The Psychology of Video Game Engagement — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #94 with Jamie Madigan

https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/partiallyexaminedlife/PMP_94_5-8-21.mp3 Why do people play video games, and what keeps them playing? Do we want to have to think through innovative puzzles or just lose ourselves in mindless reactivity? Your hosts Mark Linsenmayer, Erica Spyres, and Brian Hirt are joined by Dr. Jamie Madigan, an organizational psychologist who runs the Psychology of Video Games podcast, …

What Is Contemporary Art?: A Free Online Course from The Museum of Modern Art

What is contemporary art? In this course from the Museum of Modern Art, you’ll explore this question through more than 70 works of art made from 1980 to the present, with a focus on art of the last decade. You’ll hear directly from artists, architects, and designers from around the globe about their creative processes, …

When Neil Young & Rick “Super Freak” James Formed the 60’s Motown Band, The Mynah Birds

At the height of Motown’s powers in the 1960s they were setting trends, not chasing them, but even that record company fell under the spell of the British Invasion. Sure, the jukebox R’n’B singles that made their way across the Atlantic were in the DNA of The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and the Who, but in …

The Origin of the Rooftop Concert: Before the Beatles Came Jefferson Airplane, and Before Them, Brazilian Singer Roberto Carlos (1967)

When did the first rooftop concert happen? Probably not long after construction of the first rooftop. How could early humans resist such an opportunity to project sound over the heads of a crowd? But if we’re talking about a Rooftop Concert, we’re talking about a special genre of gig defined by The Beatles’ farewell rooftop …

Download 1,000+ Beautiful Woodblock Prints by Hiroshige, the Last Great Master of the Woodblock Print Tradition

For 200 years, beginning in the 1630s, Japan closed itself off from the world. In its capital of Edo the country boasted the largest city in existence, and among its population of more than a million not a single one was foreign-born. “Practically the only Europeans to have visited it were a handful of Dutchmen,” writes …

Who Designed the 1980s Aesthetic?: Meet the Memphis Group, the Designers Who Created the 80s Iconic Look

For those who remember the 1980s, it can feel like they never left, so deeply ingrained have their designs become in the 21st century. But where did those designs themselves originate? Vibrant, clashing colors and patterns, bubbly shapes; “the geometric figures of Art Deco,” writes Sara Barnes at My Modern Met, “the color palette of …

When Salvador Dalí Created a Surrealist Funhouse at New York World’s Fair (1939)

Only the violence and duration of your hardened dream can resist the hideous mechanical civilization that is your enemy, that is also the enemy of the ‘..pleasure-..principle’ of all men. It is man’s right to love women with the ecstatic heads of fish. — Salvador Dalí, “Declaration of the Independence of the Imagination and the …

Martin Scorsese Introduces Classic Movies: From Citizen Kane and Vertigo to Lawrence of Arabia and Gone with the Wind

In today’s cinema culture, there’s only one thing as reliably entertaining as watching a Martin Scorsese movie: watching Martin Scorsese talk about the movies of his predecessors. Before becoming a director, one must understand what a director does, an education delivered to the young Scorsese practically at a stroke by Citizen Kane. Watching Orson Welles’ masterpiece …

Design Thinking for the Greater Good: A Free Online Course from the University of Virginia

Design Thinking for the Greater Good: Innovation in the Social Sector shows how and why human-centered design is a powerful tool. Offered by the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, the course lets students “view design thinking success stories from around the world, in areas as diverse as government, health care, and education.” …

The Airline Toilets Theatre Company: Watch One Man Stage Comical Shows in Airplane Bathrooms

When COVID 19 struck, theater lovers were faced with a choice. Let go entirely, or expand our definitions of what constitutes “theater.” We’ve had 14 months to get used to the idea of performances staged in closets, in podcast form, or as phone calls hinging on audience participation. We’re sick of Zoom, but we no longer consider it …