The Little Prince: The Journey of Stars
Spread across five giant walls that soar six metres high, this storytelling spectacle invites you to follow the Little Prince on his cosmic journey – from his rose-covered home planet to his encounters with the fox and the lamplighter, all while exploring deeper themes of love, loss, and the beauty of human connection. The experience unfolds in three stages: a seated digital film, a highlights zone, and an interactive gallery where visitors can snap photos and reflect on the journey.
Though the exhibition is designed for all ages, do note that the first 45 minutes are story-driven and best suited for children over four. For the best experience, arrive early to secure a good seat. The show starts sharply at your scheduled time, and latecomers might miss out.
Address: Level 3, Parkview Square, 600 North Bridge Road, Singapore 188778
Nearest MRT: Bugis
Opening hours: Daily, hourly sessions
Ticket prices: From $22 (Singapore residents), with discounts up to 50% available on select sessions
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible
Time Out tip: Make a day of it. Parkview Square is also home to ATLAS, one of Singapore's most stunning bars. Book a table in advance and toast your journey with a champagne cocktail under soaring Art Deco ceilings.
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Time Out
2 days ago
- Time Out
The Little Prince: The Journey of Stars
Enter the whimsical world of The Little Prince like never before in The Little Prince: The Journey of Stars, a multi-sensory digital art exhibition now open at Groundseesaw in Parkview Square. Inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's beloved novella, this immersive experience reimagines key scenes and characters through sweeping 3D projections, emotive narration and a soul-stirring soundtrack that will enchant fans both young and old. Spread across five giant walls that soar six metres high, this storytelling spectacle invites you to follow the Little Prince on his cosmic journey – from his rose-covered home planet to his encounters with the fox and the lamplighter, all while exploring deeper themes of love, loss, and the beauty of human connection. The experience unfolds in three stages: a seated digital film, a highlights zone, and an interactive gallery where visitors can snap photos and reflect on the journey. Though the exhibition is designed for all ages, do note that the first 45 minutes are story-driven and best suited for children over four. For the best experience, arrive early to secure a good seat. The show starts sharply at your scheduled time, and latecomers might miss out. Address: Level 3, Parkview Square, 600 North Bridge Road, Singapore 188778 Nearest MRT: Bugis Opening hours: Daily, hourly sessions Ticket prices: From $22 (Singapore residents), with discounts up to 50% available on select sessions Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible Time Out tip: Make a day of it. Parkview Square is also home to ATLAS, one of Singapore's most stunning bars. Book a table in advance and toast your journey with a champagne cocktail under soaring Art Deco ceilings.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Daily Mail
Secrets of the 'world's greatest hotel' after insane 8-year transformation but it remains steeped in nostalgia
The infamous New York City hotel, the Waldorf Astoria, has reopened its doors after a massive eight-year renovation gave the nostalgic building a modern facelift - but the essence of old Park Avenue money hasn't disappeared. After eight years of renovations, delays, and ownership scandals, the iconic hotel is back, with many nods to its roots. The Waldorf Astoria has a long history of influencing culture, fashion, and architecture, donning a unique Art Deco style that put the hotel on the map. Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain, once referred to the Waldorf Astoria as 'the greatest of them all'. The newest version of the hotel has significantly cut down on rooms from 1,400 to only 375, increasing the exclusivity and making it even more difficult to book a stay. The reduction has also made the rooms some of the largest in the city, starting at 570 square feet. The hotel's infamous Peacock Alley, which once connected the Waldorf and the Astoria before it became one building, has been restored to its original grandeur. The alley got its name from the promenade that guests would take to show off their wealth. Now that the building is one hotel, Peacock Alley has become the Waldorf Astoria's breathtaking lounge. The grand Waldorf clock is the star of the show in the center of the lounge. It was once commissioned by Queen Victoria for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Also featured prominently in Peacock Alley is a beautiful Steinway grand piano that once belonged to the famous American composer Cole Porter. Porter composed scores for several Broadway shows, including Kiss Me, Kate, and the 1965 film, High Society, which starred Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra. He lived in the Waldorf Astoria from 1934 until he died in 1964. The tribute to him goes beyond decoration, as the hotel plans to have a pianist play the instrument for guests in the lobby. Setting the scene The doors to the Waldorf Astoria have seen many celebrities and political figures, including Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, and even Queen Elizabeth II, walk through them. The hotel is steeped in history, with the Grand Ballroom being the first venue to host the Tony Awards. Monroe is said to have met former President John F. Kennedy at the awards ceremony. The Waldorf Astoria also introduced the world to the famous Waldorf salad, a classic fruit and nut salad created by the maitre d'hotel Oscar Tschirky in 1893. The hotel's kitchen is responsible for producing other staples like red velvet cake and eggs Benedict. Lemuel Benedict, a retired Wall Street stockbroker, is believed to have ordered the combination to cure his hangover, which inspired Tschirky to popularize the dish. The Waldorf Astoria was the first to offer 24-hour room service for its guests and was even the first to start hiring female chefs, starting in 1931, according to Culture Now. In addition to food, the Waldorf Astoria was famous for cocktails. One of the bartenders, Johnnie Solon, invented the Bronx Cocktail behind the hotel's bar. The cocktail is a mix of gin, orange juice, and a dash of vermouth. History riddled with drama The hotel's story begins in 1897 when cousins William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV built two separate hotels on Fifth Avenue. The cousins turned their mansions into hotels during a bitter feud to one-up each other. A cruel twist came in 1929 when they were forced to demolish their hotels for construction of the Empire State Building. They then made a deal to combine the Waldorf and the Astoria into one hotel, moving the location to Park Avenue. The grand opening came two years later when the Waldorf Astoria debuted as a 47-story skyscraper with a coveted Grand Ballroom that saw Frank Sinatra perform and Albert Einstein speak. In 1977, Conrad Hilton achieved his dream of acquiring the property, but sold it to Chinese firm Anbang Insurance Group in 2014 for a whopping $1.95 billion in 2014. Over a decade later, the sale remains the most expensive hotel sale in history. In 2017, the insurance group began renovations. However, just two years later, the firm's chairman, Wu Xiaohui, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for fundraising fraud and embezzlement by the Chinese government. Anbang declared bankruptcy, and the Waldorf Astoria was acquired by another Chinese firm called Dajia Insurance Group. The legal woes further delayed the hotel's current renovations, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 pushed it back even further. A new era With a rich history of scandal, art, culture, and wealth, the Waldorf Astoria has now entered a new era. The renovation was overseen by architects from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, one of the leading architecture firms in the country. The team told the New York Times that they spent years sifting through archival photos to create new designs that rang true to the hotel's origin. Chef Michael Anthony, who previously won a Michelin Star at New York's Gramercy Tavern, is spearheading the cuisine at the Waldorf Astoria's Lex Yard restaurant. The Waldorf Astoria has consistently been at the forefront of cocktail innovation, with drinks such as the Rob Roy cocktail and Bronx Cocktail originating there. Pictured a bartender makes a Rob Roy at the hotel on Wednesday The hotel also features a massive 30,000 square foot spa with a sprawling fitness center. The brand is staying true to its ballroom roots, reimagining the Grand Ballroom to accommodate new technology. The bordering rooms have undergone renovations to make them soundproof, so guests can still rent them out during events. A gaudy crystal chandelier that used to be the centerpiece of the ballroom has been removed and replaced with a modern lighting system. Frank Mahan, a principal architect with SOM, told the Times that the lighting of the ballroom, 'never quite worked the way it was intended'. The chandelier's harsh lighting damaged the paneling and metalwork of the ballroom, but now light comes through from coves in the ceiling. The hotel's third floor features a stunning hallway called the Silver Corridor, connecting the Grand Ballroom, the Astor Room, and the Basildon Room. The hallway's grandiose chandeliers light up the jaw-dropping murals on the ceiling, painted by Edward Emerson Simmons. Guests are also promised ultimate comfort in their rooms, which feature dressing areas and private bar areas. The Waldorf Astoria is officially open for guests and has rooms available starting at a whopping $1,500 a night.
New Statesman
7 days ago
- New Statesman
Are emojis killing language?
Illustration by George Wylesol I was shocked and dismayed to realise, a few years ago, that I was going to have to watch The Emoji Movie, which was made in 2017 by a mobile phone company, Sony, to promote the use of mobile phones by children. To my great regret, I allowed the film – comfortably among the worst pieces of entertainment ever made – to play in its entirety. I wish I had done something more rational, and enjoyable, such as beating myself unconscious with a frozen haddock. I do not think it is unreasonable to describe The Emoji Movie as an act of cultural terrorism, an attempt to spread hopelessness and anhedonia among all the people on whom it was inflicted. The people who made the film were clearly recruited to do so by a foreign power (America) with the intention of eroding other cultures, making us doubt the value of art itself. Anyone involved in the making of it is pure evil, and in a just, well-run world they would never work again. The same is not true of Face with Tears of Joy, Keith Houston's story of the rise of the emoji. (The title refers to the crying-laughing emoji, which is used more than any other.) It is an intelligent, historical account of a cultural phenomenon. But, like the grotesque crime that is The Emoji Movie, it raises questions: for whom do the emoji work? What power do they hold? In 2016, Tom Wolfe published his last book, The Kingdom of Speech. It tells of the search among scientists for an understanding of language, from the point at which Alfred Russel Wallace described it – and the abstract thought it makes possible – as the basis for man's ascent from the state of nature. 'Speech', Wolfe writes, was 'the primal artifact. Without speech the human beast couldn't have created any other artifacts, not the crudest club or the simplest hoe, not the wheel or the Atlas rocket.' It is the basis for mathematics – try counting to ten without using words, Wolfe writes – and trade, farming, science, society, religion. Most of all, it is the basis of the self. As Wittgenstein pointed out, when we think in words – when we think to ourselves I'd like a strawberry, or Martin doesn't look happy, or what is this bloke going on about – these words aren't accompanied by separate thoughts, holding the meanings the words refer to. The words are the thoughts. 'Language itself', as Wittgenstein put it, 'is the vehicle of thought'. People do not think in emoji. I disagree with Houston's description of emoji as 'the world's newest language'. They are not language at all. The emoji set is a collection of phatic expressions which can be used to convey social context and emotion, like the mooing of cows. But they do not have any real semantic significance. They are just pictures of things. They do not combine into greater context. Sometimes – the peach, the aubergine – they can mean two things, but in general they mean what they mean. Compare them, as Houston does, to the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt – weren't they just pictures, too? No. Hieroglyphs were an alphabet of sounds and meanings that could be mixed to create far more complex structures of thought. A picture of an eye did not just mean 'eye'; it meant a sound, a component of meaning, a signifier of cultural significance, heavy with the weight of all the things it had meant over the centuries. It could invoke the gods Ra and Horus. It was capable of being ordered into a practically endless branching complexity of thought. The same cannot be said of a little picture of a smiling cartoon turd. And yet the emoji are in constant use, billions of them teeming through the air, a river of thumbs and smiles and hearts and fruit. What for? And what is that doing to us? In the mid 1990s, Keiichi Enoki, a manager at the Japanese telephone company DoCoMo noticed how easily and capably his young children played with a pager. Pagers were very popular in Japan, and a kind of slang that used numbers as shorthand for words had evolved; three nines, when read out in Japanese – san kyu – sounded a bit like the English 'thank you', for example. DoCoMo had previously failed to understand the potential this represented, but what Keiichi understood from watching his children play with technology was you could not be too patronising, too infantilising. Keiichi incorporated a set of icons – pictograms saved as text, rather than images – into his i-mode web browser, making it simple and kawaii (cute). The effect was transformative; i-mode had a million subscribers within six months. Keitai phones – equipped with basic internet service – spread across Japan. When the iPhone was released in 2007 the then-CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, laughed. 'It doesn't have a keyboard,' he chuckled. Who would pay for that? Ballmer had failed to see what Keiichi had seen, which was that people liked simpler interfaces. The iPhone was a design that could be understood immediately by a young child. There was only one button you could press. This logic would be extended to the iPad, a laptop screen on which it was impractical to type. The apps were little cartoon versions of things – an envelope, a calendar – and from 2010, when emoji were added to Unicode, messages could be composed without even using words. The rising use of emoji combined with the widespread use of other means of phatic communication – the poke, the like, the retweet – allowed people to communicate emotion, mass approval or disapproval, in ever greater volumes, without actually saying anything. In 2014, a new social network was launched called Yo. Users could only send each other a single word: 'yo'. It was meant as a joke – it opened on 1 April – but tens of thousands of people joined and the developers raised millions of dollars before it folded. In 2018, BuzzFeed News asked its readers to respond to questions about that year's midterm elections using emojis. People who worried about gun violence and the climate crisis registered their political sentiment by submitting little pictures of frowny faces, water pistols and rainbow flags. Karl Marx wrote that technology changes how people interact with the world and each other, and emoji are part of the story of a world that is becoming less literate. They represent language that can be more fun, but which is also, by accident or by design, trimmed of its semantic content, made phatic. And perhaps made less powerful and more easily directed too. Some of us may read a warning in Louis MacNeice's strange, prophetic little poem, 'To Posterity' (1957), in which he imagined a time when: 'reading and even speaking have been replaced/By other, less difficult, media', and wonders 'if you/Will find in flowers and fruit the same colour and taste/They held for us for whom they were framed in words.' To be fair, The Emoji Movie may not really have been the act of a deranged cabal of art criminals bent on destroying our culture. But emoji themselves may represent something darker: a shift to communicating without context, to being reduced to simpler and more emotional responses. Every day, more and more people allow chatbots to intercede in their word-making, and it is not hard to imagine a time when the companies who run these machines have a far greater command of human speech, emotion and behaviour. They will run the world then, and all we'll be able to say about it is: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji Keith Houston WW Norton, 224pp, £14.99 Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from who support independent bookshops [See also: On freedom vs motherhood] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related This article appears in the 23 Jul 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Kemi Isn't Working
