Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, strong,
light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies …
Billed as ‘a study of the modern Babylon-on-the-Hudson’, the short film Manhatta (1921) captures the rapidly developing cityscape of New York in the early 1920s. Made in collaboration between the US photographer Paul Strand (1890-1976) and the US painter Charles Sheeler (1883-1965), the piece is widely regarded as the first American avant-garde film, as well as the first of the non-narrative urban documentaries known as ‘city symphones’. The influential work traces the rich contours of a modern metropolis via a series of dramatic vignettes, as guided by Walt Whitman’s poem ‘Mannahatta’ from his collection Leaves of Grass (1855-1892). This version of Manhatta features a 2k digital restoration of the original 35mm film print, as well as a new score from the Illinois-based composer William Pearson commissioned by Aeon, with movements inspired by the film’s symphonic structure.
Directors: Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler
Composer: William Pearson
Cellist: Genevieve Miedema
Percussion: Abigail Foehrkolb
video
Architecture
Why a sculptor pivoted from gallery installations to big-box stores design
9 minutes
video
Physics
Spectacular fractal patterns emerge when electricity meets a wooden surface
4 minutes
video
Values and beliefs
How a God-fearing Jewish woman found atheism – and bacon – in her later years
9 minutes
video
War and peace
Before he leaves to go to war, Artem, 18, says goodbye to the man who raised him
12 minutes
video
Art
A mindbending trip that summons the forgotten women of surrealism
17 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
How machine learning can help historians decode ancient inscriptions
7 minutes
video
Animals and humans
What the ancient city of Kars looks like from the perspective of its stray dogs
9 minutes
video
Family life
A son of China’s former one-child policy remembers the sibling he never had
8 minutes
video
Making
Ceramic designs spin to life in a tactile meditation on the art of pottery
9 minutes