The Clockwork Critic

Disappointed by the movie or music recommendations you've been getting from human critics? Then maybe it's finally time to plug into the ever-improving (ostensibly) world of "recommender applications." Canadian writer Sarah Lazarovic explains that such "web-based applications seek to recommend music not through descriptive reviews, but through affinities calculated by a computer algorithm. Websites like Movielens.org and Filmaffinity.com endeavour to tell you what you will like by having you tell them what you already like."

There's ever more media out there to choose from, notes Lazarovic. "Defining by association," she writes, "involves abandoning micro-judgments (e.g. one critic's opinion, your brother's testimonial) for the world of global opinion—computer-produced taste groups based on mutual affinities. We've long been in the habit of defining things in the context of other things—so and so writes like so and so, someone sings like someone else. Sites like Musicplasma.com, Music-map.com [and the others] just take it to the next level, dispensing with the articles and adjectives."

Maybe you can never have too few adjectives, but I admit that I've gotten used to the articles.

Thanks to: ArtsJournal