Jeffrey Martin Zacks, American psychology educator, member of the American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, and the Cognitive Science Society.
His book, Flicker: Your Brain on Movies, delves into the history of cinema and the latest research to explain what happens in your brain when you sit down in the theatre and the lights go out.
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Self-taught, David Uzochukwu (b. 1998, Austria) creates (self-)portraits that speak of both placelessness and belonging. His work sees bodies shifting through nature, performance, and digital reconfiguration. Uzochukwu’s photographs have been exhibited at Bozar, Photo Vogue Festival, and Unseen Amsterdam. He has collaborated with artists FKA twigs, Pharrell, and Iris Van Herpen, and received commissions by Dior and Hermès. Since 2019, he is a participant of CPH:DOX’s talent development program. British Journal of Photography named him One to Watch in 2020. He currently lives in Berlin, where he pursues his first degree in philosophy.
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https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz are both directors and writers, known for Antebellum (2020), Rapture, and 17 Seventeen (2017).
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About Justin: Justin Mortimer (b.1970) is a British artist whose paintings consistently invite us to question the relationship between subject matter and content, beauty and horror, and between figuration and abstraction. While the imagery is almost exclusively pitiless, the texturing of the paint, the play between light and shade, and the passages that lead from photo-realist definition to near-abstract formlessness are so sensitively handled as to make the work at least partially redemptive as well as to indicate a key philosophical dimension: the oblique relationship between evidence and interpretation.
In his recent solo show, his works create paradoxical beauty in the landscape of oppression and violence around the world. With the Covid-19 pandemic and the escalating racial conflict, Justin Mortimer's solo exhibition sets the stage for reflection on the 'tomorrow' of our society.
Show Notes:
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Mike: Mike Lee is a world-ranked professional boxer who has fought in some of the world’s most iconic arenas like Madison Square Garden, Cowboys Stadium & The MGM Grand in front of millions of fans. In 2014 Mike was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, ankylosing spondylitis, that almost ended his career. In and out of hospitals for over two years he became tired of all the medications and treatments. Mike began searching for all-natural alternatives which lead him to discover CBD and all of its incredible physical and mental benefits! Using his background in finance and business, Mike felt that creating Soul CBD would be the perfect way to share his knowledge while helping others to defeat whatever battles with the pain they may be facing.
Columbia Tatone is an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer. Known for her dynamic cinematic action and relational, relevant storytelling, she often features unique elements of sci-fi in her work. Tatone studied Jazz at Berklee's College of Music in Boston and later received her Business degree at Vanguard University. As a commercial, music video, and narrative director, Columbia empowers her audience through eye-popping, thought-provoking action sequences. As a champion for women and the underrepresented, Tatone often uses her work to promote social justice while also taking us into different realities that highlight the emotional scar tissue of life.
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About Edon: Edon Guraziu specializes in Concept Design & Consultation. These various industries range from Entertainment, Industrial, Defense, Medical, Consumer Products, and more. Many years of collaboration have resulted in meaningful relationships with the following companies, some of which include: 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Microsoft, Netflix, NVIDIA, MPC, Method Studios, JBC Safety Plastic Inc., StrikerVR, TheVRCompany, Swiss Federal Railways, and more.
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About Jesse: Jesse Draxler was born in rural Wisconsin, studied in Minneapolis, MN, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. A formal mixed media & inter-disciplinary artist, Draxler has exhibited extensively both domestically and internationally.
Draxler had solo exhibitions in New York at the Booth Gallery in 2017 and 2016, and has been in exhibitions across Europe at galleries in Munich, London, Paris, Hamburg, and Berlin. Draxler collaborates with brands including Hugo Boss, McQ Alexander McQueen, and Ferrari, with original artwork appearing in Elle, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic, among other publications.
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https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Yasmine: Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice navigates overlapping tensions around religion, gender, and third-culture identity. Her recent work includes immersive installation, fiber etching, and mixed media collage using personal archives and found imagery.
Diaz has exhibited and performed at spaces including the Brava Theater in San Francisco, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, and the Torrance Art Museum. She is a recipient of the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship (2019) with works included in the collections of LACMA, UCLA, and the Arab American National Museum. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
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About Pádraig: Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and theologian from Ireland whose poetry and prose have been published widely across Ireland, the US, and the UK. He presents Poetry Unbound with On Being, a hugely successful podcast where he explores a single poem. Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing, this podcast had more than a million downloads of its first season. The second season starts on the 28th of September. Mondays and Fridays for twelve weeks.
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About Colin: Colin Frangicetto is a multidisciplinary visual artist, musician (Circa Survive & Psychic Babble), and podcaster (The Cosmic Nod). He lives and works in Portland, OR.
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https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Carlos: Carlos Torres has been tattooing for over 20 years and is mostly self-taught. Early in his career, Carlos worked at a couple of tattoo shops before he got his big break at So. Cal Tattoo in San Pedro, CA. It was there he learned the most and built his tattoo portfolio. Carlos specializes in black & grey realism and surrealism tattoos and loves creating original pieces of art. In addition to tattooing, he enjoys photography, painting, sculpting, teaching workshops, and traveling. His travels to international and domestic conventions have earned him awards including Best Small Black & Gray, Best Large Black & Gray, and Best Backpiece.
In October of 2017, Carlos opened his own studio, The Raven and The Wolves. This fine art gallery and tattoo studio is located in the heart of downtown Long Beach and is home to 8 artists.
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About Sophia: Sophia Rokhlin is an author, speaker, and nonprofit organizer dedicated to supporting the conservation of indigenous wisdom and territory. Through engaged botany and ecology, she bridges the worlds of traditional ecological knowledge and Western science.
She is a Program Coordinator at the Chaikuni Institute, supporting sustainable ayahuasca cultivation and reforestation in the Peruvian Amazon. She is a co-author of When Plants Dream: Ayahuasca, Amazonian Shamanism, and the Global Psychedelic Renaissance (Watkins, 2019) on the global spread of ayahuasca. She helps coordinate Folk Medicine, a live-stream benefit for communities of the Amazon rainforest impacted by COVID-19. She sits in the Ayahuasca Community Committee for the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. Her research appears in publications including the New York Times and the BBC.
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About William: William von Hippel, Ph.D., grew up in Alaska, got his B.A. at Yale and his PhD at the University of Michigan, and then taught for a dozen years at Ohio State University before finding his way to Australia, where he is a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland. He has published more than a hundred articles, chapters, and edited books in social psychology, and his research has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, the BBC, Le Monde, El Mundo, Der Spiegel, and The Australian.
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https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About CJ: Cj Hendry (b. 1988) is a New York based artist originally from Brisbane, Australia. Globally renowned for her large-scale, photo-realistic drawings of consumer goods and immense, interactive exhibitions, she has developed a dedicated following through her unique brand of technical mastery and conceptual depth.
A self-professed “lover of products”, Hendry is heir to the Pop Art tradition that firmly established depictions of everyday objects and mass culture in the art historical canon. In the footsteps of Andy Warhol, Hendry generates instantaneously appealing images that celebrate kitsch aesthetics and it’s ubiquitous presence in contemporary digital culture.
More recently, the artist has incorporated new subject matter to delve into deep-seated concerns and anxieties of current society. After seven years of studying architecture and finance in Australia, Hendry abandoned the endeavor in 2014 to pursue art full-time. She has since presented 6 solo exhibitions across Australia, the U.S., and Asia. In 2017, the artist collaborated with esteemed fashion house Christian Louboutin to present her first works in color during the 2017 edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
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About Anna: Anna Park is a contemporary artist based in New York City, creating pieces that blur the lines between figurative and abstract work.
Creating a dazed, yet emotional experience, Anna’s central content revolves around larger bodies of people within social settings while provoking a vaporous and ethereal sensation.
Her most recent work takes on a new form, having a larger, tangled, and fragmented abstraction that envelops the viewer as the cacophony of black and white charcoal reveals intimate messages relating to society and the people we interact with.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Ryan: Ryan York is a Doctor of Philosophy, postdoctoral scholar within the department of neurobiology at Stanford University, and an author of over a dozen publications.
His research is focused on the evolutionary genomic basis of brain and behavior with a specific interest in the courtship behaviors of Lake Malawi cichlid fish.
Having a passion for music and working in constant collaboration with individuals such as Justin Daashuur Hopkins, Ryan borders the line between highly intellectual compositions and spontaneous, free-flowing, and seemingly primal soundscapes
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Daniele: Bolelli reads a passage about fear from his book, “Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting”
Daniele Bolelli (born January 11, 1974) is an Italian-American writer, university professor, martial artist, and podcaster based in Southern California. He is the author of several books on philosophy, and martial arts, including On the Warrior's Path. Known for his writing since the 1990s in Italy and the early 2000s in the United States, Bolelli rose to greater public prominence in the 2010s, beginning with his appearances on popular podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience. He went on to create his own podcasts, and has hosted The Drunken Taoist since 2012 and History on Fire since 2015.
Bolelli holds M.As in American Indian Studies and history from UCLA and California State University, Long Beach, and did postdoctoral research in history at Cardiff University. As a professor, he has taught a wide variety of courses in the arts, humanities, and social sciences on topics including Native American history and culture, Taoist philosophy, and Ancient Rome. He teaches at CSULB and Santa Monica College.
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About Jerome: Acclaimed and revered painter, Jerome Lagarrigue, was born in France to a father who was an illustrator and a mother who was a writer and journalist. Being rooted within a world of creativity and culture, Jerome’s life - from youth to adulthood, can be described as a type of compelling metamorphosis, including experiences both from a creative and racial point of view which directly saturates his current work as a painter.
Finding love within depicting movement inside of his work, Jerome continues to create powerful work that calls into question particular aspects of the world we live in and frames the subtle and reflective essence of human beings.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About CJ: CJ Johnson is an acclaimed Speaker and Digital Marketing Consultant, servicing Fortune 50 clients worldwide and a prominent digital influencer with hundreds of thousands of online supporters. CJ is best known for creating successful influencer marketing campaigns as both an influencer and a Consultant, helping content creators and companies maximize their ROI. As a successful influencer, CJ uses his voice for creative storytelling to provide inspiration, digital marketing tips, and work/life balance advice in our modern era. As a Consultant, CJ specializes in digital brand strategy, creative campaigns, influencer marketing, future of work, diversity & inclusion, and trend forecasting. His work specializes in the technology, fashion, lifestyle, political, travel, and entertainment industries. Currently, CJ is a GQ Insider, Google Next Gen Policy Leader, and a Digital Marketing Consultant to innovative companies.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Steven: Steven Assael (born in 1957), is an award-winning American painter, credited most for his masterful artistry within his figure work and modern re-envisioning of the neo-classical, naturalist, and romantic techniques of old.
Being captivated with what the human form and image represent, ever-changing and seemingly random elements and deeply rooted emotional intelligence, Assael traverses what it is to be human, and the subtleties included within an organic connection.
Assael’s latest work includes his collaboration between himself and his represented gallery titled “Now We Meet Again” which focuses on individuals presenting images of loved ones, or individuals of significance to Assael through Zoom calls. Working through the purpose of the painting, Assael paints not only the image, but interweaves the very emotional framework and intentions the recipient presented beforehand.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Damian: Damian Joseph Kulash Jr. (born October 7, 1975) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and music video director who is best known for being the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band OK Go.
Damien was born in Washington DC and spent a large amount of time studying at the Interlochen Arts Camp. He was active in bands at his time at Brown University, eventually winning a prize in music composition.
From the time span of 2005-2007 while the band released and was touring off of the “Oh No” album, the music video “A Million Ways” ended up being the most downloaded video with over 9 million downloads.
The band decided to cut ties with their major record label deals with EMI and Capitol Records, and eventually started their own label, Paracadute, in 2010.
OK Go released their most recent album completely free on their website, which includes rarities, B-sides, and covers of other songs.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Damian’s Letter For “All Together Now”
Rebecca Solnit - “'The Impossible Has Already Happened': What Coronavirus Can Teach Us About Hope”
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About Blake: Blake Mills is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, composer, producer, and owner of “Record Collection” and a Grammy Award-winning artist based in California.
Mills has performed on over two hundred recordings, released four solo records, and worked with artists such as Lana Del Rey, Fiona Apple, and Bob Dylan.
Playing as both a session guitarist and composing his own material, Mills meticulously masters both the abstract and intentionality of multiple instruments and seeks to explore the sounds they each have to offer.
After working with artists such as Fiona Apple, and Andrew Bird, Mills revisited the studio and developed the sounds and resonant textures that became “Mutable Set” - a collection of eleven songs that focus on the dissonance of modern life.
Show Notes:
https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Christine: Christine Yuan is an Emmy-award winning director whose television documentaries have won Best Culture & History Documentary at the 2018 LA Area Emmy, Best Documentary at the 2018 Golden Mic Awards, and Best Feature Documentary at the 2017 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. Her narrative work has screened at the Cannes Film Festival Court Metrage, Marfa Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, The Massachusetts Independent Film Festival, San Francisco International Festival of Short Films, and more. Her commercial work has been shortlisted for D&AD’s Next Director Award, 1.4 Awards Show, Young Guns 15 Awards, and Shoot’s Director’s Showcase. Her short films and music videos have been featured on Nowness, i-D, Dazed, Fader, booooooom, Vice, and more.
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https://www.patreon.com/artistdecoded
About Bao: Bao Nguyen is an award-winning filmmaker based in Los Angeles and Saigon. As the child of Vietnamese war refugees, he first pursued law to appease his parents but soon found his passion in film. His directorial debut, Live from New York!, opened the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and the Firelight Media Documentary Lab. He earned his BA at New York University and his MFA at the School of Visual Arts.
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About Ludovic: On October 16, 1994, Ludovic Nkoth (LNkoth) was born in Cameroon, West Africa. Growing up in African, Ludovic learned to express himself creatively at a very young age. Through his vibrant use of color and ability to capture life through a distinct lens, Ludovic’s past time was consumed with rough sketches of the beautiful cities of Cameroon.
Ludovic’s work is heavily informed by the events in his life which led him to move, as a young boy of 13 years old, from his native Cameroon to the United States. Leaving his birth-mother and family, the young man found solace and comfort in the creative process while being raised primarily as a stranger in a strange land. It wasn’t until he migrated to the united states that he began to reconsider his own culture as a catalyst to locate his identity. For Ludovic, who learned to speak English as a teenager in a world completely alien to him, still – at times – finds himself displaced in his adopted country. In the states, he is viewed as an African, but in Africa, he is viewed American – leaving the passionate young artist in a sort of ambiguous and cyclical displacement of identity. Given the contentious issues of identity, patriotism, Confederate ideologies and racial bias growing in the States at the time of this writing, the paintings and his perspective seem of increasing relevance.
As such, the work presents a complex but highly personal investigation of a very personalized view of Africa; his family history; and the cultures, traditions, and ideas of Africa and its diaspora pre-and post-colonialism. They are approached with a type of naive brusqueness, an immediacy and boldness of colour that suggests both a passion and sense of discovery. African symbols such as masks, patterns, and other symbols of identity and culture remain consistent throughout. He states that through creation, the works attempt to “regain the things that were taking away from [his] people. Things such as power, culture, the idea of self and the idea of being black and proud.”
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