Culture File Likes: Jenny Thomas

Jenny M Thomas of Australian new folksters Bush Gothic shares some of the things she's clicked 'like' on lately

The Culture File Weekly 27.10.17 (Kurt Andersen in Fantasyland, Sylvia L'Ecuyer in Wagnerland)

This weekly, American writer, Kurt Andersen reports to us from Fantasyland, his nightmare contemporary USA, in which entertainment and reality have finally merged. And musicologist & opera writer, Sylvia L'Ecuyer, decodes good and evil in updating opera

Culture File: Right and Wrong Ways To Update Opera

Musicologist and Wexford opera regular, Sylvia L'Ecuyer, on the risky art of gussying-up Mozart and Wagner

Culture File: The End of Reason

US author, Kurt Andersen, completes his takedown of the "nuts and crackpots" of what his latest book calls "Fantasyland"

Culture File: The Birth of Fantasyland

Author, Kurt Andersen, on how the credulity of America's first Europeans led, inevitably, to the Trump presidency

Culture File: Buffalo Bill, Donald Trump and the birth of Fantasyland

Kurt Andersen's new 500 year history of American explores how reality and entertainment merged in the New World

Culture File Likes: Aisling Kelliher

Our tech correspondent shares some of the stuff she'd be clicking "Like" on, including a guidebook to tyranny

The Culture File Weekly 20.10.17 (Jonathan Meese, Anneleen Boeme, Aisling Kelliher)

This weekly, we're in Berlin with German artist-provocateur, Jonathan Meese; on the new frontiers of jazz with Anneleen Boeme and deep inside the matrix as Aisling Kelliher marks our card for the AI-filled future

Culture File: What exactly is wrong with AI?

Culture File techspert, Aisling Kelliher, on learning to love, cherish and discipline the AI in your life

Culture File: The jazz mission of Anneleen Boehme

Belgian double bassist, Anneleen Boehme, is in search of new, more diverse audiences for jazz

Culture File: Jonathan Messe's (and his mum's) Dictatorship of Art

The German artist briefs us on what's preventing the dictatorship of art that he and his mum are working towards

Culture File: Jonathan Messe's (and his mum's) Dictatorship of Art

The German artist briefs us on what's preventing the dictatorship of art that he and his mum are working towards

Culture File Likes: Justin Green

Cork hotelier and gin distiller, Justin Green, shares some of the reading, listening and eating experiences that delight him

The Culture File Weekly 13.10.17 (Tamara Saulwick, Paddy Mann, Silver Linings LARP, whey alcohol)

This weekly, it's all about endings, with Tamara Saulwick's memorial interviews performance, Endings, the imagined life of a nursing home in Silver Lining, and the not-at-all dirty secret of whey alcohol

Culture File: LARPING old age (Part 2)

Silver Lining, a live action role play (LARP) game, offers a kind of engaged play the organisers call LARPtivism

Culture File: LARPing Old Age

In Valdelaguna, Spain, players of a game called Silver Lining are exploring life, death & love in a retirement home

Culture File: Crackles, Pops and Endings

Exploring loss with help from hissy reel to reel recorders and crackly vinyl in Tamara Saulwick’s Endings

Culture File: The old new world of whey alcohol

Milk-based alcohol has ancient roots and remains very common - so why are we coy about it, wonders Justin Green

Culture File Likes: Liam Carson

Imram festival director, Liam Carson shares some books, shops, youtube videos he's been enjoying this week

The Culture File Weekly 06.10.17 (Mastering songwriting, the 21st century trumpet, horror sound)

This weekly, we spend some time with Duke Special and Carl Corcoran at a brand new Masters in songwriting at University of Limerick, hear how blowing into a trump is only one way to make it produce music, and unpack the new recipe for heebeegeebees-inducing movie music

Culture File: The New Trumpet

Norwegian composer and trumpeter, Hilde Marie Holsen, on her unique blend of brass and electronics

Culture File: Hearing all the feels

Caitriona Walsh has been researching film composers who use new ways of making our bodies respond at the cinema

Culture File: The Hallowed Words of Michael Longley

Singer-songwriter, Duke Special's latest album, Hallow, is based on the writings of Northern poet, Michael Longley

Culture File: Mastering Songwriting with Carl Corcoran

A brand new Masters in songwriting at UL's Irish Academy of World Music and Dance welcomes its first students

The Culture File Weekly 29.10.17 (Alan Butler, Jenny Thomas, Gavin Fitzgerald, The Judgement of Paris: The Rematch)

This weekly a deep dive into the NURBs with artist Alan Butler, who creates his art within the game, Grand Theft Auto V, there's more skirmishes in a France v California wine battle, a confession on The Truth About Irish Hiphop and a 2017 Wild Colonial Boy

Culture File: Gavin Fitzgerald's Culture Picks

Culture File: Gavin Fitzgerald The director of Notorious and The Truth About Irish Hiphop decodes his content shopping list