ARTS & CULTURE

The power of language on the internet Scrolling on social media lately, it seems an entirely new set of vocabulary has arisen. Of course, it has long been acknowledged that internet use can impact the words we use, especially in recent years, where slang, memes, and inside jokes rapidly go ...

How clothes reflect an era’s zeitgeist

Examining the intertwined history of art and technology Recently, humanity has witnessed a rapid evolution in the quality of artificially-generated images. From humble six-fingered and disproportionate beginnings, AI images have become nearly indistinguishable from the hand-drawn. As AI grows more sophisticated, it continues to creep into our everyday lives. Businesses ...

With endless content available, why does it still feel like there’s nothing good on TV? Despite the amount of content spoonfed to us by streaming services, it sometimes seems like there’s nothing worth watching anymore. As streaming service companies harbour more than enough data to cater to viewers’ exact entertainment ...

An exploration of pop, jazz, and the importance of diversity in music As an unapologetic fan of popular music, watching this year’s 67th Grammy Awards was a delight. The most anticipated awards of the night went to Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter for Album of the Year, Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” ...

Your guide to the attention recession The ‘attention economy’ has been called into question in light of struggles with maintaining focus in today’s increasingly busy world. This way of thinking about attention goes beyond psychological focus, including the political and social aspects involved with attention. While every generation has had ...

How the quest for true love inspired a generation of feminists When I was younger, an obsessive reverence rooted in fear of the power of romantic love led to substantial time spent reading (and allegedly publishing) fiction in online communities such as AO3, fanfiction.net, Ww*ttpad, and even… Quotev. As I ...

Engaging with erotica through an asexual lens Erotica—media portraying sex or its elements—has two uses. Its surface-level purpose is to sexually arouse the viewer. Its second function is to allow the audience to explore artistry, aesthetics, and psychology through a more nuanced lens than what is otherwise found or permitted ...

An interview with writer/director Mashreka Mahmood about her new play 71 The Strand:  As you are both the writer and director, could you walk through the process of developing the show? How long did it take and what was that process like?   Mashreka Mahmood: I wrote my last show over ...