–ongoing), which examine how people are surveilled when they exchange biological substances. In the video "The Intended Parents" (2021), McCarthy offers prospective parents access to an app that shares real-time data on her daily life, while in "Saliva Bar" (2024) visitors donate their saliva and take home a stranger's. The exhibition continues through May 25 and was curated by Ceci Moss.
- 10 Shows to See in Los Angeles This May
This month's Los Angeles art guide highlights exhibitions that explore how people tell their stories through material culture. Kwame Brathwaite: Things Well Worth Waiting For at the ArtCenter presents roughly 50 photos from the 1960s and 1970s, including portraits of Miles Davis and Marvin Gaye. Jackie Amézquita's "soil paintings" at Charlie James Gallery incorporate earth from along the US-Mexico border, and the 3B Collective's Highway Hypnosis at Craft Contemporary pairs its members with artisans in their families' home regions. Hollywoodland at the Academy Museum examines how largely Jewish filmmakers, many of them immigrants, built the Hollywood studio system.
- Nora Turato Makes Collective Angst Creative
Nora Turato's solo exhibition "it's not true!!! stop lying!" at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles turns the language of self-optimization found in online wellness videos and tech advertisements into artwork that examines consumption and collective anxiety. The show includes enamel paintings and wall text that mimic contemporary self-improvement advertising without the merchandise, such as "sleep / it's good for you!" and "this isn't me / i need some healing." In the performance "pool 6," Turato voices a set of characters drawn from wellness personalities, and the review says the work turns isolated expressions into unsettling entertainment. The exhibition runs through April 27.
- Viral Wonka Experience Backdrop Sold to Benefit Palestine Aid
Glasgow record store Monorail Music raised £2,250 (about $2,862) for the London-based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) by auctioning discarded backdrops from the viral Willy's Chocolate Experience event. The auction ran for a week, drew 57 bids and closed on March 14, with the winner paying over £2,000. MAP's Chief Executive Officer Melanie Ward thanked the shop on X, and the article notes that MAP provides medical services in the Occupied West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon. Earlier, Box Hub had sold the "Event Cancelled" sign on eBay for the Glasgow Children's Hospital Charity for £840 (about $1,069).
- An Online Film Festival That's All About Cycling
The Bicycle Film Festival is streaming more than 40 shorts and features online from December through February 29, covering bicycle-related stories from South Korea to Havana. Founder Brendt Barbur says the festival aims to show what biking can be, and he calls the bicycle movement one of the most positive things he has seen in New York. The festival, which began 24 years ago, has traveled to 100 cities and drawn an audience of over a million. Full-access virtual passes cost $33 to $75 on a sliding scale, and the next in-person event is in Mexico City on March 15 and 16.
- This New Mask Lets You Have Calls in Complete Silence
Skyted is a sound-absorbing open-air mask designed to let people take phone calls in public without disturbing others, and it has been funded on Kickstarter. The project was started by Stephane Hersen, former head of business development for Airbus's Asia-Pacific Cabin Division, who said he created it to answer the question of how 300 passengers can have a call during a flight without impacting cabin quietness. At the time of the article, the campaign had raised $162,551 against an $8,800 goal, with mass production scheduled for May and distribution for December. According to press materials, the masks absorb 80% of voice vibrations and can be combined with noise-cancelling earbuds.
- Meta's Anti-Nudity Algorithms Go After AI Artists
Hyperallergic reports that artists who use the human body, including digital artist Simone Garcia ("cymoonv") and artist Leah Schrager, face growing suppression on platforms like Instagram and Meta's sites. Garcia said her images were continually tagged as "sexual activity" or "harmful" to stay online, and her Twitter account was permanently marked as sensitive and removed from search. Schrager said her generative AI images received little reach after Instagram issued a "recommendation guidelines" violation, which the article describes as essentially a visible shadowban. The article argues that Meta's moderation AI, which can detect how an image was made, also catches non-harmful AI-assisted work, and that tech companies have done little to include artistic perspectives in moderation.
- Millions Fall for Fake Video of Eiffel Tower on Fire
A CGI clip showing the Eiffel Tower on fire went viral on TikTok and X this week, fooling millions of users before fact-checkers could correct the record. The clip, a nine-second hyperrealistic animation posted on YouTube last July by Augmented One, a 3D visualization studio in Yerevan, Armenia, was labeled as visual effects in its title and description. Fact-checkers from VerifyThis and Reuters disproved the claim by checking the tower's livestream footage, official accounts and local government officials, and reverse-searching the clip, yet many users remained convinced the tower was in danger.
- This Is Not How You Make a Doc About AI
Two Sundance 2024 documentaries, Eternal You and Love Machina, are criticized for failing to scrutinize artificial intelligence claims about digital afterlives and mind uploading. The review says Love Machina, which profiles Martine Rothblatt and her BINA48 chatbot, presents the project without skepticism and reads more like a recruitment video for the Terasem Movement. It says Eternal You surveys ventures such as Project December without questioning whether their bots can do what they claim. The review argues that both films distract from real issues such as labor, plagiarism and underpaid human workers behind AI tools.
- Can We Create an Intersectional AI?
The article argues that the harms of AI are tied to racial capitalism, labor exploitation, the automation debate, and data theft, and asks whether AI can be designed to be intersectional and feminist. It points to Nadja Verena Marcin's #SOPHYGRAY, a feminist audio bot app that questions the submissive, gendered voices of assistants like Alexa and Siri, and whose dataset archives quotations from women authors. It also describes Sarah Ciston's Intersectional AI Toolkit, which invites contributions from queer, antiracist, antiableist, and feminist communities, and their "No Knots, Only Loops" project, which connects knitting to the hidden labor behind ChatGPT.
- Database of Artists Used to Train AI Leaks to the Public
A spreadsheet titled "Midjourney Style List," listing more than 16,000 artists' names allegedly used to train Midjourney's AI image generator, has circulated online and drawn criticism on social media. The list includes living artists such as Banksy, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, and KAWS, along with a six-year-old who made a drawing for a hospital fundraiser in 2021. Court documents state that Midjourney CEO David Holz first posted the list to a Discord server in February 2022 and described how the names could be used as text prompts. Screenshots posted by Riot Games artist Jon Lam on December 31 show developers saying the database included at least 4,700 artists, drawn from Wikipedia and Magic: The Gathering.
- The Unending Evolution of Nativity Scenes
Nativity scenes have evolved from early visual depictions of Jesus's birth into a varied art form that still changes today. The earliest surviving examples of the wise men scene include a late 3rd or early 4th century fresco in the Priscilla catacombs in Rome, according to a 2016 essay by Yale professors Felicity Harley-McGowan and Andrew McGowan. Historians debate when three-dimensional nativities began, with one unconfirmed theory tying them to Pope Sixtus III in 432 CE. At the International Museum of Nativity Scene Art in Málaga, Spain, co-founder Antonio Díaz says contemporary displays include one in the style of Star Trek and another set in a war-besieged neighborhood.
- AI Protections Prove Polarizing Among SAG Members
SAG-AFTRA members remain divided over the AI provisions in the tentative contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which ended a 118-day strike and goes to a December 5 ratification vote. The agreement requires studios to obtain clear, informed consent for digital replicas of performers and to pay them the highest available rate plus future residuals. Justine Bateman, SAG-AFTRA's own AI advisor, criticized the deal, calling the approval of digital replicas akin to giving a thumbs-up to studios using non-union actors. Voiceover actor Sara Cravens questioned whether consent can be a condition of employment, while a SAG-AFTRA spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on their concerns.