Ever had an idea that someone else executes better than you imagined it? Well, here is one of those situations. The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal is one of my favorite short films. For years I have photographed the ephemeral state of street art as if it were an unconscious process of spontaneous creation. This film plays with this idea and does much more with it. Please watch and enjoy!
Documentary
20
Jun 09
Media food against media food
Though I haven’t seen Food, Inc., this looks to be another promising documentary about our monocultural food system. The film’s trailer starts off with a quick lesson in media literacy by juxtaposing the images of food market/ing with the reality food production. It should be noted, however, that the top PR and propaganda spinners know that people only remember pictures, and not words. So though the narration does a good job of deconstructing the images of the supermarket, one is still left with the pastoral image of an artificially abundant the food system (I say “artificial” because the high yield monocultural crops we are accustomed to are produced on borrowed time by depending on petroleum-based fertilizer that destroys biodiverse soil– a temporary fix that has long-lasting and destructive consequences on the food chain).
Nonetheless, I really like this sequence and hope the film is as compelling. The montage alludes to a deeper suspicion I have that supermarkets are more effective tools of food system propaganda than media. I urge people to consider the psychological conditioning of the market as one of the primary forms of system architecture.
10
Mar 09
Mechanized change
I’m not going to argue against green tech– it needs all the energy the economy can muster right now. But I want to caution against technological optimism as the solution for our current ecological crisis. It’s a cultural problem, and I hope that people are not blinded by one-sided change in which tech solutions supplant cultural creativity. Both are necessary, but let’s be sure to reign in the technological mindset that sees all solutions as a matter of switching out machines. We have to move from mechanistic to holistic thinking, from centralized energy production to decentralized network distribution, from international trade to local production, from finance to sweat equity, and so on.
27
Nov 08
GenereationRX
You might want to take some Prozac after watching this. More on the documentary here.
I think a good dose of nature is in order.
20
Nov 08
Heat is on
Frontline has a new explosive documentary, Heat, about global warming. You can watch it online here.
1
Nov 08
Copyright clusterfrak
Link: 
A little documentary about Johannes Kreidler’s “Product Placements” performance: 72,000 samples in 33 seconds. He’s doing the artistic equivalent of a denial of service attack on Germany’s copyright agency, GEMA.
Here is a video of the performance:
11
Sep 08
Corporations against the flow
1
Jul 08
Pirate’s dilemma redux
I think this video does a better job of explaining the Pirate’s Dilemma than the book. The material lends itself to an audiovisual medium, and can spread more rapidly via the net. I’m for the ideas in the book, but I found it a little too superficial and lacking in some good, wholesome theory. But I’m down with the concept, so let the video proliferate and multiply!
29
Jun 08
Koyaanisqatsi postscript
No doubt, Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi wasn’t the final word on cinematography’s powerful capacity to depict the environmental consequences of our modern world. With Manufactured Landscapes comes Jennifer Baichwal’s depiction of photographer Edward Burtynsky’s stunning images of industry in China. If it’s true that what is not mediated doesn’t exist, we can say now that at least one frightening slice of the world, albeit a pretty massive slice, is here for us to behold. Blink at your own risk.
24
Jun 08
It’s a mad, mad GMO world
This clip is from the Candian documentary, The World According to Monsanto. Since most people in the US will likely not see this, I recommend sharing and passing along the links. This is one of the scariest companies in the world and people need to know what is happening, in particular regarding genetically engineered foods. Incidentally, if you want to read a great book that deals with GMOs and why they are so dangerous to the web of life, I highly recommend Fritjaf Capra’s Hidden Connections.
Via TreeHugger.
21
Feb 08
Shift happens
An exciting new documentary project that highlights an emergent global culture and its core values for change. You can get involved by visiting the site and sharing the video.
7
Feb 08
Second Skin
Looks like a very interesting doc on virtual worlds, Second Skin. I love the title. It reminds me that human cultures going back to ancient times have always donned “second skins,” literally those of animals, and more recently synthetics we call clothing. My only quibble with the trailer is that it claims that that these virtual worlds are worlds that don’t exist. I beg to differ. I think they are very real, they just occupy space differently.
Technorati Tags: Second Skin
20
Dec 07
Censorship double standard
MPAA thinks the above poster is inappropriate for all audiences because hoods are scary.
Unlike these.
Taxi to the Dark Side is a documentary, these bottom three are horror films whose graphic images are apparently agreeable to the general public, including the necons. The good news is that the documentarians got some free publicity out of this.
Alex Gibney’s new critically-acclaimed documentary Taxi to the Dark Side follows the path of Afghan taxi driver Dilawar, who was innocent of any terrorist ties but still “tortured to death by interrogators in the U.S. prison at Bagram Air Base.” It also examines the Bush administration’s torture practices at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has rejected Taxi’s poster, displayed to the right, as being “not suitable for all audiences.” The poster for the film simply shows two soldiers walking away from the camera, holding a hooded detainee between them.
17
Dec 07
A Renaissance computer?
If you haven’t read McLuhan’s The Guttenberg Galaxy, then you may get a lot out of this great video clip (click on the link below to view it) on the significance of the printing press and its relevance today as a way of explaining the explosive changes communications technology can have on a society.
The alphabet has been called the mother of all inventions. It dispensed its benefits and blessings unevenly – particularly when the entrance of the printing press industrialized its reach. This narrative around a collection of 15th century printed pages is a time stamp and reminder that information overload is nothing so new that a glance back 500 years may dimly reveal the dynamics of the digital road ahead.
11
Dec 07
Megacities: development, evolution?
The above clip (which I saw over at BoingBoing (via Africa Unchained)) is an intriguing portrait of Lagos, Nigeria. It demonstrates some of the trends of expanding megacities that characterize the so-called “global south.” My main objection to the segment is the recycled and uncritical use of the term “developing world.” African critics have long contended that this term is Eurecentric because it implies that they (non-Europeanized societies) are primitive versions of the central model of civilization. Are Nigerians supposed to develop into clones of us? Should Lagos become the “London of the future?” It’s an absurd proposition because London is a wealthy city predicated on the poverty that is distributed locally and across the globe. When Nigerians in the documentary hope that Lagos will become the next London or New York, they have internalized this Eurocentric view. But it’s not surprising given the role that global media corporations play in defining the ideals of the world. Who can fault them for not wanting the privileges afforded the global elites?
I think it’s better to think of places like Lagos and Mexico City as interconnected nodes. The reality may be that Lagos is really a microcosm of the world as a result of capitalist “evolution.” I qualify the term “evolution” because we often think that to evolve means to build better and more efficient solutions, but that is not always the case. For example, we may think of Western civilization as “evolved,” but it is in fact contrived. It is the result of many deliberate and planned decisions mixed with a bit of accident and synchronicity. Throughout history human agents have made conscious decisions about how to shape or respond to their environment. Some are more successful than others. The thing about “our” civilization, that is, the one that primarily inhabits the technological bubble, is that in the end we may not be so wise. That all depends on us, of course. This is why it is better not to think of Lagos as “their” reality. We are all interconnected.
I believe the documentarians intentions were good; they wanted to showcase a situation outside many of our normal reality, but that’s the problem of creating something as difference, i.e. they are different because they are not us. Frankly, I wish Current had actually asked local filmmakers to document their own city. Why do we need a white guide to interpret the place when a local one would be a lot more insightful and also supportive of the local economy? I doubt a local filmmaker would think of their environment as “fantastic” (in the fantasy sense) or bizarre. Black magic is not bizarre, and is probably mislabeled in this segment since the magic they speak of is designed to actually pacify bad people through nonviolent means. Maybe a Nigerian should come to London or San Francisco and make a report of the “black magic” that is seen every 10 minutes on television, something we call advertising.
Technorati Tags: Africa, CurrentTV, Lagos, Nigeria
14
Nov 07
STOP the SHOPOCALYPSE! Let the war on xmas begin
As you probably heard, Bill O’Reilly is jumping the gun this year to wage his counter-offensive in the so-called War on Christmas. Couldn’t he at least wait until after Thanksgiving? Enter the anti-Bill, Rev. Billy, the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir crusader. Just in time for war, a new documentary about the Rev and his Christmas crusade, What Would Jesus Buy?, is about to make the battle really interesting. Who will win? Can xmas survive a corporate exorcism? You be the judge.
Technorati Tags: What Would Jesus Buy?
22
Feb 10
I want to preface my comments by saying that I support the work of Doctors without Borders, and they were the first organization I donated to after the earthquake in Haiti. With that said, I was struck by the above poster I received in my email. It advertises a documentary about their work that will screen worldwide (click her for locations and more information). At first I thought it was just cheeky sales pitch for donations, framing the work of the organization within the narrative structure of an action film. The image reminded me a little of the Constant Gardener, in which Africa becomes the backdrop for purification of the white man’s soul (as is the case of the Western genre of film).
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