THE PENINSULA Manila kicks off the holiday season on Oct. 14 with the annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony and festive music by The CompanY, 92AD, and The Peninsula Strings at The Lobby.

LONDON — A “robot artist” called Ai-Da told British lawmakers on Tuesday that although it was an artificial creation, it was still capable of producing art, as it spoke at a parliamentary inquiry into how new technologies will affect the creative industries.

LONDON — Britain’s Damien Hirst started burning hundreds of his artworks on Tuesday after collectors chose to keep their non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain-based assets representing their digital images, instead.

ARCHITECT Andy Locsin recalled how very busy his father, National Artist for Architecture Leandro V. Locsin, was when he was tasked to work on what is known to be his magnum opus, the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City, during the 1970s. The construction was rather quick, finished within 23 months from November 1974 to September 1976.

NON-FUNGIBLE tokens (NFTs) can be used for the preservation of intellectual property in all forms of art. It is also a boon for artist resale rights and limited-edition prints, according to art experts at an Oct. 7 discussion by Galeria Paloma, a multi-genre art gallery and art advisory firm in Manila, Philippines.

LONDON — Veteran actor Ian McKellen hopes to bring some laughs to audiences around Britain with a new extended pantomime production of Mother Goose.

STOCKHOLM/PARIS — French author Annie Ernaux won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature last Thursday for “the courage and clinical acuity” in her largely autobiographical books examining personal memory and social inequality.

IN CELEBRATION of Museums and Galleries month, the National Museum of the Philippines presents a lecture and pop-up exhibition, “My Journey Beyond Fashion,” with Ditta Sandico on Oct. 15, 2 p.m. Admission is free. Ms. Sandico is a Filipino designer, a wrap artist, and an advocate of sustainable fashion.

The remaining tour dates of Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber’s World Tour until March 25, 2023 have been postponed, and this includes the concert scheduled for Oct. 29 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Open Grounds in Pasay City.

THE MICRO-theater Cinema ‘76 offers a very different cinematic experience. It shows films that are rarely screened in the multiplexes, focusing on independent films and restored classics.

LONDON — Making her new psychological period thriller The Wonder was a lesson in reining in her spirit and holding her tongue, British star Florence Pugh says.

GOOD business has seen Sony Music Entertainment (SME) Philippines outgrowing the old office which it shared with Sony Pictures, so it has opened its very own office in Pasig City.