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Warning: this film features rapidly flashing images that can be distressing to photosensitive viewers.
A wizard of the video essay form, the Dutch filmmaker, photographer and artist Michiel de Boer (aka Posy) specialises in using macro photography and digital effects to mine incredible visuals from mundane objects and images. In doing so, his work illuminates the hidden aesthetics and inner workings of the everyday world. In this short, Posy fixes his formidable lens on the world of electronic paper – used in e-readers and digital clocks, for example – in a quest to uncover why it tends to be, quite literally, a pale imitation of the real thing. Using extreme close-ups to explore various types of electronic paper display, Posy reveals the exquisite patterns and fascinating technology that underpins them, as well as why they have thus far failed to measure up to good old-fashioned ink and paper.
Video by Posy
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Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
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Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes
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Animals and humans
One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough
14 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
A future in which ‘artificial scientists’ make discoveries may not be far away
9 minutes
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
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Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes
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War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
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Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes