Something new from quarantine, waking up to information power, wondering what it’s like to be non-human. 3 videos to fuel you
We’re running our a-v’s again…Three videos that firmly open the doors of your perception, to better seize and forge your reality.
Firstly, an animated poem, Something New by Koleka Putuma, animation led by Ivvy Chen, produced by Flying Object. From Vimeo:
Commissioned by Wellcome Mental Health programme, and part of Mindscapes, Wellcome’s international cultural programme about mental health, this poem and animation illustrate key elements of the Covid Living project and beautifully capture young people’s approach to dealing with the challenges of lockdown, across the globe.
From Aeon:
The so-called father of capitalism, Adam Smith, would frown upon the ‘free markets’ of the 21st century, argues the US economics writer Rana Foroohar. For Smith, a functioning market required transparency, a mutual understanding of exchanges and a shared moral framework. And, as Foroohar puts it in this brief animation for the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), surveillance capitalism – pioneered by Google, and now, to varying degrees, ubiquitous worldwide – comes up short on all three fronts. Featuring excerpts from a presentation given by Foroohar at the RSA House in London in 2019, this brief animation lays out the many ways in which surveillance capitalism continues to encroach unchecked, and one potential plan for course correction.
Video by the RSA, Director and Animator: Thomas Kilburn
A trailer for 'Dugong’, from the fascinating new mobile app content platform, Alexander [you can see the full video if you sign-up and install on your iPhone here]:
What is it to be a non-human life form on Earth right now?
It is not a fish, not a dolphin, not a whale. It is lunar, hypersensory. It is the subject of rumour, legend and ritual. Journalist and novelist JM Ledgard goes in search of the strange and elusive Dugong, landing on jungle-green islands in propeller planes and hammering across aquamarine oceans in speedboats. He encounters those who hunt and study a creature that has been undertaking its yogic breathing for 35 million years, discovering a subtle, complex being. From this Yoda animal, a visionary Ledgard finds optimism for the future: can we mesh human, animal and artificial intelligences to co-evolve?
Written by J. M. Ledgard, read by David Tennant, animated by Russ Murphy