The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Art, Film | ≅ 2 Comments
Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) made some heady art. His whole goal was to “put art back in the service of the mind,” or to create what Jasper Johns once called the “field where language, thought and vision act on one another.” And that’s precisely what Duchamp’s 1926 avant-garde film Anémic Cinéma delivers. Drawing on his inheritance, Duchamp shot Anémic [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Music, Politics | ≅ 4 Comments
There’s something happening here What it is ain’t exactly clear… The intellectuals have paid a visit to Occupy Wall Street (Joseph Stiglitz, Lawrence Lessig, Slavoj Zizek, etc.). And so have some iconic cultural figures. This week, Willie Nelson and his wife wrote and read a poem supporting the surging movement. Then last night, Pete Seeger marched [...]
≡ Category: Film, Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
In recent days we’ve brought you documentary films exploring the birthplace of the blues and the genius of Theonious Monk. Today, we feature one of the most stylish jazz films ever made: Jammin’ the Blues, directed by Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili in 1944. Born in Albania and trained as an engineer, Mili worked closely [...]
≡ Category: Religion | ≅ 8 Comments
This summer, Jonathan Pararajasingham created 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God and then Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God. If you’re counting, that makes 100. Right alongside these twin videos came 20 Christian Academics Speaking About God, a montage featuring some respected figures (save Dinesh D’Souza) trying to square religious beliefs with their scientific work. You [...]
≡ Category: Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
NASA has released a series of new satellite data visualizations that “show tens of millions of fires detected worldwide from space” between July 2002 and July 2011. The visualizations were produced by the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instruments onboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. And they help scientists understand how fires affect our [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
In 1933, 18-year-old Alan Lomax took a break from college to travel into the American South with his father, John Avery Lomax, on a quest to discover and record traditional folk songs for the Library of Congress. It was the beginning of a journey that would last the rest of his life. With his father, [...]
≡ Category: Film, Literature | ≅ 1 Comment
In 1962, Orson Welles directed The Trial, a film based on Franz Kafka’s last and perhaps best-known novel. (Read it online here, or find it in our collection of Free eBooks.) Shot in Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Rome, Milan and Paris, the film starred Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider and Welles himself. And while critics had mixed feelings about [...]
≡ Category: Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Cobbling together some LEGOs and a smartphone running a custom Android app, Mike Dobson and David Gilday built CubeStormer II, a lean, mean Rubik’s Cube-solving machine. Cracking a Rubik’s Cube in 5.35 seconds, Cubestormer II made mincemeat out of Ruby, the previous robot record holder — 10.18 seconds. And it even edged out the existing world [...]
≡ Category: Art, Books, Film | ≅ 3 Comments
It all started when filmmaker Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Where the Wild Things Are) met handbag designer Olympia Le-Tan and asked her to create a Catcher in the Rye embroidery for his wall. She asked him to collaborate on a film in return. And so Jonze and Le-Tan, together with French director Simon Cahn, [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ 2 Comments
For 17 days this past June, timelapse cinematographer Joe Capra traveled across Iceland, capturing its natural beauty during the months when the sun never sets and never rises. Making Midnight Sun was no easy feat. Capra worked at it around the clock, taking 38,000 images and traveling 2900 miles. Our recommendation? Watch the film on Vimeo, in HD and [...]
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