Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Wanted: witty, pithy definition of one of life's great questions

Alice Jones' Arts Diary

Alice Jones
Thursday 29 August 2013 15:17 BST
Comments
ICA Art Rules website
ICA Art Rules website

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The ICA has a new aim – to define art, in just 100 characters.

The social media initiative, Art Rules, invites anyone to answer the question ‘what is art?’ online and interact with the rules that others have put forward.

The more people that agree with a definition, the bigger the bubble it will be given on the site’s homepage.

Tracey Emin (“No critics, no galleries, no curators, no museums, no museum directors, without the artist.”), Rob & Roberta Smith (“Never do anything that does not annoy someone in power.”) and Jeremy Deller (“Throw away the rule book”) are among the artists involved.

The democratic nature of the project means that all manner of gems have also made it onto the homepage – not least “ART is an anagram of RAT”, “Art is what artists make” and “Follow Hans Ulrich [Obrist] on Instagram.”

Actually, that last one is quite a good tip. The Serpentine Director has been posting handwritten artistic epigrams – not dissimilar to Art Rules, in fact - on the photo-sharing site for some time now.

Comedian Stella Graham

 

A comedic turn beats going to the gym

Comedians are not known as the fittest bunch so it’s surprising to discover that stand-up can be good for your health.

Stella Graham wore a heart monitor while performing at the Edinburgh Fringe and discovered that she burned 568kcal over the course of her hour-long show and 30-minute warm-up.

During that time her average heart rate was 117bpm – significantly higher than her usual resting rate of 78-82bpm. So nerves can be good for you, after all.

Also in the Arts Diary

Ballet star Carlos Acosta makes movie debut in Day of the Flowers

Tim Minchin and pals perform Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead down under

@AlicevJones

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in