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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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The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes

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Art
David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white
15 minutes

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Space exploration
In the search for life, might alien ocean worlds be a better bet than Earth-like planets?
5 minutes

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Love and friendship
When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love
7 minutes

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Thinkers and theories
Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?
13 minutes

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Biology
A dazzling slice-by-slice exploration of wood exposes hidden patterns and hues
2 minutes

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Family life
In Rwanda, Sébastien finds traces of personal history in the wake of national tragedy
21 minutes

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Dance and theatre
Leaf through Shakespeare’s First Folio for a riveting journey into theatre history
13 minutes

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Architecture
Modern architecture should embrace – not ignore or repel – the nonhuman world
8 minutes