Category Archives: Singularity

Ricardo Rivera doesnt seem to have much respect for boundaries.

Based on his wildly creative and original work with his company Klip Collective, it seems like he could have been one of those kids who would get scolded in grammar school for not staying within the lines in his coloring book, but he doesnt recall that happening.

I did get yelled at for using my dads video camera though, which is ironic he said. I think thats more of an appropriate story.

I used to make stop motion animations, and would record my friends and I, making mock music videos when I was 14.

In his adult life, Rivera is doing groundbreaking work that includes video and sound, but defies classification and dodges accurate description. Klip Collective calls itself an experiential art shop that integrates projection lighting and storytelling to create compelling experiences.

Klip Collective, 'Three Phased Monster', and Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas, 'Arch II, Set II', 1995

When theres no playbook for the work you want to do, you write your own. Rivera didnt study filmmaking in school so what he knows about video, he taught himself, and he is a pioneer of a thing called video projection mapping, having earned a United States patent for his technological breakthroughs in the medium.

Innovation on these projects is par for the course, Rivera said. We always have challenges with what we do because Im always pushing myself and the team to elevate what we do.

The Klip Collectives current exhibition/experience titled Night Forms: dreamloop is happening now at Grounds For Sculpture, and has been extended to April 3, 2022.

Klip Colletive, Visceral Memory, and Masayuki Koorida, Memory, 2011, granite, 88.58 x 49.21 x 49.21 inches, Courtesy of the Artist

There are more than a dozen site-specific works, where at each one, the magic of projection mapping, moving light and a choreographed soundtrack engineered by the Klip Collective, all coalesce with existing art installations.

GFS literature is brave in the futile attempt to precisely describe what awaits one. Night Forms is a unique synthesis of video projection, light and sound as a bridge between architecture, technology and storytelling Sculptures shrouded in the winter landscape become beacons to remembering a long-forgotten ritual.

The digital projection mapping, which creates light patterns that can conform to the shape of any sculpture or object, is designed to create a dialog with sculptures in the collection, offering new perspectives and turning the act of viewing into an immersive event.

Klip Collective, Frog Head Rainbow, and Michelle Post, The Oligarchs, 2014, cast aluminum, 76 inches x 40 feet x 6 feet, Grounds For Sculpture, Gift of The Seward Johnson AtelierMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

In addition, the sound is equally mapped onto each installation by virtue of music and soundscapes written and produced specifically for each piece, by Dan Deacon and Julian Grefe for Klip Collective. And dont be alarmed if while standing entranced by what is in front of you, some of the sounds appear to be coming from behind you. They are.

I mean theres a lot more behind, you know, the creative on this, said Rivera.

He adds that there are always obstacles to overcome in this evolving medium, especially as it is applied to unique settings, whether its the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizone, the NYC Central Park Bethesda Terrace, or right here in New Jersey at Grounds For Sculpture.

Klip Collective, Edge Run, and Bruce Beasley, Torqueri XIII, 2018, stainless steel, 270 x 137 x 141 inches, Courtesy of the ArtistMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

This project (GFS) was interesting because one, because of the pandemic, I had a lot more time to think about what the whole piece was going to be.

You know whats interesting for me is to create a series of installations that have some type of common thread thematically that kind of fit together in an interesting way creating a journey for visitors to experience - without using a super literal narrative, but creating some type of thread.

I mean yeah, Im definitely kind of an outside the box type of person.

Tickets are timed entry. All tickets, including Member Tickets, must be reserved in advance. Capacity is limited. Tickets are not available on-site.

Hours: Thursday Sunday, 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. now through Feb. 27), 6 to 11 p.m. from March 3-12, and 7-11 p.m. from March 13-April 3.

Open Monday, February 14

See more photos:

Klip Collective, The Glitch, and Bruce Beasley, Dorion, 1986, stainless steel, 1/2, 240 x 360 x 120 inches, Grounds For Sculpture, Gift of The Seward Johnson Atelier

Klip Collective, 'Three Phased Monster', and Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas, 'Arch II, Set II', 1995Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Klip Collective, Singularity Ring, and Michele Oka Doner, Radiant Disk, 1999, cast bronze, 2/2, 33 1/2 x 75 1/2 x 75 1/2 inches, and Ice Ring, 1992, cast bronze, 3/3, 18 inches x 120 inches diameter, Grounds For Sculpture, Gift of The Seward Johnson AtelierMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Klip Collective, Frog Head Rainbow, and Michelle Post, The Oligarchs, 2014, cast aluminum, 76 inches x 40 feet x 6 feet, Grounds For Sculpture, Gift of The Seward Johnson AtelierMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Klip Collective, Frog Head Rainbow, and Michelle Post, The Oligarchs, 2014, cast aluminum, 76 inches x 40 feet x 6 feet, Grounds For Sculpture, Gift of The Seward Johnson AtelierMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Klip Colletive, Visceral Memory, and Masayuki Koorida, Memory, 2011, granite, 88.58 x 49.21 x 49.21 inches, Courtesy of the ArtistMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Klip Collective, The Motherboard, and Carlos Dorrien, The Nine Muses, 1990-1997, granite, 132 x 240 x 360 inches, Grounds For Sculpture, Gift of The Seward Johnson AtelierMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Klip Collective, 'Three Phased Monster', and Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas, 'Arch II, Set II', 1995Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

'Sacred Sum', aluminum, lighting, dimensions variable, Courtesy of the Artist

Klip Collective, Singularity Ring, and Michele Oka Doner, Radiant Disk, 1999, cast bronze, 2/2, 33 1/2 x 75 1/2 x 75 1/2 inches, and Ice Ring, 1992, cast bronze, 3/3, 18 inches x 120 inches diameter, Grounds For Sculpture, Gift of The Seward Johnson AtelierMichael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Klip Collective, 'Three Phased Monster', and Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas, 'Arch II, Set II', 1995Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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Michael Mancuso may be reached at mmancuso@njadvancemedia.com

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Light and sound nighttime installation at Grounds for Sculpture is like a trippy dream - NJ.com

Niklas Adalberths Norrsken Foundation, in the news again barely two months after opening its Norrsken House in Kigali, Rwanda, plans to accommodate thousands of entrepreneurs by next year.

This time, the foundation has teamed up with 30 unicorn founders and a couple of seasoned venture capital and private equity investors to launch a $200 million fund targeted at African startups.

The fund, dubbed the Norrsken22 African Tech Growth Fund, has reached its first close of $110 million per a statement seen by TechCrunch. Its the latest fund launched by Norrsken after closing 125 million impact fund for European startups last March.

Hans Otterling, a partner at Northzone, a U.K.-based early VC firm that led the investment in Adalberths previous company Klarna, is Norrskens founding partner alongside the Klarna co-founder.

Making up the firms investment are the general partners that include Natalie Kolbe, the ex-global head of private equity at Actis, a private equity fund investing in emerging markets; her colleague, Ngetha Waithaka; and Lexi Novitske, the ex-managing partner at Acuity Ventures Platform. Novitske told TechCrunch on a call that the firm is speaking to a few DFIs to reach a final close later this year.

Before Acuity, Novitske was principal at Singularity Investments. Portfolio companies across both firms include API fintechs such as Mono and OnePipe and exited companies like Flutterwave, Paystack and mPharma.

Africa VC funding reached an all-time high in 2021 at over $4 billion more than what startups on the continent raised in the two previous years combined. Growth and late-stage deals such as $100 million-plus rounds from unicorns Andela Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, OPay and Wave and other companies largely propelled this growth. Nevertheless, according to insights from The Big Deal and Briter Bridges, they were relatively few compared to early-stage deals.

SOURCE: Tage Kene-Okafor, who covers startups and investment activities in Nigeria and Africa for TechCrunch.

Read more:

$200 Million Fund to Back Growth-Stage Startups in Africa - The Washington Informer

Members of a streamlined, 10-person panel tasked with assembling candidates to lead UMass Lowell were encouraged at their first meeting Tuesday to think outside the box and look at potential chancellors with nontraditional backgrounds.

Most committee members, charged with finding the right person to succeed outgoing Chancellor Jacqui Moloney,got an opportunity on Zoom to introduce themselves, hear a rundown of the Open Meeting Law and confidentiality requirements, and receive coaching on public-relations matters.

University of Massachusetts system President Marty Meehan, who served previously as UMass Lowells chancellor, said expectations are high for UMass Lowell, a campus of around 18,000 students and 1,700 full-time faculty and staff, though myriad challenges exist.

Like universities around the country, UMass Lowell is emerging from a global pandemic, Meehan said. It is also facing demographic headwinds that require new thinking about retention, about the enrollment of students, and all the disruption that is posed by technology.

UMass Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Manning urged the committee to consider people from outside traditional backgrounds for the post, as Meehan was when he took over in 2007 after serving 14 years in Congress.

Said Manning: The challenges in the future will be significant, but we need a very dynamic leader. And my only suggestion to all of you is, think outside the box. Marty was not a traditional candidate when we hired him, and look at what he was able to do.

Its no exaggeration to say that UMass Lowell underwent a remarkable transformation during Meehans tenure as chancellor.

As a May 2013 Boston Business Journal profile on Meehan pointed out: Since he joined UMass Lowell as its chancellor in mid-2007, hes presided over a massive expansion of the school, with nearly $600 million in capital projects that have been completed or set into motion representing more than a dozen new construction projects, acquisitions and renovations.

UMass Lowells operating budget rose by more than 50 percent, and its student enrollment grew 40 percent to roughly 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students, since Meehan took over.

The CEO of Boston-based MFS Investment Management, Manning said he believes the Lowell campus draws strength and singularity from its gritty surroundings.

Its a different place than some small, bucolic college, which is great that some of those exist.

But you get these kids, our students, that come there and they get toughened up. And they need that toughness when they go through life, said Manning.

He could have been reading from a page of Meehans life story.

The son of a Lowell Sun newspaper press foreman, the University of Lowell graduate parlayed outstanding careers in both politics and academia.

And what do you need to scale the heights of both pursuits? The ability to raise money.

Known as a prolific fundraiser during his seven terms in Congress, Meehan still had a campaign finance balance of $4 million when he closed the account in June 2016 and transferred those fundsto an education foundation hed formed in 2001.

Thats also the primary requisite for a university president. Leave the academics to the provost and deans. Attracting wealthy donors helps boost endowments and schools profiles.

Moloney, the first woman to lead UMass Lowell, did more than just follow in Meehans footsteps. Having served the previous eight years as executive vice chancellor, she paved her own way by building on that partnership.

But now that link will soon cease.

Search Committee co-Chair Mary Burns said negotiations are underway with a search firm, with the intention of inviting its members to the panels next meeting to discuss a work plan and a position profile.

Their chancellor mission is clear: Find the next Marty Meehan.

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Panels mission: Find the next Marty to lead UML - Lowell Sun

Co-Founder and Chancellor, Singularity University Ray Kurzweil is one of the world leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists, with a thirty-year track record of accurate predictions. Called "the restless genius" by The Wall Street Journal and "the ultimate thinking machine" by Forbes magazine, Ray was selected as one of the top entrepreneurs by Inc. magazine, which described him as the "rightful heir to Thomas Edison." PBS selected him as one of the "sixteen revolutionaries who made America." Ray was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition program, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition. Among his many honors, Ray received the 2015 Technical Grammy Award for outstanding achievements in the field of music technology; he is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, holds twenty-one honorary Doctorates, and honors from three U.S. presidents. Ray has written five national best-selling books, including New York Times best sellers The Singularity Is Near (2005) and How To Create A Mind (2012). He is Co-Founder and Chancellor of Singularity University and a Director of Engineering at Google heading up a team developing machine intelligence and natural language understanding.

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Ray Kurzweil - Singularity Hub

The Heroine With 1,001 Faces author Maria Tatar with Anne-Katrin Titze: 1,001 captures not just an infinite number of possibilities but also the singularity, the magnificence of the heroine.

In the first instalment of my conversation with Maria Tatar on her latest book, The Heroine With 1,001 Faces, we discuss Joseph Campbells Hero with A Thousand Faces; the Arabian Nights and volunteering heroines such as Scheherazade, Beauty, and The Hunger Gamess Katniss Everdeen; the Bluebeard tales; Neil Gaiman; Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Finding Your Roots and the Talking Book; Toni Morrison and listening to the voice of the ancestor; Christopher Voglers The Writer's Journey and Michael Schulzs screenplay for Karin Brandauers Aschenputtel; Sergei Loznitsas documentary Babi Yar. Context and the number 33,771; Astrid Lindgren and Angela Carter and what should not be dismissed; Karl Ove Knausgaards The Morningstar; Stephen Kings upcoming novel Fairy Tale; a quote from Audre Lorde; Jordan Peeles Get Out; the Grimm Brothers cauldron of stories, Penelope and the duck ferry in Hansel and Gretel, textile production, domestic confinement and the move toward social justice.

Hunter College German Department Chair Lisa Anderson welcomes Maria Tatar with Anne-Katrin Titze Photo: Tammy Bender, courtesy of Anne-Katrin Titze

In 2018, I introduced Maria Tatars Max Kade lecture Therapeutic, Toxic, and Skin Deep: The Dark Magic of the Grimms Fairy Tales, presented by the German Department of Hunter College. She is the John L Loeb Research Professor at Harvard University and a senior fellow at Harvards Society of Fellows. Her books include The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood, and in 2017 The Annotated African American Folktales, co-edited with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., plus many more works as author, editor and translator.

George Lucas gave full credit to Joseph Campbell for the original Star Wars trilogy, stating that if it werent for Campbell, its possible I would still be trying to write Star Wars today. The model of the journey of the hero as described by Campbell in 1949 influences the way movies are made to this day with calls to adventure, refusals, thresholds to be crossed and inmost caves to be entered to bring back home the elixir that will save the world. What about those who stayed at home, asks The Heroine With 1,001 Faces? What elixirs does she brew and which wrongs does she right? What treasures do these detectives, writers, weavers, and tricksters have in store for us?

From Boston, Maria Tatar joined me on Zoom for an in-depth conversation on The Heroine With 1,001 Faces.

Anne-Katrin Titze: Maria, good to see you!

Maria Tatars The Heroine With 1,001 Faces (Liveright Publishing, an imprint of W. W. Norton & Company) Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Maria Tatar: Good to see you!

AKT: How are you?

MT: Well, managing. This pandemic business is harder in the winter, I think.

AKT: Lets talk about your treasure trove of a book! Tackling Joseph Campbell - there is probably no man who influenced Hollywood screenwriting more than Joseph Campbell for the second half of the 20th century at least. Tackling him during the pandemic, was there a call to adventure for you? You mention a moment reading an interview with Natalie Portman [in connection to #MeToo], but was there a specific call for you to engage with him and the Heros Journey?

MT: I think your question is a great one because during the pandemic I realised that the possibilities for heroic action had been shut down, particularly in those early months. We were isolated and were told that the best thing to do was to stay home and do nothing. In other words, we couldnt take those journeys, we couldnt be adventurers.

And it was then when I realised that women had been confined to the domestic space for centuries and yet they have been heroic. They have been adventurous, curious, and they have made a difference in the world. So I started investigating the weapons that women took even when they couldnt make the journey and how they managed to move toward justice, to make a move toward social justice.

AKT: Often starting with curiosity. You point out the links between storytelling and textile production. The work of weaving and spinning tales as well as fabric at home.

The Hunter College German Department Max Kade Lecture in 2018 by Maria Tatar - Therapeutic, Toxic, and Skin Deep: The Dark Magic of the Grimms Fairy Tales, introduced by Anne-Katrin Titze

MT: Yes, women have always been engaged in domestic craft. I use the term craft quite deliberately, that is in both senses of the term. They were doing handicraft; they were spinning; they were sewing. But they were also being clever and they were encoding their work with symbolic value. They were also telling stories while they were knitting, spinning, weaving, embroidering. Using words, often a kind of code language to basically broadcast injuries that had been inflicted not just on them but on their neighbours, their friends, their relatives and to talk about the violence in the world and how to repair it and how to mend the fraying edges of the social fabric. As Scheherazade does.

AKT: Of course!

MT: Within a matter of days, of course, I thought about Scheherazades work and how, first of all she volunteers. She is courageous. She volunteers to marry Shahryar.

AKT: So many heroines in fairy tales do. Take Beauty and the Beast where the daughter volunteers to take the place of her captured father. They dont shy away, these heroines.

MT: Thats a great point. If you think about womens labour and how it has not been compensated in any way or recognised. We have the story of Scheherazade, the frame story to the Arabian Nights, where Scheherazade volunteers like Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. She takes a great risk in marrying Shahryar because he has been beheading every woman he marries the morning after. So what does she do? She tells stories. She tells him stories, she stops halfway through and arouses Shahryars curiosity so that he lets her survive for another day. Time goes by and eventually he marries Scheherazade, they have children together. And he also changes his violent ways.

The Wolf (Micha Bergese) with Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) in Neil Jordans film adaptation with Angela Carter of her story The Company Of Wolves

AKT: And she stops the killings, as do all the heroines in the different Bluebeard tales, who through their curiosity expose the past violence. I like very much the title you chose for your book. Of course The Hero with a Thousand Faces is Campbells title. Besides the 1,001 Nights reference, the 1 in the end also points to the individual. There was a great documentary [entirely edited from archival footage] at Cannes last year, called Babi Yar. Context [directed by Sergei Loznitsa], about the massacre of that name, where 33,771 Jews were killed by the Nazis within two days in 1941 in Kiev. The fact that we have that exact number makes it impossible to think of it in the abstract. The 1 in the end points to the individual and thats what your title also does.

MT: Oh thats beautiful, because 1,001 in Arabic can also mean an infinite number, that is you can go on and on. But as you point out, that 1 brings in the singularity, it brings in Scheherazade. She is the one, the chosen one in a sense, who is going to end this reign of terror. So thank you for that because I hadnt thought about how 1,001 captures not just an infinite number of possibilities but also the singularity, the magnificence of the heroine.

AKT: Another thought that came to my mind when you bring up Penelope and the ducks, besides the name of course, was the duck in Hansel and Gretel, who bonds with Gretel in a way to return the children home. Is there a connection?

The Annotated African American Folktales, co-edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Maria Tatar (Liveright Publishing, an imprint of WW Norton & Company) Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

MT: I hadnt thought of that. Who knows? I think the Grimms were constantly dipping into the great cauldron of story and they were so erudite and learned that it wouldnt surprise me if they just decided to have a duck help Hansel and Gretel cross the pond. And that they understood that that duck has a kind of mythical resonance. They themselves also believed in the great cauldron of story, that is that myths and fairy tales were part of one great - how can I put it? Stew sounds a little vulgar.

AKT: Its not Juniper Tree.

MT: A beautiful mix, a tasty savory stew of stories. You come across all of these analogies and parallels within very different traditions. This is something Campbell was onto and why I grew to admire him, even though I was building a kind of critique of his work as well. Because he was one of the first really to think globally, to think in global terms about storytelling.

AKT: I agree with you that Disneys Beauty And The Beast from 1991 did not have a good enough look at Angela Carters work. Every time I come across the expression old wives tales, I hear the voice of the wolf [dressed as a fine gentleman] in Neil Jordans film of The Company Of Wolves. Carter was making the point that calling the tales such makes them easy to discard and dismiss.

MT: Absolutely. And if you think about it, all those stories that we just talked about that were narrated in spinning rooms, in sewing circles, in places where women congregated, turned into nursery and household tales, as the Grimms called them. And then, worse yet, into fairy tales, which makes them even easier to dismiss. All of those terms make it feel as if these are kind of silly stories. And then along comes Disney and says of course these are really for children and they are not adult fare at all.

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) with Rose (Allison Williams) in Jordan Peeles Get Out (Best Original Screenplay Oscar winner)

And yet, look at Beauty and the Beast, which you just mentioned, of course we have the Angela Carter version, the Disney version but the Disney version is morphing into new versions of itself and then wonder of wonders, Shrek appears in the landscape. And theres a story in which we discovered that maybe its not so bad being a beast after all. The fields connecting nature and culture have been reversed. Again, not necessarily an aggressive move, but a discovery that theres something in nature that we can learn and benefit from and that civilisation has not just its discontents, but also violent features as well.

AKT: You mention Christopher Voglers book in the context of Joseph Campbell. I remember working with my then boyfriend, the screenwriter Michael Schulz, on developing a number of fairy tale film projects. He had already years earlier written the script for Karin Brandauers Cinderella film. She was the wife of actor Klaus Maria Brandauer, who was Mephisto and in Out Of Africa. Anyway, Michael had done fairy-tale films before and the structure felt almost a bit suffocating to work with. Did you come across Vogler now or were you aware of his manual prior to writing this book?

MT: I was aware of the book, but I hadnt read it yet. What you say is really interesting, because you can think of the twelve steps that he constructs as a kind of cage for writers. Theres some that would stick by the rules and rather than improvise and do reversals, you know, thats when the story becomes interesting, when you add something to it, when you change it, when you create a situation in which theres a thirteenth step. Or ten is somehow part of an uncanny moment.

Aschenputtel (Petra Vigna) with the Prince (Stephan Meyer-Kohlhoff) in Karin Brandauers Cinderella film, screenplay by Michael Schulz

The writer Neil Gaiman, I think I mention it in the book, when he started reading Campbells Hero with A Thousand Faces, he stopped after reading 20 pages or so. Because he thought 'I dont want to really become conscious of these types of things.' He thought it was maybe in his head subliminally but it would interfere with his creativity if he became aware of those kinds of rules. I think he was on to something, that somehow the minute you are rule-bound, you shut down the possibilities for creative improvisations.

AKT: Which also connects to the Audre Lorde quote [The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house]. How can you dismantle something to create your own when you use the same blueprint? I like very much that you never give us twelve stages of the heroines journey in your book.

MT: Some people find that annoying. They want twelve steps or eighteen steps or something like that. I think somehow for me it became more important to identify the features of heroism. What is it that makes a hero or a heroine? What do they do? What kinds of actions do they engage in, and leading to the whole question of how do we emulate them? Im not trying to write an inspirational book, but Im trying to show how heroism changes over time and how we embrace different sets of virtues. And how different opportunities open up over time.

AKT: The oral tradition still plays a part. You bring up in this context someone I just a few days ago e-mailed with about Andr Leon Talley, your good friend and colleague Henry Louis Gates and what he calls the Talking Book.

Christopher Voglers The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Storytellers & Screenwriters (Michael Wiese Productions) Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

MT: Oh yes. Its extraordinary, every time I pick up a novel by an African American writer I am astonished by the fact that again we have the Talking Book. There is this return to the vernacular and to the autobiographical as a window into experience. Its sort of retrieving that oral tradition and yet changing it dramatically, making it new in powerful ways.

AKT: And his wonderful program, Finding Your Roots, which is also part of this way of storytelling.

MT: Absolutely. Listening to the voice of the ancestor is what Toni Morrison said again and again. Last night I was reading one of Barbara Neelys detective novels. She has a heroine detective called Blanche White. I love that, an African American woman named Blanche White. And how does Blanche start every day? She summons her ancestors and asks them for wisdom. In a very colloquial, not in a worshipful religious way. Just, you know, this need to get in touch with your past, with your roots and theres something about that that is so beautiful. Thinking about generational flows, it connects with stories like Little Red Riding Hood, which gives us daughter, mother, grandmother and gives us a story that shows the connection among generations.

AKT: Have you read The Morningstar, Karl Ove Knausgaards latest?

MT: I have not. I barely made it through My Struggle. But Im totally fascinated by him and the focus on the everyday, the quotidian. Talk about autobiographical and the return sort of to the oral tradition! Its almost hard to believe that it was written by a man in many ways because of that focus on the domestic. But tell me about The Morningstar!

Beast (voiced by Robby Benson) with Belle (voiced by Paige O'Hara) in Disneys Beauty And The Beast, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise

AKT: He is actually going in the direction of myth, science fiction, thriller, the biblical references to the Morningstar, and connecting these elements to the quotidian, told from different perspectives who all sound a bit like his own voice. A new star appears, strange things happen. He is going into the fantasy realm, which I found fascinating. I liked it very much.

MT: The latest Stephen King novel is called Fairy Tale, which is also a portal fantasy. This strange new world. I think our current obsession with dystopias of course is driven by the pandemic and also the speed of technological change, the warped speed of cultural change right now. Its an interesting time in good ways and bad.

AKT: If you have new heroines, youll also get new shadows.

MT: Right, absolutely. You get something like Get Out, where the woman becomes the Bluebeard figure.

AKT: Right!

MT: Interesting reversals, new forms of villainy. Then also were reinventing the female heroine. Many of them, as we see when we start to stream or go to the movies, tote guns, are gun-toting heroines, shooting them up, leaping over tall buildings. They engage in all forms of combat.

AKT: And with that they are going from one extreme to the other - from sleeping in a coffin to shooting 'monsters' left and right.

Aschenputtel poster

MT: Right, basically mimicking male behaviours and what we worshipped in the past. Its a concerning tendency I think. Do we want the musclebound heroine or do we want the heroine who survives by using her wits and her cleverness, her social skills?

AKT: Good question. One last recommendation from me. Yesterday, I watched a new Danish film called A Taste Of Hunger, Its about a couple who have a restaurant and he wants nothing more than a Michelin star. There is a 12-year-old girl, who is their daughter, and her behaviour and the storyline for the two kids is something that I think you will enjoy from the tale-telling perspective. Thank you, Maria, so much!

MT: Wonderful to talk and thank you for all the recommendations! Ive got a lot to look at and read in the next few days [earlier, I brought up to Maria Paul Thomas Andersons Phantom Thread and Jane Campions soon to be Oscar-nominated The Power Of The Dog].

AKT: I do too from all the connections in your book that are like street signs leading the way to wondrous journeys.

MT: Great to talk to you, take care!

Coming up - Maria Tatar on Alex Garlands Ex Machina and male anxiety, the meaning of clothing in All Fur, Donkey Skin and an Egyptian variant of the tales, boys in search of fear and girls in haunted houses, eating disorders and the appetite of tricksters in The Hunger Games and David Finchers The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Louisa May Alcott and Little Women paving the way for Anne Of Green Gables and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Astrid Lindgrens Pippi Longstocking and the home front, plus Marias and my favourite childhood fairy tales.

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Maria Tatar in conversation on The Heroine With 1,001 Faces - eyeforfilm.co.uk

Holy sharks, Batman, its periodic! I exclaimed on Slack.

It was the first lockdown of 2021 in Perth, and we were all working from home. And when astronomers look for something to distract themselves from looming existential dread, theres nothing better than a new cosmic mystery.

In 2020 I gave an undergraduate student, Tyrone ODoherty, a fun project: look for radio sources that are changing in a large radio survey Im leading.

By the end of the year hed found a particularly unusual source that was visible in data from early 2018, but had disappeared within a few months. The source was named GLEAM-X J162759.5-523504, after the survey it was found in and its position.

Sources that appear and disappear are called radio transients and are usually a sign of extreme physics at play.

Earlier this year I started investigating the source, expecting it to be something we knew about; something that would change slowly over months and perhaps point to an exploded star, or a big collision in space.

To understand the physics, I wanted to measure how the sources brightness relates to its frequency (in the electromagnetic spectrum). So I looked at observations of the same location, taken at different frequencies, before and after the detection, and it wasnt there.

I was disappointed, as spurious signals do crop up occasionally due to telescope calibration errors, Earths ionosphere reflecting TV signals, or aircraft and satellites streaking overhead.

So I looked at more data. And in an observation taken 18 minutes later, there the source was again, in exactly the same place and at exactly the same frequencylike nothing astronomers had ever seen before.

At this point I broke out in a cold sweat. There is a worldwide research effort searching for repeating cosmic radio signals transmitted at a single frequency. Its called the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Was this the moment we finally found that the truth is out there?

I rapidly downloaded more data and posted updates on Slack. This source was incredibly bright. It was outshining everything else in the observation, which is nothing to sniff at.

The brightest radio sources are supermassive black holes flaring huge jets of matter into space at nearly the speed of light. What had we found that could possibly be brighter than that?

Colleagues were beginning to take notice, posting: Its repeating too slowly to be a pulsar. But its too bright for a flare star. What is this? (alien emoji icon)???

Within a few hours, I breathed a sigh of relief: I had detected the source across a wide range of frequencies, so the power it would take to generate it could only come from a natural source; not artificial (and not aliens)!

Just like pulsars (highly magnetized rotating neutron stars that beam out radio waves from their poles) the radio waves repeated like clockwork about three times per hour. In fact, I could predict when they would appear to an accuracy of one ten-thousandth of a second.

So I turned to our enormous data archive: 40 petabytes of radio astronomy data recorded by the Murchison Widefield Array in Western Australia, during its eight years of operation. Using powerful supercomputers, I searched hundreds of observations and picked up 70 more detections spanning three months in 2018, but none before or after.

The amazing thing about radio transients is that if you have enough frequency coverage, you can work out how far away they are. This is because lower radio frequencies arrive slightly later than higher ones depending on how much space theyve traveled through.

Our new discovery lies about 4,000 light years awayvery distant, but still in our galactic backyard.

We also found the radio pulses were almost completely polarized. In astrophysics this usually means their source is a strong magnetic field. The pulses were also changing shape in just half a second, so the source has to be less than half a light second across, much smaller than our sun.

Sharing the result with colleagues across the world, everyone was excited, but no one knew for sure what it was.

There were two leading explanations for this compact, rotating, and highly magnetic astrophysical object: a white dwarf, or a neutron star. These remain after stars run out of fuel and collapse, generating magnetic fields billions to quintillions times stronger than our suns.

And while weve never found a neutron star that behaves quite this way, theorists have predicted such objects, called an ultra-long period magnetars, could exist. Even so, no one expected one could be so bright.

This is the first time weve ever seen a radio source that repeats every 20 minutes. But maybe the reason we never saw one before is that we werent looking.

When I first started trying to understand this source, I was biased by my expectations: transient radio sources either change quickly like pulsars, or slowly like the fading remnants of a supernova.

I wasnt looking for sources repeating at 18-minute intervals, an unusual period for any known class of object. Nor was I searching for something that would appear for a few months and then disappear forever. No one was.

As astronomers build new telescopes that will collect vast quantities of data, its vital we keep our minds, and our search techniques, open to unexpected possibilities. The universe is full of wonders, should we only choose to look.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: Artist visualization, author provided

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A Mystery Object in Space Flashed Brilliantly for 3 MonthsThen Disappeared - Singularity Hub

A reflection on Andr Leon Talley, Eartha Kitt, and going home

By Imani Perry

This is an edition of Imani Perry's newsletter, Unsettled Territory. Sign up here.

On Tuesday, my seventh book South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of a Nation was released. In my anticipation (and anxiety), Ive been thinking about the South as both an idea and a region even more intensely than usual. And thats saying something, because I am fairly obsessed with the region of my birth and have been for most of my life.

In this book, I ask readers to travel with me, through the landscape but also through history. It is more invitation than proclamation, more exploration than argument. And it is a book of encounters. And there were a few new encounters over the past week that I wanted to share here, because they resonated deeply with the why and what of this book.

The first was the death of Andr Leon Talley, longtime Vogue editor, who hailed from Durham, North Carolina, specifically a neighborhood that was named Little Hayti in homage to the Haitian Revolution. Much has been said about Talley and his singularity as a Black man in the world of high fashion. Relatively little attention has been paid to how much he attributed his conception of glamour and elegance to having been reared in the Black South. But if you know that traditional culture, you recognize that learned sense of elegance that also had a political undercurrent. It was a rejection of being seen as inferior. It reflects a kind of cultivation that took place inside ritual and outside of the dominant gaze. Thank goodness for those habits. How else could Black people have forged any sense of self-regard in a white-supremacist society?

In the society pages of the June 26, 1954, edition of The Carolina Times, a prominent Black newspaper in North Carolina that ran from 1919 to 2020, Talleys world is revealed. Just a few weeks after the Brown v. Board of Education opinion was decided by the Supreme Court, the issue shows that life behind the veil of the color line, as W. E. B. Du Bois described it, was robust. Ann Bibby, one of Talleys dearest friends, was performing in a child operetta of Hansel and Gretel. Roland Hayes Jr. was reported to be visiting his grandparents. A smiling child is announced the winner of a baby contest. And one of Talleys relatives, Gwendolyn Genette Talley, is reported to have married. The article notes that she wore a gown of white lace and net over taffeta, featuring a fitted bodice, high-lighted with a scolloped neckline, puffed sleeves with matching lace gloves. Her shoulder length veil of bridal illusion was attached to a crown of lace trimmed with seed pearls. She carried a white prayer book topped with a white orchid with satin streamers, stephanotis and lily of the valley. When you think of the violence of lynching, sharecropping and Jim Crow, remember that Black people tended to themselves with this kind of beauty in its shadow.

The second meaningful encounter I had last week was with video footage of Eartha Kitts 1982 documentary, All By Myself. In it, she returned to her hometown of North South Carolina, in Orangeburg County, once known for producing short-staple cotton. As with Talley, she was often depicted as singular and therefore isolated. But when she talks with a man named Mr. Harley, we remember that she came from somewhere. He said to her, Chile, I know you before you know yourself. It resonated with me. Part of the culture from which I hail, the same as Kitt and Talley, is that people keep track of you. They note your personality and disposition from an early age, even if they are not family members. They remember these things because you are part of the fabric of the place. And even if you have departed, you are still considered.

I think of how this way of being was cultivated. Black Southerners have been traveling since the beginning of being a people, here, so often against their will in slavery, or as fugitives in escape. And then, after emancipation, they often traveled under duress, looking for work or a little less American racist violence. Departure and loss were part of being excluded from citizenship and mainstream civic life. So to hold onto people, to consider them always, whether they were here or there, was a way of sustaining connection. It still is.

As I get dressed up to do book talks, when I smile and nod and say thank you repeatedly, I am standing in the tradition into which I was cultivated: good home training. And when I say Im going home as I travel south in the coming weeks, I mean I am traveling to a place where I have always been considered. My work considers it in return. This home fits no easy description, and it deserves much more than myth or stereotype. It deserves love. God willing, Ive offered it enough.

This article has been edited to clarify that Roland Hayes Jr. is not the son of the tenor Roland Hayes.

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In the Black South, You're Always Considered - The Atlantic

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas two years ago, Hyundai and Uber unveiled an air taxi concept theyd partnered on, claiming people would be riding in the flying vehicles by 2030. Now Hyundai has taken an important step towards making that prediction a reality. The company just invested in a British startup called Urban-Air Port, which has plans to build 200 hubs for flying taxis in 65 different cities over the next 5 years.

In November 2021 Hyundai announced that its Urban Air Mobility Division was becoming a new subsidiary called Supernal. Supernal is developing a family of electric air vehicles, with plans to launch its first commercial flight in 2028, and announced last week that it had bought a minority stake in Urban-Air Port. The company hopes to scale its operationsthat is, theyre envisioning a near future where air taxis glide across city skies in much the same way rideshare vehicles zoom around city streets.

All that gliding wont do much good, though, if the vehicles dont have dedicated takeoff and landing sites. For people to start using air taxis, theyll need to offer not just speed, but convenience. Airports tend to be located at least a half-hour drive from urban centers, and a key function of air taxis will be to act as, well, taxisthat is, providing transportation not only between cities, but from point A to point B within cities, be it from home to the office (if that ever becomes a thing again), from the airport to a client meeting, from one medical center to another, etc.

If its far away and hard to get to, it wont be used, Ricky Sandhu, Founder and Executive Chairman of Urban-Air Port told Singularity Hub in an email. If its right downtown opposite the train station, 60 seconds from the city center or your office, it will be used and will become routine.

Taxis or ride hailing services can drop riders off anywhere in a city because the infrastructure is there: roads. Not so for air taxis, and to make them truly feasible as a transit method, cities will need more than just two or three vertiports. Thats what Urban-Air Port is calling its hubs, since the vehicles that utilize them will take off and land vertically, like a drone or helicopter. They wont need runways, which will make it easier to find viable locations to put the vertiportsthough based on the companys teaser video, they wont be plopping these things down on top of high-rises.

The lotus-flower-like design looks like it will require at least a full city blocks worth of space. The company says an Urban-Air Port is 60 percent smaller than a traditional heliport, can be installed in days, can be easily relocated if needed, and is net-zero on carbon emissions.

Air-One, the companys first hub, is scheduled to open in April in Coventry, UK. The vertiport was built in partnership with Munich Airport International, and its goal is to demonstrate an ultra-compact, rapidly deployable, multi-functional operations hub for manned and unmanned vehicles. Besides passenger vehicles, the vertiports will also be for cargo-carrying drones. Air-One will trial heavy-lift drones with a maximum take-off weight of over 125 kilograms (275 pounds); it will be the first time this type of drone operates within a populated area.

Despite its seemingly slow growth, analysts predict that the global urban air mobility market will reach a value of $12.4 billion by 2027, almost double its 2020 value of $6.4 billion. Urban-Air Ports website asserts that lack of ground infrastructure is the largest single constraint to sustainable air mobility.

Sandhu emphasized that vertiports will focus on the customer experience, aiming to make flying a more seamless and pleasant journey than it currently is. Airports and helipads have vast swathes of tarmac, which slows the vehicle and passenger processing times and impacts capacity and in turn uptake and costs, he said. The passenger experience has never been important. For EVTOL, [the] technology allows for an entirely new form of infrastructure and experience, and thats what we are focused on.

The company hasnt shared details about specific cities for the 200 vertiports it plans to build, but did say the UK, US, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Australia, South Korea, and Southeast Asia are all on the list. It might do well to include China, Japan, and Canada, as the market for urban air mobility is expected to grow significantly in those countries over the next decade.

It will be a few years yet before you can look up and see a flying taxi crossing the sky, but with Urban-Air Ports initiative, when you do see them youll know they have a place to land.

Image Credit: Urban-Air Port

Looking for ways to stay ahead of the pace of change? Rethink whats possible. Join a highly curated, exclusive cohort of 80 executives for Singularitys flagship Executive Program (EP), a five-day, fully immersive leadership transformation program that disrupts existing ways of thinking. Discover a new mindset, toolset and network of fellow futurists committed to finding solutions to the fast pace of change in the world. Click here to learn more and apply today!

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A UK Startup Is Building 200 Flying Taxi Hubs Around the World - Singularity Hub

VIRTUAL REALITY

Can We Prove the World Isnt a Simulation?David Chalmers | NautilusYou might think you have definitive evidence that youre not [in a simulation]. I think thats impossible, because any such evidence could be simulated. Maybe you think the glorious forest around you proves that your world isnt a simulation. But in principle, the forest could be simulated down to every last detail, and every last bit of light that reaches your eyes from the forest could be simulated, too. Your brain will react exactly as it would in the nonsimulated, ordinary world, so a simulated forest will look exactly like an ordinary one.

Experimental Robot Surgeon Can Operate Without Human HelpEd Cara | GizmodoA team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere say their robot was able to pull off a complicated and delicate surgical procedure on a pig without the assistance of humans for the first time. Whats more, the robot even appeared to do the job better than human surgeons. STAR is the first robotic system to plan, adapt, and execute a surgical plan in soft tissue without human intervention, [Axel] Krieger, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins, told Gizmodo in anemail.

The New Version of GPT-3 Is Much Better Behaved (and Should Be Less Toxic Too)Will Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology ReviewThe San Francisco-based lab says the updated model, calledInstructGPT, is better at following the instructions of people using itknown as alignment in AI jargonand thus produces less offensive language, less misinformation, and fewer mistakes overallunless explicitly told not to do so.

How to Build a Better MetaverseGilad Edelman | WiredThe metaverse, you may have heard, is the next big thing: an ever-present social cyberspace in which peopleor their digital avatarswill work, hang out, and shop. As it happens, this was also the next big thing in 2003. In many ways, the metaverse being pitched by Facebooker, Metaand other companies isnt so different from Second Life. And yet [Philip] Rosedales creation never came close to reaching the world-conquering scale that gets the likes of Mark Zuckerberg out of bed in the morning. What could make this time different?

The Battle for the Worlds Most Powerful CyberweaponRonen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti | The New York TimesFor nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one elsenot a private company, not even a state intelligence servicecould do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.

The Quest to Trap Carbon in Stoneand Beat Climate ChangeVince Beiser | WiredOn a barren lava plateau in Iceland, a new facility is sucking in air and stashing the carbon dioxide in rock. The next step: Build 10,000 more. For direct air capture to have a real impact, the industry has to find a way to expand at a stupefying rate. Climeworks, Carbon Engineering, and their ilk need to build thousands of plants to capture even a few gigatons of carbon dioxide.

What if Quantum Computing Is a Bust?Chris Jay Hoofnagle and Simson Garfinkel | SlateWhat if, as some critics like [Mikhail] Dyakonov argue, quantum computing is just too complicated and too hard a problem to solveat least for the next few decades? In this scenario (call it Quantum Winter), quantum computing devices remain noisy and never scale to a meaningful quantum advantage.

Image Credit:Marek Piwnicki / Unsplash

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This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through January 29) - Singularity Hub

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know how to turn nearly anything into a good time.

Over a wide-ranging 20-year career, Lord and Miller, who first met at Dartmouth College, have demonstrated a unique knack for finding fun, clever stories in some of the least likely places.

The creative tag team who often swap writer, director and producer hats gave staid plastic bricks an awesome makeover in The Lego Movie franchise. They helped to transform the lesser-known comic book character Miles Morales into an Oscar winner with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. They found laughs in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with the Fox sitcom The Last Man on Earth, and in an earnest 80s TV drama, with the 21 Jump Street films. They also produced Netflixs animated Oscar contender, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, which turned a terrifying technological singularity into a heartwarming family adventure.

Now, theyre injecting mirth into murder with their new series, The Afterparty, whose first three episodes premiere Friday on Apple TV+ (the remaining five episodes will air weekly).

When Miller birthed the murder-mystery idea in 2010, he envisioned it as a feature film, having taken inspiration from classics like Rashomon and Clue. In 2019, he revised the story to fit an episodic TV format, and he served as the showrunner and director of all the episodes while Lord executive produced. The finished product is a whodunit built like a Matryoshka doll, with multiple cinematic genres nestled inside of one big mystery.

With an ensemble cast that includes Ike Barinholtz, Ilana Glazer, Sam Richardson and Ben Schwartz, the series revolves around a high school reunion that ends in death. Tiffany Haddish plays a Columbo-style police detective whos sizing up the crime scene.

Were all stars in our own movie, the detective tells the suspects, and the series literalizes the point. Nearly every episode revolves around a different partygoers account of the nights events and is presented in a style that reflects that characters personality: a sappy rom-com for Richardsons lovelorn alumnus who is pursuing an old crush; an absurd action flick for Barinholtzs emasculated ex-jock; a psychological thriller for Glazers paranoid valedictorian who fell from grace.

Lord and Miller talked recently about The Afterparty in a joint video interview from their respective Los Angeles homes, where theyve been preparing Spider-Man: Across the Universe (Part One) for an October release, as well as scripting and animating the reboot of their early-aughts animated series Clone High for HBO Max. The puckish pair discussed switching gears, sweating the details and getting a second chance to make a good impression. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

You jumped into this live-action project right after finishing an animated one, Into the Spider-Verse. Do you approach those two mediums differently?

PHIL LORD The bottom line is we dont really see them any differently; we treat everything the same. I dont know if its that our sense of humor is just juvenile enough to appeal to children also, but in all cases, were trying to do something that we havent quite seen before. Were always trying to experiment. Maybe thats why we Ping-Pong back and forth.

CHRISTOPHER MILLER Were always trying to take a story and figure out how to make it something new and add something to the conversation. We follow that story to where it wants to be its best self.

In an animated episode, theres a quick sight gag about Easter eggs. Should viewers be looking for those throughout?

MILLER This is a crazy thing because we are crazy people. Because it was a puzzle of a murder-mystery, we thought it would be really fun to add some hidden Easter egg-style clues, codes and ciphers for people to solve, as a bonus. You dont need to freeze-frame and solve these things to figure out whodunit; thats all there in the narrative. But, on top of that, for the uber-nerds, there are a lot of little details in the set dressing, signage and other hidden messages that, if you decode them, give you hints into who did or didnt do it. Making a show where every episode is its own little movie, each episode is shot with different lighting, lensing, costuming and music is a huge production challenge. We thought, Why not add one more production challenge on top of it?

LORD Its like making a bespoke thing. I always like receiving a gift from filmmakers, something physical thats had that level of attention, as opposed to something that feels clean and manufactured. The trick with this stuff is that its mass entertainment, but you never want it to feel mass-produced.

Did you go back and take notes on films from all of the different genres?

MILLER Absolutely. There are a lot of different subgenres within these genres. Like, there are a lot of different types of action movies. So there were a lot of conversations like, Is this going to be a Fast & Furious, or a John Wick, or a classic Die Hard action movie? We never wanted to make anything a parody or a spoof. Were big film buffs, and its all done with love and admiration for how other people have found interesting ways to tell stories. Were sort of stealing all their best ideas and putting them into one thing. We wanted to use the storytelling conventions of those genres to let us have a window into these characters inner lives.

Which styles would you use to tell your personal stories?

MILLER One of those rambling, improv-filled comedies that dont have a lot of plot because thats what I think our daily life is like.

LORD White male ennui like, Oh, we all just rented a house in Ojai and were going to work out our beefs from growing up.

What was it like creating and filming during the pandemic?

LORD We made a summer bubble in 2020. We both were renting places in Malibu, so we would walk down the beach and have production meetings.

MILLER But making the show, obviously, was in-person. We shot from October 2020 to February 2021. I think the chemistry on the show was due to the fact that so many people had just been in their homes by themselves. They showed up on set and were just so happy to be around other human beings. So the mood on set was like nothing wed ever done before.

Thats not surprising: Most of the cast members would be considered the exclamation points of their previous projects.

MILLER Its basically a show filled with a dozen exclamation points! You get all these people who are the funniest people you know in a room, and it makes for a joyous experience. So many of the cast are hyphenates creators, writers, directors, showrunners. They all are approaching this thing from the point of view of somebody who makes stuff as well. So they were able to hold this complicated thing in their heads. Youre asking them to come in and not just play a character but play eight different versions of a character. Its a very complex ask.

LORD Theyre also all on offense. Nobody is there trying not to get in trouble, or to play it safe, or to avoid looking stupid. Theyre all there trying to figure out, What could be contributed to this moment?

Have you attended any of your own high school reunions?

LORD Ive been to many. The first hours conversation is always like, Im miserable! Yes! I hate it here! Lets leave! Then, by the end, you just hang with those few people you grew up with and remember why you were so close so long ago, and its a very warm feeling. Warmth and humiliation. At my 25th, they gave out certificates, and I got Most Improved. It was nice for one second to feel that I was well-liked. And then I immediately knocked over the entire drink table. I leaned on it when I was feeling confident, then it collapsed under my weight, and I felt embarrassed all over again. In a reunion, you experience all the emotions of high school in a four-hour period. Its like High School: The Ride.

MILLER I missed one or two. It is a complicated experience. You go to these things and youre mixed up with a lot of conflicting emotions there are fond memories and painful memories; youre reverting to old dynamics and you want to feel like youve moved past some of those things. What high school reunions are, for many people, is theyre presenting the version of themselves they want their old classmates to see.

What the show is really about is trying to get people to take a moment to look at the world through someone elses eyes. When you do that, you might find that people are more surprising and complex than you think.

Having worked together since college, how do each of you think the other has changed? Is your work dynamic different from what it once was?

MILLER Its not like one is the this person and one is the that person.

LORD Were both the messy one. Chris was the messy one until he met me.

MILLER Hes right. I am the Felix to Phils Oscar, but I would be the Oscar to any other person. But we are both very involved in every step of the creative process. In our early days, we were looking over each others shoulders trying to write scenes in the same room, and it was really hard. Nowadays, we talk about what our goals are, then we go off separately and have a little room to try things, fail, figure it out and then send them to each other. It only makes its way onto screen if both of us feel like weve got something.

LORD Now, I think were more curious about what the other person is going to bring to it, knowing the end product is going to become something neither of us wouldve done on our own. Thats the pleasure of having a partnership because you just dont know where its going to go. That used to feel scary, and now it feels really exciting.

MILLER And the key to that is having a lot of trust and admiration. Its like a marriage.

LORD Like a marriage, without some of the fun parts.

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The Afterparty Is a Genre Romp Wrapped in a Comic Mystery - The New York Times