Described by its American director Conner Griffith as an ‘advertisement for planet Earth’, Ripple consists of a torrent of images contrasting the planet’s natural and developed surfaces. Assembled largely using Google Earth and Wikipedia, Ripple uses overhead shots of cities, port terminals, farmland and even microchips to offer a startling perspective on the profound marks we have left on this planet. The video’s imagery allows us to see the world and its myriad details in fresh ways, suggesting a poetics of technology that can admire human achievement without blindly embracing it.
A dizzying ‘advertisement for Earth’ shows the beauty and scars of our planet
Director: Conner Griffith
4 August 2015
videoThe environment
What we’ve done with our world, from ingenuity to devastation – in two kinetic minutes
2 minutes
videoAstronomy
Celebrating the rough, the raw and the human in hardcore space science
3 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
Dive into a boundless cityscape with an immersive artwork inspired by the infinite
6 minutes
videoEngineering
Building a prosperous future demands bold ideas. These are some of the boldest
40 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
Strap in for a delightfully disorienting dance of humans going places
6 minutes
videoProgress and modernity
From the Red Sea to Hong Kong in 10 minutes – a stunning cargo-ship timelapse
10 minutes
videoSpace exploration
Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets
31 minutes
videoInformation and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
videoAstronomy
Raw solar-storm footage is the punk-rock antidote to sleek James Webb imagery
6 minutes