South by southwest

Some pictures are now so mediated that their actual physicality has long been dwarfed by a million reproductions. The ‘Mona Lisa’, obviously. ‘The Haywain’ is the subject of countless cushion covers and trays. ‘The Birth of Venus’ has marketed trainers, hair dye and the New Yorker. Now, Georges Seurat’s ‘Un dimanche après-midi à l’Île de la Grande Jatte’, possibly the most famous painting to have inspired an entire musical and which has, along the way, inspired umbrellas, duvet covers, dresses, socks and face masks, is the subject of an ‘immersive’ creative experience. This does not mean paintballing outside the Art Institute of Chicago, where the actual art work resides.

This year at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW), an impressive lineup of 2020 presidential candidates (and possible candidates) like Amy Klobuchar, Julián Castro, and John Kasich will take the stage for ‘Conversations About America’s Future,’ a series of one-on-one interviews with prominent media figures. Too bad everybody’s talking about Game of Thrones instead. In building its ‘Bleed for the Throne’ setup at the annual digital confab, HBO had to live up to the hype of last year’s SXSW stunt, where they surprised pretty much everybody by building an actual Westworld.