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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations

Architecture Art Biography and memoir Dance and theatre Design and fashion Film and visual culture Food and drink Home Music Nature and landscape Rituals and celebrations Sports and games Stories and literature Subcultures Travel

Painting of people playing dodgeball around a square pool with ripples in vibrant colours, long shadows cast on the ground.

video

Film and visual culture

A lush animated opus evokes the frenzied pace of modern life

4 minutes

Black-and-white photo of a woman holding her child on a stone pier, with small wooden boats and a shoreline in the background.

essay

Film and visual culture

The risk of beauty

W Eugene Smith’s photos of the Minamata disaster are both exquisite and horrifying. How might we now look at them?

Joanna Pocock

Old photograph of a girl sleeping in a chair, a ghostly boy kneeling before her, and a ghostly girl standing by a wall with a religious tapestry.

video

Technology and the self

How the magic of photography brought Victorian England closer to the spirit realm

16 minutes

Yellow warning sign with a black palm tree bent over in strong wind, signifying severe weather or wind conditions.

video

Information and communication

An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication

2 minutes

Two people with backpacks reach towards each other with extended arms but are not touching. The text on the image reads ‘How do we touch when we can’t?’

video

Film and visual culture

‘Bags here are rarely innocent’ – how filmmakers work around censorship in Iran

8 minutes

A woman stands against a white wall, in a red top and blue jeans, extending an open hand forward. Subtitles at the bottom read ‘Let me show you.’

video

Language and linguistics

Closed captions suck. Here’s one artist’s inventive project to make them better

8 minutes

Watercolour painting of a landscape with a vivid yellow sky, a band of orange clouds, and a purple mountain. The foreground is dark with indistinct foliage.

video

Music

The peculiar beauty of a song caught between composition and improvisation

3 minutes

A woman is sitting at a table holding a knife at a chopping board, but her head is switch with the green onion she is cutting. Yellow blinds and a lamp are in the background.

video

Technology and the self

An artist swaps her head with everyday objects in a musing on consumerism

4 minutes

Abstract night scene with vibrant colours; glowing trees line the horizon under a dark sky with a bright, distorted moon.

video

Film and visual culture

An augmented-reality filter reveals the hidden movements all around us

7 minutes

Geometric shapes with triangular patterns in blue, purple, and yellow on a black background. Shapes include squares, triangles, cones, and other polyhedra.

video

Film and visual culture

Stop-motion origami unfurls in a playful exploration of how senses overlap

3 minutes

People walking on stairs inside a modern industrial building, with someone standing below checking their phone; entrance to Lisson Gallery visible in the background.

essay

Film and visual culture

The truth of photographs

It’s often said that a successful picture ‘captures the essence’ of a subject. But a great photograph does so much more

Daniel Star

Silhouetted figures stand beside a car looking up at a starry night sky

essay

Space exploration

Uncertain contact

The detection of alien life won’t be obvious. It’ll be partial and inconclusive: a perfect task for the scientific method

Jaime Green

Two Asian film actors are fighting kung-fu style on the beach dressed in 1970s style casual clothes

essay

Film and visual culture

Fighting kung fu

From chopsocky films to disco earworms, Asian caricatures have proliferated since the 1970s. Can Hollywood kick the habit?

Stephanie Wong

A foggy street in an old residential area with terraced houses, children playing and adults standing outside. A tall chimney is visible in the background.

essay

Film and visual culture

Exposed

Slum photography was at the heart of progressive campaigns against urban poverty. And it was a weapon against poor people

Sadie Levy Gale

Three orange spheres create trails on a sparkling, metallic surface, casting long shadows. The background shimmers in shades of copper and gold.

video

Physics

A dreamy tribute to the music of Brian Eno, rendered in paint, soap and water

2 minutes

Illustration of two people in traditional Arctic clothing facing a futuristic city with glowing lights under the aurora borealis in the night sky.

video

Anthropology

A riveting collage portrays a century of Inuit history, and envisions a vibrant future

14 minutes

A group of people socialising at a restaurant, seated around a table adorned with flowers, wine glasses, and menus, with a bartender in the background.

essay

Food and drink

Crème de la crème

How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West

Kelly Alexander & Claire Bunschoten

Illustration of a man crawling through two orange-framed mirrors, making it appear as if he is going in one and coming out the other.

essay

Quantum theory

All possible worlds

Long a matter of philosophical speculation, the idea of multiple realities has been given new artistic licence by physics

Timothy Andersen

Close-up of wood grain with concentric rings and natural variations in colour and texture.

video

Biology

A dazzling slice-by-slice exploration of wood exposes hidden patterns and hues

2 minutes

video

Philosophy of mind

An enigmatic ‘story of consciousness’ told through 19th-century engravings

7 minutes

Two astronauts on the Moon, wearing white spacesuits with a US flag planted in the background, and the lunar module in the shadows.

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History of technology

Who owns history? How remarkable historical footage is hidden and monetised

18 minutes

A woman and two girls in blue dresses with cat-ear headbands, smiling and taking a selfie outdoors.

essay

Family life

Honey, I sold the kids

We have laws to protect children from factory work. Why aren’t they protected from parents who monetise their lives online?

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

An elderly man in chains suckles from a woman in a red dress while two guards observe through a barred window.

essay

Art

Milk, pity and power

Since antiquity, artists have depicted a perverse scene of a daughter breastfeeding her aged father. What does it mean?

Margie Orford

Several people are gathered around a vintage film projector, observing and photographing while an older man points at it.

video

Film and visual culture

The old-time cinema experience endures in a quiet corner of Japan

5 minutes