"Grok & X have recently come under fire as Grok reportedly produced & disseminated thousands of sexually explicit images of children & women on X in response to user requests. Many of these images were non-consensually altered photos of real people." What's the regulatory angle? CREATe is on it 👇

"..even in a moment of satisfaction, he is still political. He is an activist as much as an actor. & now, also artistic director of a new national theatre company." The Stage 👇 on Michael Sheen & new Welsh National Theatre. We are watching with interest with arts reviews in mind!

Kafka podcast by Ian Ellison (whose @law-and-humanities.bsky.social arts review is coming soon)👇 One 💡 point: was autism/neurodiversity part of Kafka's creative mantle, present in The Trial, in constant need to decode communication that's self-evident to neurotypical majority? tinyurl.com/jj33a5e3

Happy new year to all! Over the break, I've reflected on how being @law-and-humanities.bsky.social Arts Editor makes me see the arts differently. One day, I'll write about that, but two examples for now, of pieces I engaged with differently, by reading your excellent arts reviews & scholarship...

"Sometimes I feel lighter than the air; when you shine you brighten up my day" lyrics penned by Finley Quaye that sum up my 2yrs so far as @law-and-humanities.bsky.social Arts Editor! Happy holidays to our community! More from me in 2026. "It's great when we're together" & that means Dublin 2026 👇

Dr Kateryna Busol on the importance of both history and international law at the present moment 👇More from Dr Busol next year re @law-and-humanities.bsky.social arts reviews of The Tate ‘Lee Miller’ & Imperial War Museum ‘Unsilenced: sexual violence in conflict’ exhibitions tinyurl.com/2yjsc872

Congratulations again to Dr Aline Iramina and watch this space for some fab publications from her excellent PhD! 🌟👏 @alineiramina.bsky.social

One of the many reasons I love being an academic at CREATe: the ECR community are at the heart of so much of what we do.

The gap between creator-intention & audience reception (explained below 👇 with quotes from Pina Bausch & Tom Stoppard) is one that we consciously & critically explore @law-and-humanities.bsky.social. Just one reason why our Arts reviews - connecting Arts to knowledge - matter. tinyurl.com/mr2fvyht

ARTS NEWS👇 Have you seen our Spotlight on Theatre in the latest Issue? Our editorial links reviews by @kristinhausler.bsky.social, @eepwrites.bsky.social & @adiver.bsky.social re plays at @royalcourt.bsky.social, @nationaltheatre.org.uk, Lyric Belfast; @silentfacesuk.bsky.social tinyurl.com/3m4ccd7k

I’m still 🤔 about Mulcahy/Moscati in SLS 👇As©️scholar, could creative choices/constraints test apply to performance (as per authorial works)? As @law-and-humanities.bsky.social Arts ed, ballet’s binding of freedom to control as critical metaphor for law. See you at IALS tomorrow dance/law community 👋

Just in time for the Christmas, you can preorder the paperback copy of my book! It won’t arrive until after Christmas, which I know will disappoint many, but a printout of a preorder is often an even better stocking filler than a book. 20% off with code below! www.routledge.com/Pragmatism-L...

"Stoppard’s genius underlines what we now risk losing", @thestage.co.uk article celebrates Stoppard's legacy, but looks forward; Stoppard 'earned a living as playwright', yet in 2023 he spoke of 'devaluing' of playwright; & this week: new report finds new playwriting ⬇️ by 30% tinyurl.com/3euyuy6w

"Freedom draws upon the control the ballet dancer has on their body but also on the emotions & artistry that feed the movements... it’s the relationship between control, emotions, & freedom that brings beauty and harmony." Dr Nina Moscati in conversation with Dr Sean Mulcahy 👇 tinyurl.com/mr2cn5nv

Found them!!👇Unused for 30 yrs, after I failed my Royal Academy of Dance entry exam aged 17, but now I’m ready for Dance & Legal Materialities workshop at @ials.bsky.social on Monday 💃 🤔 hoping to connect further with @law-and-humanities.bsky.social community! 🕺🪩 💡Event details: tinyurl.com/nkpwtjnp

There are lots of reasons why @law-and-humanities.bsky.social arts reviewers sometimes need more time to submit reviews, but the current one in my inbox really speaks to just how connected our community is to world-events: the need to complete pressing international law research re Ukraine conflict

Well done to my colleague Bart Meletti 🌟another fab event for the Cultural Memory research theme at @create-glasgow.bsky.social

For us at @create-glasgow.bsky.social this👇 is a fitting visual to pay tribute to a great playwright: Stoppard at the Tony Awards 2023 where he spoke of increasing devaluing of playwrights in the theatre food chain. & I heard that as @law-and-humanities.bsky.social Arts Editor too. shorturl.at/3APfv

Just arrived at @tate.bsky.social to see the Lee Miller exhibition as Arts Editor of @law-and-humanities.bsky.social with a rockstar from art history academia 🎸🌟

Really looking forward to reading this new monograph by CREATe's friends who headed by the (then radical) 'Author's Interest' project. Looks great 👏 Well done Josh and Rebecca.

The brilliant photo-historian Dr Michael Pritchard will be speaking at Liszt Institute London on 2nd Dec👇Great abstract: where there's a good archive, there's a story, & it will always be original, always authentic. Great speaker too ⭐ @phrc-dmu.bsky.social @the-rps.bsky.social tinyurl.com/47uywea4

'Art Law in Fiction and Film': event at National Gallery, London, 11am-12pm, Tues 9th Dec, organised by the Art Lawyers' Association. And to our L&H community: if you go, please say 👋 to our Arts Editor @drelenacooper.bsky.social who will be attending! tinyurl.com/2w7fcmue

Love this arts essay, not just re enduring power of Kafka's writing, but also for what an astute English scholar says re creativity in adaptation: in changing media "distinctive... grammars... transpose Kafka’s textual strategies" e.g. "aural dissonance, scenic abstraction or visual distortion" ⭐

Really looking forward to reading this one👇 by my favourite (living) sociologist: "In this interview, 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗹𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 elaborates on his use of the concept of a 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁-𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 to theorise the structural rupture of rational-critical discourse in the digital age..."

'Something hit him in the eyeballs: the reflective light that comes from the sea'; it was 'like being woken up; shook by nature'; in his sketches he was trying to discover 'how little you need to represent something': from "Turner: The Secret Sketchbooks" now on BBCiplayer👇 tinyurl.com/3kyermy3

Thank you @rhul-cvs.bsky.social for a warm welcome this evening; loved every minute of presenting to you & unraveling interdisciplinary perspectives on your stunning art collection 🌟 my third talk in the gallery and I sense not my last! And I got lost in all architectural details on my way in 👇

"This conference starts from the premise that to ensure the preservation of contemporary art in all its diversity we first need to understand who cares: who owns, controls and manages contemporary artists’ estates & what legacies are being cared for, how & why?"👇Love this CFP: implicit law/art nexus

Well done to my CREATe colleague Kris Erickson 👏 Looking forward to reflecting on this paper from a legal historian angle: the status of directions, why they are not authorial (in Victorian carte de visit context), is discussed in Nottage v Jackson (1883)

Thinking about my talk ( tinyurl.com/4rekdmnc) this wk, while on Richmond Hill (known as Turner’s view & short walk from👇) My talk reflects on being present with art in the Gallery, but I will start with what is absent (Turner’s painting sold in 1993) which takes us to a different intellectual place

Thank you to fab audience today at The CREATe TM Seminar - particularly wonderful connecting with our regular attendees from overseas: I'm forever impressed by encyclopaedic TM law knowledge of @zvirosen.bsky.social & loved the genius patent qu from @birnhack.bsky.social; and 👋 to @jocelynbos.se ⭐

It's a grey day but I've got a spring in my step as I'm presenting with D Higgins & J Davis 🕰️👇 tinyurl.com/mrzv9bfs Do you own a 19th cent watchcase with a UK 'FOREIGN' hallmark? if so you own a piece of TM history (& a rare collector's item). Learn more at 2pm today online! Drop me an email to join

Love this new design by Kéré 👇based on the Baobab tree for UNESCO’s new virtual museum for stolen cultural artefacts sourced from Interpol database, “to raise awareness of the illicit trafficking of cultural property worldwide” & impact of such trafficking on communities. shorturl.at/Qx5V1

Paul Weller's lyrics capture my intellectual mood right now: 'Hidden in the backseat of my head; that place I can't remember where; I found it just by coincidence'... well, reading @dkennytcd.bsky.social👇 &, last year Watt & Raffield's 2007 L&H editorial, I realised I am a closet law & lit scholar 🤔

Art history conference👇 I spied quote from a legal theorist: "as Hans Kelsen wrote as early as 1926, political representation in parliament is a 'fiction' whose credibility must be permanently confirmed through communication"; that includes art. Legal theoretical underpinning to art historical qu ⭐

Delighted to be invited to blog about the fab JMW Turner exhibition that has just opened at National Museums Liverpool, as part of Turner 250 👇 'Turner: Always Contemporary', 25 Oct to 22 Feb, Walker Art Gallery. www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/whatson/walk...

Don’t miss the PHRC’s @phrc-dmu.bsky.social next online research seminar in photographic cultures & heritage, 27 Nov '25, 5.30pm. This time, we host Pippa Oldfield and Tom Allbeson for an inspiring discussion on Peace Photographies. All welcome free but registration required - tinyurl.com/he77wnsp.

CfP: announcing the 8th L&H Roundtable workshop 'Visions of Democracy in Art and Literature' @tcddublin.bsky.social on 19 Jun 2026. Submit abstracts to [email protected] by Fri 6 Feb @legalhumanities.bsky.social @sophiedoherty.bsky.social @dkennytcd.bsky.social @drelenacooper.bsky.social 👇

🎓 The CREATe Trade Mark Seminar Series — Autumn 2025 We are delighted to announce two online seminars this November exploring 👌 🧵 🔗 To register, please contact Elena Cooper: [email protected] 🖥️ Events are free and open to all Read more 👉 www.create.ac.uk/blog/2025/10...

‘Things do not have to be this way’ says Sir David Attenborough in ‘Our Story’ now on at @nhm.org. I needed to hear that from Sir D on a planetary level to find that hopeful space again re smaller things too; my list of topics is pretty long, but: let’s do it! Or do some of it! 🤔 shorturl.at/mm2WD

Exhibition "Information Noise Saturation", opening soon re work of artist J Nechtaval. I interviewed Nechvatal in 2013 re his creative use of tech; now as @law-and-humanities.bsky.social arts editor, I see that interview through new frame: new media art as "political praxis beyond aesthetic concern"

Warmest wishes to all friends of @create-glasgow.bsky.social and @hunterianglasgow.bsky.social in Jamaica, at UWI Museum and National History Museum of Jamaica & beyond. Thinking of you all.. 🇯🇲.

Well done @rosetheatre2008.bsky.social for a fab live production of Horrible Histories today; I'm a legal historian of this period & I don't think I could have explained the 'bloody code' any better! However, as a member of @create-glasgow.bsky.social, where was actor attribution? shorturl.at/ve2zg

This Thursday, 30 Oct 2025, 5:30pm, marks the launch of our new Research Seminars in Photographic Cultures and Heritage @phrc-dmu.bsky.social | Delighted to begin with a talk by the wonderful Martha Langford. Attendance free, but registration required - tiny.cc/49au001 We look forward to seeing you!

Exhibition Launch: "Painting and Copyright in the Nineteenth Century" Thurs 20 Nov, 6–8pm Picture Gallery, Royal Holloway, Egham. Time travel with me back to 19th cent, the time of emergence of modern copyright, in presence of one of the best collections of Victorian modern art. shorturl.at/sYnp8

Welcome to Bluesky 👋 and I’ll be looking out for your news with interest 📸🎞️

We're also happy to announce the Research Seminars in Photographic Cultures and Heritage, which start on 30 October, 5.30 pm with none other than Martha Langford! The seminars are all free and online, and you can register here: photographichistory.wordpress.com/2025/10/05/r... #photohist

We're delighted to announce the CFP for our #PHRC26 annual conference on "Photography's Tacit Knowledge". As in the past few years, it'll be a hybrid conference, online and in Leicester, o 15-16 June. Send your abstracts by 9 January! photographichistory.wordpress.com/annual-confe... #photohist

I loved editing this new Arts essay👇 fab interdisciplinary scholarship ⭐; unison gives way to polyvocal views. Do read to the end: this is 1st arts review of music in L&H & it flags creative space for future collaboration between lawyers, artists & those with lived experiences of rights violations.

NEW ISSUE: Law & Humanities👇 In the Arts section, we place a 'spotlight on theatre': reviews of 3 recent plays connect dramatists G Slovo, J Tan & C Cunningham; tackling diverse subjects - Grenfell, repatriation & forced adoption - their plays highlight abuses of power inviting legal responses now.

As copyright lawyers, we study creativity - we know there is 'creativity that counts' in law, & that that doesn't': copyright's rules have blind spots & privilege certain cultural practices & marginalise others. But have we thought about creativity & disabilities like ASD? tinyurl.com/3yrdvwwp