Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Before the emergence and rapid proliferation of film editing at the dawn of the 20th century, humans had never been exposed to anything quite like film cuts: quick flashes of images as people, objects and entire settings changed in an instant. But rather than reacting with confusion to edits, early filmgoers lined up in droves to spend their money at the cinema, turning film – and eventually its close cousin, television – into the century’s defining media. It would seem that our evolutionary history did very little to prepare us for film cuts – so why don’t our brains explode when we watch movies? Adapted from an Aeon essay by the US psychologist and brain scientist Jeffrey M Zacks, this Aeon Video original explores why our visual experience has much more in common with film editing than it appears to at first glance.
Director and Editor: Adam D’Arpino
Producer: Adam D’Arpino, Kellen Quinn
Writer: Jeffrey M Zacks
Narrator: Karl Miller
Animator: Ermina Takenova
Music: YACHT, Dave Depper
video
Food and drink
Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border
14 minutes
video
Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
video
Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
video
Technology and the self
How the magic of photography brought Victorian England closer to the spirit realm
16 minutes
video
Neuroscience
Dog vision is a trendy topic, but what can we really know about how they see?
11 minutes
video
Home
An artist endeavours to bring the Moon down to Earth in a ritual of yearning
5 minutes
video
Information and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
video
Art
Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist
15 minutes
video
War and peace
A century later, can poetry help us make sense of the First World War’s horrors?
9 minutes