How Will Historians Study Video Games?

Universities and museums recognize the cultural value of video games, but the question of whether to preserve the actual devices—and how—is more divisive.

Since their birth as a science-fair curiosity at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the late 1950s, video games have moved inexorably towards higher and more central cultural ground, much like film did in the first half of the 20th century.

Games were confined at first to the lowbrow carnival of the arcade, but they soon spread to the middlebrow sphere of the living room, overran this private space, and burst out and upwards into the public spheres of art and academia. With prestigious universities like NYU and USC now offering graduate-level programs in game design, and major museums like MoMA, MAD, and SF MoMA beginning to acquire games and curate game exhibitions, preserving the early history of the medium appears more important than ever. But what exactly does it mean to preserve a digital game?

The answer is surprisingly simple: It means, first and foremost, preserving a record of how it was played and what it meant to its player community. Ensuring continued access to a playable version of the game through maintenance of the original hardware or emulation is less important—if it matters at all.

 

More here Via The Atlantic

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/a...

Victoria's Secret Targets Awkward Guys: Employee

Men will apparently buy anything to get out of the store

A former Victoria's Secret employee told us that workers at her Chicago-area store were trained to treat male customers differently from female ones. 

"The general feeling about men is that they would buy anything in order to get out of the store as quickly as possible," the worker, who wished to remain anonymous, told us. "That means they would spend more money." 

While workers tell women about promotions like 5 for $25 panties, they are more likely to sell men full-priced merchandise, the worker said. 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/victorias-secret-worker-on-men-shopping-2013-12#ixzz2mdrVcY53

 

Source: http://www.newser.com/story/178658/victori...

When Design Is Used for Violence

A new MoMA digital exhibit explores the darker consequences of creativity.

Design is never neutral. It alters behavior and has life-and-death implications. For Paola Antonelli, senior curator at the MoMA’s department of architecture and design, this fact has been a fixation. She has initiated an impressive share of breakthrough exhibits and events focusing on the way visuals affect the world. Her latest is Design and Violence, an online forum devoted to exploring the darker side of the creative mind, using essays and discussion boards. Given MoMA’s mandate to acquire and exhibit objects of beauty with cultural significance, it’s a somewhat radical move.

Read more here via The Atlantic

 

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/a...

For producer, Mandela film was an honor and a responsibility

Anant Singh, a South African himself, had the blessing and the trust of his subject, but the project still took 19 years to complete.

Nelson Mandela was still in a South African prison in 1989 when film producer Anant Singh sent word that he wanted to do a movie about his life. The political prisoner's response through an intermediary summed up Mandela's modest outlook.

"(Mandela) didn't feel that something about him should be made," Singh recalls. "He said, 'Will anyone want to see a movie about my life?' "

The answer to that question was a resounding "yes." Mandela, who died Thursday in his native country at age 95, has been portrayed by icons from Morgan Freeman (2009's Invictus) to Sidney Poitier (Showtime's Mandela and de Klerk from 1997). But the 95-year-old international hero, who spent 27 years in prison before becoming president of South Africa, gets his most profound screen treatment with Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. The biopic, starring Idris Elba in the title role and Naomie Harris as his wife Winnie, opened wide Nov. 29 after making the rounds of film festivals this fall.

More here Via  USA TODAY

 

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/...