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Our waking experience overflows with small sensations that we almost never verbalise: the feel of pushing a computer key; a brief, satisfying scratch; a word or image rising into consciousness before dissipating. Experience Composite aims to capture those small, abstract moments that otherwise go ignored or quickly disappear. Commissioned in association with the Wellcome Collection, this short film builds on the work of the US psychologist Russell Hurlburt, who in 2006 developed a process called descriptive experience sampling (DES) to document the small moments that make up our inner lives. DES participants wear a small beeper and write down the contents of their experience when it sounds off randomly during the day. Using split-screen image pairings, the UK director Ed Prosser’s experimental short film crafts several ‘beep summaries’ into brief vignettes that both express and expand on these fleeting experiences.
Director: Ed Prosser
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Religion
Hear from blasphemes, sceptics and free-thinkers in this ‘tour of medieval unbelief’
52 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
The ancient Hawaiian myth that sparked a modern ecological breakthrough
10 minutes
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Music
‘Dun dun dun duuun!’ Why Beethoven’s Fifth sticks in the head and stirs the heart
5 minutes
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Art
The irreverent duo who thumbed their noses at the Soviet Union and the US art world
11 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Henri Bergson on why the existence of things precedes their possibility
3 minutes
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Ageing and death
Demystifying death – a palliative care specialist’s practical guide to life’s end
4 minutes
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Metaphysics
Why mathematical truths exist with or without minds to consider them
8 minutes
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Stories and literature
A French Creole folktale nearly lost to time is given new, gorgeously animated life
6 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
Struggling to learn how to do a backflip, Nikita takes on an unusual training regimen
12 minutes