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Hi everybody,
After coming to The Netherlands two years ago I renounced on having a TV (Well, by TV I mean a TV provider not the apparatus itself.) and diverged my "Nothing to do hours" and "Hours to do nothing" towards online streaming and on demand shows and documentaries.
Two years later, I moved to another apartment in north Rotterdam and my girlfriend's father offered us a TV decoder (thanks Rob!!). After seeing how retarded most current TV shows still are I decided to recommend you all some really nice documentaries and talks for the ones that are interested on the debate about the state and future of design, technology and human race. These are for me, agree or not with their points, a "must see" to anyone who cares about where we are going and the exciting times that await.
Without any particular order, here they go:
Documentaries:
- Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which recently celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Helvetica has been shown at over 200 film festivals, museums, design conferences, and cinemas worldwide, and is now available on DVD.
- Objectified is a feature-length documentary by the makers of Helvetica about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.
- Tecnocalyps is a three-part documentary series on the notion of transhumanism by Belgian visual artist and filmmaker Frank Theys.
The accelerating advances in genetics, brain research, artificial intelligence, bionics and nanotechnology seem to converge to one goal: to overcome human limits and create higher forms of intelligent life and to create transhuman life.
Frank Theys conducts his enquiry into the scientific, ethical and metaphysical dimensions of these technological developments. The film includes interviews by top scientists and thinkers on the subject worldwide, including Marvin Minsky, Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, Terence McKenna, Bruce Sterling, Robert Anton Wilson, Margaret Wertheim, Rael, the Dalai Lama and many more.
- Zeitgeist is a 2007 documentary film by Peter Joseph examining possible historical and modern conspiracies surrounding Christianity, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the Federal Reserve bank. It was officially released online on June 18, 2007 on zeitgeistmovie.com. (This one is a bit far fetched and propagandist but still nice to see)
Talks on Internet philosophy
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jonathan_zittrain_the_web_is_a_random_act_of_kindness.html -- About how big communities tend to organize themselves and a beautiful view on th Internet structure
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing.html -- Very interesting talk about how prediction is more important to inteligence than behaviour
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/james_surowiecki_on_the_turning_point_for_social_media.html -- About blogs and, even more interesting, crowd inteligence by the writer of "The Wisdom of Crowds"
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/jonathan_harris.html -- Two TED talks from Jonathan Harris, about collecting stories from the internet
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Sabine ten Lohuis is an extremely talented illustrator based in Rotterdam, my girlfriend and my idol. Besides the fact that my opinion can easily be deemed biased, I will shamelessly share it anyway.
Hey people!