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The Georgia Archives building, also known as the ‘White Ice Cube’ for its pale hue, windowless facade and modernist shape, was a prominent feature of Atlanta’s cityscape before the building’s controlled implosion in March 2017. Standing beside the State Capitol since 1965, it stored Georgia’s archival records until structural issues and budget cuts forced its 2012 closure and eventual demolition. This experimental short from the Atlanta-based filmmaker Adam Forrester captures the building’s destruction in a single shot played in reverse, giving the effect of something emerging from a cloud of smoke to self-assemble into a building. According to Forrester, the video uses this once ‘beautiful and bizarre component’ of the downtown Atlanta landscape to explore ‘our desire to preserve the past, our appetite to make way for the future, and the complex intersection of those urges’.
Director: Adam Forrester
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Music
The peculiar beauty of a song caught between composition and improvisation
3 minutes
video
Rituals and celebrations
A beginner’s guide to a joyful Persian tradition of spring renewal and rebirth
3 minutes
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Politics and government
How it looked to Afghan women to see the Taliban return to power
33 minutes
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Love and friendship
Love looks a bit different for a chain-smoking couple in a small apartment
11 minutes
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Biography and memoir
Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act
13 minutes
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The ancient world
The six priestesses who kept the flame of ancient Rome alight at risk of death
5 minutes
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Engineering
A close-up look at electronic paper reveals its exquisite patterns – and limitations
9 minutes
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Architecture
West Africa was once an architectural laboratory. Is it time for a revival?
12 minutes
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Work
A Swedish expat in the Philippines wonders: what’s up with people sleeping at work?
14 minutes