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In this animated self-portrait, the UK artist Emma Allen uses her face as a canvas for a remarkable, millennia-spanning stop-motion. With her features always visible but transformed by the images painted across them, Allen takes us through evolution, from primordial creatures, through large mammals, to humans, before offering a vision of what’s to come – a future in which we transcend the limits of (or perhaps lose touch with) biology. For more from Allen, watch her short video Adam on the experience and neuroscience of depression.
Video by Emma Allen
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Architecture
Why a sculptor pivoted from gallery installations to big-box stores design
9 minutes
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Physics
Spectacular fractal patterns emerge when electricity meets a wooden surface
4 minutes
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Mathematics
How a verbal paradox shattered the notion of total certainty in mathematics
5 minutes
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Values and beliefs
How a God-fearing Jewish woman found atheism – and bacon – in her later years
9 minutes
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War and peace
Before he leaves to go to war, Artem, 18, says goodbye to the man who raised him
12 minutes
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Art
A mindbending trip that summons the forgotten women of surrealism
17 minutes
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Metaphysics
To see the Universe more clearly, think in terms of processes, not objects
6 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
How machine learning can help historians decode ancient inscriptions
7 minutes
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Animals and humans
What the ancient city of Kars looks like from the perspective of its stray dogs
9 minutes