essayArt
Witty wotty dashes
Doodles are the emanations of our pixillated minds, freewheeling into dissociation, graphology, and radical openness
James Reath
videoFilm and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
5 minutes
essayStories and literature
Our narrative prison
The three-act ‘hero’s journey’ has long been the most prominent kind of story. What other tales are there to tell?
Eliane Glaser
videoBiology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
videoGender
A filmmaker responds to Lars von Trier’s call for a new muse with a unique application
16 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes
videoTechnology and the self
A haunting scene from ‘Minority Report’ inspires a voyage into time and memory
7 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
A lush animated opus evokes the frenzied pace of modern life
4 minutes
essayFilm 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
videoTechnology and the self
How the magic of photography brought Victorian England closer to the spirit realm
16 minutes
videoInformation and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
‘Bags here are rarely innocent’ – how filmmakers work around censorship in Iran
8 minutes
videoLanguage and linguistics
Closed captions suck. Here’s one artist’s inventive project to make them better
8 minutes
videoMusic
The peculiar beauty of a song caught between composition and improvisation
3 minutes
videoTechnology and the self
An artist swaps her head with everyday objects in a musing on consumerism
4 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
An augmented-reality filter reveals the hidden movements all around us
7 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
Stop-motion origami unfurls in a playful exploration of how senses overlap
3 minutes
essayFilm 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
essaySpace 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
essayFilm 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
essayFilm 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
videoPhysics
A dreamy tribute to the music of Brian Eno, rendered in paint, soap and water
2 minutes
videoAnthropology
A riveting collage portrays a century of Inuit history, and envisions a vibrant future
14 minutes
essayFood 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