Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
This striking and almost entirely wordless video from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London beautifully conveys the work of Sachio Yoshioka, the fifth-generation owner of the Somenotsukasa Yoshioka dye workshop in Fushimi, southern Kyoto. Since taking over the business in 1988, Yoshioka has pivoted from synthetic dyes to traditional Japanese methods that draw extraordinary, rich colours from bark, berries, flowers, leaves and roots. Yoshioka says he’s resurrected these pre-19th-century methods from historical documents and textile samples not to preserve history, but because of the unmatched beauty of the colours they create. Split into four parts, In Search of Forgotten Colours: Sachio Yoshioka and the Art of Natural Dyeing details Yoshioka’s work and methods, including his important role creating dyed paper flowers for the annual Japanese Buddhist Omizutori ceremony in the historic city of Nara.
Via Kottke
video
Metaphysics
Knowing if you’re awake seems simple. Why has it vexed philosophers for centuries?
5 minutes
video
History of technology
Master cartography and mythical creatures – the world according to the Catalan Atlas
8 minutes
video
Mood and emotion
A century of letters captures the emotions of life in a new city, far from home
21 minutes
video
The environment
Photographs of rainforests dissolving in acid strike a beautiful note of warning
10 minutes
video
Technology and the self
Adaptive technologies have helped Stephen Hawking, and many more, find their voice
5 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
Experience the dazzling displays that fireflies create when humans are far away
5 minutes
video
Stories and literature
Solaris and beyond – Stanisław Lem’s antidotes to the bores of American sci-fi
7 minutes
video
Ecology and environmental sciences
To renew Yosemite, California should embrace a once-outlawed Indigenous practice
6 minutes
video
Music
Before the Beatles dropped acid, a BBC workshop was creating far-out sounds
6 minutes