The emergence of text-based conversations over the past decade has given filmmakers an interesting new problem to solve: how do you convey the information in these messages without boring viewers, or creating a finished product that’s sure to look clunky or outdated in the very near future? Tracing the evolution of text messages in television and movies, the American filmmaker Tony Zhou’s video essay A Brief Look at Texting and the Internet in Film examines how filmmakers are experimenting with portraying lives increasingly lived in digital spaces.
Why is our digital world so difficult to depict on our digital screens?
Director: Tony Zhou
Website: Every Frame a Painting
12 March 2015
videoMusic
Watch as the rhythms of traffic create a mesmerising score
2 minutes
videoBiology
What would it mean if we were able to ‘speak’ with whales?
65 minutes
videoTechnology and the self
Inside a tattoo parlour where hateful images are covered for free
11 minutes
videoWork
Like a cheery Sisyphus, Fred dismantles an industrial chimney one brick at a time
12 minutes
videoEcology and environmental sciences
Join endangered whooping cranes on their perilous migratory path over North America
6 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
5 minutes
videoSocial psychology
What happened when a crypto scam swept over a sleepy town in the Caucasus
18 minutes
videoLanguage and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes
videoBiology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
4 minutes