What is the Self? Watch Philosophy Animations Narrated by Stephen Fry on Sartre, Descartes & More

in Animation, Philosophy | April 22nd, 2015

If you’ve fol­lowed our recent phi­los­o­phy posts, you’ve heard Gillian Ander­son (The X‑Files) speak on what makes us human, the ori­gins of the uni­verse, and whether tech­nol­o­gy has changed us, and Har­ry Shear­er speak on ethics — or rather, you’ve heard them nar­rate short edu­ca­tion­al ani­ma­tions from the BBC script­ed by Phi­los­o­phy Bites’ Nigel War­bur­ton. Now anoth­er equal­ly dis­tinc­tive voice has joined the series to explain an equal­ly impor­tant philo­soph­i­cal top­ic. Behold Stephen Fry on the Self.

These four videos draw on Socrates’s work on what it means to know one­self (and the lim­its of one’s knowl­edge); Erv­ing Goff­man’s (The Pre­sen­ta­tion of Self in Every­day Life) Shake­speare­an obser­va­tion that we all play roles on this stage of a world; Rene Descartes’ famous dec­la­ra­tion “I think, there­fore I am”; and Jean-Paul Sartre’s con­cept of human exis­tence pre­ced­ing human essence (which, if it sounds a bit fog­gy, the video will clar­i­fy). Whichev­er of these thinkers’ claims sound most plau­si­ble to you, you’ll come out feel­ing a bit sur­er that, what­ev­er con­sti­tutes our selves — if indeed we have them — it isn’t what you might have assumed going in.

If the notions that we know noth­ing, that we have no fixed iden­ti­ties, that we cre­ate our­selves (and/or our selves) by our own actions, and that a trick­ster demon may be con­trol­ling your thoughts even as you read this seem too detached from every­day expe­ri­ence to eas­i­ly grasp, at least we have a sen­si­ble Eng­lish voice like Fry’s to guide us through them. The stereo­types may say that the peo­ple of that prac­ti­cal-mind­ed land don’t go in for this kind of talk. But I pro­pose a refu­ta­tion: specif­i­cal­ly, a refu­ta­tion in the form of a return by Fry to talk about two of his fel­low Britons, David Hume and George Berke­ley. They had a few things to say about the self — to put it mild­ly.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 130 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es: Tools for Think­ing About Life, Death & Every­thing Between

A His­to­ry of Ideas: Ani­mat­ed Videos Explain The­o­ries of Simone de Beau­voir, Edmund Burke & Oth­er Philoso­phers

How Did Every­thing Begin?: Ani­ma­tions on the Ori­gins of the Uni­verse Nar­rat­ed by X‑Files Star Gillian Ander­son

What Makes Us Human?: Chom­sky, Locke & Marx Intro­duced by New Ani­mat­ed Videos from the BBC

Has Tech­nol­o­gy Changed Us?: BBC Ani­ma­tions Answer the Ques­tion with the Help of Mar­shall McLuhan

How Can I Know Right From Wrong? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions on Ethics Nar­rat­ed by Har­ry Shear­er

Col­in Mar­shall writes on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Slavoj Žižek Calls Political Correctness a Form of “Modern Totalitarianism”

in Philosophy, Politics | April 22nd, 2015

Opin­ions on what we gen­er­al­ly mean by the phrase “polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness” vary wide­ly. Does it refer to the ways we try to main­tain basic polite­ness and com­mon decen­cy in what we like to think of as a plu­ral­is­tic, egal­i­tar­i­an soci­ety? Or is it a form of Orwellian, state-spon­sored mind con­trol that squash­es dis­sent and ban­ish­es unpop­u­lar ideas from pub­lic dis­course? On the one hand, sto­ries of unac­cept­ably abu­sive behav­ior in work­places, class­rooms, and gov­ern­ment build­ings abound, seem­ing to require plac­ing rea­son­able lim­its on speech. On the oth­er hand, extreme exam­ples of ram­pant “trig­ger warn­ings” and oth­er such qual­i­fiers—on col­lege lit­er­a­ture syl­labi, for exam­ple—can seem hyper­sen­si­tive, patron­iz­ing, and sil­ly at best.

In the Big Think video above, Marx­ist the­o­rist, cul­tur­al crit­ic, and pro­fes­sion­al provo­ca­teur Slavoj Žižek approach­es the term as a kind of enforced nice­ness that obscures oppres­sive pow­er rela­tion­ships. He begins with an exam­ple, of a so-called “post­mod­ern, non-author­i­tar­i­an father,” who uses a sub­tle form of emo­tion­al coer­cion, play­ing on feel­ings of guilt, to enforce love and respect for a grand­par­ent. This mod­el, says Žižek, is “par­a­dig­mat­ic” of “mod­ern total­i­tar­i­an­ism”:

This is why the for­mu­la of mod­ern total­i­tar­i­an­ism is not “I don’t care what you think, just do it.” This is tra­di­tion­al author­i­tar­i­an­ism. The total­i­tar­i­an for­mu­la is, “I know bet­ter than you what you real­ly want.”

“In this sense,” says Žižek, “I am hor­ri­fied by this new cul­ture of experts.” In his typ­i­cal­ly ani­mat­ed style, he leaps from case to case—the ban­ning of pub­lic e‑cigarette smok­ing, for example—to show how con­cerns about pub­lic health or racism give way to mean­ing­less, cul­tur­al­ly stul­ti­fy­ing mor­al­iz­ing. His point that polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness can be a humor­less “self-dis­ci­pline” is per­sua­sive. Whether his exam­ples of “pro­gres­sive racism”—or the social release valve of obscene or racist jokes—translate to an Amer­i­can con­text is debat­able. (Trig­ger warn­ing: Žižek drops a cou­ple n‑words).

Does the uncouth Žižek get a pass because he dis­avows per­son­al prej­u­dice, even as he makes light of it? Is there real­ly a “great art” to the racist joke that can bring peo­ple clos­er togeth­er? Do we need a “tiny exchange of friend­ly obscen­i­ties” to estab­lish “real con­tact” with oth­er peo­ple? I for one wouldn’t want to live in a soci­ety with­out obscene humor and hon­est, open con­ver­sa­tion. But whether all forms of polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness— what­ev­er it is—are “mod­ern total­i­tar­i­an­ism,” I leave to you to decide. It does seem to me that if we can’t have polit­i­cal debates with­out fear and shame then we real­ly have lost some mea­sure of free­dom; but if we’re unable to debate with good will and sen­si­tiv­i­ty, then we’ve lost some impor­tant mea­sure of our human­i­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Slavoj Žižek: What Full­fils You Cre­ative­ly Isn’t What Makes You Hap­py

Slavoj Žižek on the Feel-Good Ide­ol­o­gy of Star­bucks

Slavoj Žižek’s Pervert’s Guide to Ide­ol­o­gy Decodes The Dark Knight and They Live

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

High-Tech Japanese Camera Proves That the Shape of a Wine Glass Affects the Flavor of Wines

in Food & Drink, Science | April 22nd, 2015

Japan­ese sci­en­tists have devel­oped a cam­era that con­firms what we’ve long sensed: “wine glass shape has a very sophis­ti­cat­ed func­tion­al design for tast­ing and enjoy­ing wine.” That’s what Kohji Mit­sub­ayashi, a researcher at the Tokyo Med­ical and Den­tal Uni­ver­si­ty, told Chem­istry World.

It’s a lit­tle com­pli­cat­ed, and I’d encour­age you to read this Chem­istry World arti­cle, but the upshot is this: Mitsubayashi’s team used a spe­cial cam­era to ana­lyze “dif­fer­ent wines, in dif­fer­ent glass­es – includ­ing dif­fer­ent shaped wine glass­es, a mar­ti­ni glass and a straight glass – at dif­fer­ent tem­per­a­tures.” And they found that “dif­fer­ent glass shapes and tem­per­a­tures can bring out com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent bou­quets and fin­ish­es from the same wine.”

In the video above, you can see the new-fan­gled cam­era in action, demon­strat­ing how wines at dif­fer­ent tem­per­a­tures (some­thing that’s affect­ed by the geom­e­try of the glass) release dif­fer­ent vapors. And those trans­late into dif­fer­ent fla­vors. Get more on this at Chem­istry World.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Open a Wine Bot­tle with Your Shoe for the DIY Con­nois­seur

The Physics of Guin­ness Beer Demys­ti­fied

The Physics of Cof­fee Rings Final­ly Explained

Watch a Timelapse Video Showing the Creation of New York City’s Skyline: 1500 to Present

in Architecture | April 21st, 2015

Next month, when you step into one of the “five spe­cial ele­va­tors ser­vic­ing the obser­va­to­ry atop the new 1 World Trade Cen­ter,” you will get a pret­ty great view. Though it’s not the view you might ini­tial­ly imag­ine. The New York Times describes what you’ll see:

From the moment the doors close until they reopen 47 sec­onds lat­er on the 102nd floor, a seem­ing­ly three-dimen­sion­al time-lapse panora­ma will unfold on three walls of the ele­va­tor cabs, as if one were wit­ness­ing 515 years of his­to­ry unfold­ing at the tip of Man­hat­tan Island.

For less than four sec­onds, [the Twin Tow­ers dev­as­tat­ed on 9/11] will loom into view on one wall of the cab. Then, in a quick dis­solve, they will evanesce.

The time­lapse ani­ma­tion, shown in a small­er for­mat above, was designed by the Het­tema Group in Pasade­na, CA, and Blur Stu­dio of Cul­ver City, CA. Hope you enjoy the ear­ly pre­view.

h/t Robin

via NYTimes

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Johnny Cash Machines: Johnny Cash Stars in 1980s Commercials for ATM Machines

in Music, Television | April 21st, 2015

Back in the 1980s, Cana­da Trust installed a bunch of ATM machines and began con­vinc­ing cus­tomers that banker’s hours were a thing of the past. Now cus­tomers could get mon­ey 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And who bet­ter to tell cus­tomers how they could con­ve­nient­ly tap their cash than John­ny Cash. Enter the John­ny Cash Machine. Don’t believe me? Here are two 1985 com­mer­cials to prove it.

Get more on the sto­ry at Retrontario.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John­ny Cash & Joe Strum­mer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song” (2002)

John­ny Cash’s Short and Per­son­al To-Do List 

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: 12 Rare Record­ings

David Chase Reveals the Philosophical Meaning of The Soprano’s Final Scene

in Life, Television | April 17th, 2015

Eight years after it aired, the final scene of the final episode of The Sopra­nos still has peo­ple guess­ing: What hap­pened when the screen sud­den­ly went black? Did Tony Sopra­no get whacked? Or did he live to see anoth­er qua­si-ordi­nary day? Could he real­ly die as Jour­ney sings, “Don’t Stop Believ­ing?”

In a new inter­view appear­ing on The Direc­tors Guild of Amer­i­ca web site, David Chase, cre­ator of The Sopra­nos, revis­its the mak­ing of the final scene. Chase does­n’t direct­ly answer the ques­tions about Tony’s fate. But he does give us some insight into the deep­er philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions raised in the scene (watch it above) and how much they’re bound up in the lyrics of Jour­ney’s sound­track. There’s some deep­er mean­ing in the small town girl and the city boy tak­ing “the mid­night train goin’ any­where”:

I love the tim­ing of the lyric when Carmela enters: ‘Just a small town girl livin’ in a lone­ly world, she took the mid­night train goin’ any­where.’ Then it talks about Tony: ‘Just a city boy,’ and we had to dim down the music so you did­n’t hear the line, ‘born and raised in South Detroit.’ The music cuts out a lit­tle bit there, and they’re speak­ing over it. ‘He took the mid­night train goin’ any­where.’ And that to me was [every­thing]. I felt that those two char­ac­ters had tak­en the mid­night train a long time ago. That is their life. It means that these peo­ple are look­ing for some­thing inevitable. Some­thing they could­n’t find. I mean, they did­n’t become mis­sion­ar­ies in Africa or go to col­lege togeth­er or do any­thing like that. They took the mid­night train going any­where. And the mid­night train, you know, is the dark train.

And there’s mean­ing packed in the idea of “Strangers wait­ing up and down the boule­vard.”

Cut­ting to Mead­ow park­ing was my way of build­ing up the ten­sion and build­ing up the sus­pense, but more than that I want­ed to demon­strate the lyrics of the song, which is street­lights, peo­ple walk­ing up and down the boule­vard, because that’s what the song is say­ing. ‘Strangers wait­ing.’ I want­ed you to remem­ber that is out there. That there are street­lights and peo­ple out there and strangers mov­ing up and down. It’s the stream of life, but not only that, it’s the stream of life at night. There’s that pic­ture called His­to­ry Is Made at Night [from 1937]. I love that title. And that kind of echoes in my head all the time.

But if you’re look­ing for the philo­soph­i­cal essence of the scene, then look no fur­ther than the mantra, “Don’t stop believin.’ ” That’s what it’s all about:

I thought the end­ing would be some­what jar­ring, sure. But not to the extent it was, and not a sub­ject of such dis­cus­sion. I real­ly had no idea about that. I nev­er con­sid­ered the black a shot. I just thought what we see is black. The ceil­ing I was going for at that point, the biggest feel­ing I was going for, hon­est­ly, was don’t stop believ­ing. It was very sim­ple and much more on the nose than peo­ple think. That’s what I want­ed peo­ple to believe. That life ends and death comes, but don’t stop believ­ing. There are attach­ments we make in life, even though it’s all going to come to an end, that are worth so much, and we’re so lucky to have been able to expe­ri­ence them. Life is short. Either it ends here for Tony or some oth­er time. But in spite of that, it’s real­ly worth it. So don’t stop believ­ing.

Read Chase’s com­plete account of the famous final scene here.

Thanks to Ted Mills for flag­ging this. Fol­low him at @TedMills.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and  share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Disney’s 12 Timeless Principles of Animation Demonstrated in 12 Animated Primers

in Animation | April 15th, 2015

Last year, we fea­tured Dis­ney’s twelve time­less prin­ci­ples of ani­ma­tion, which Dis­ney ani­ma­tors Frank Thomas and Ollie John­ston first laid out in their 1981 book The Illu­sion of Life: Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion. Even if you’ve nev­er heard of the prin­ci­ples of “squash and stretch,” “fol­low-through,” and “sol­id draw­ing” before, you’ll sure­ly rec­og­nize their appli­ca­tion — in Dis­ney car­toons and most oth­ers besides — as soon as you read their expla­na­tions in that post. Not for noth­ing has Thomas and John­son’s book attained near-Bib­li­cal sta­tus among ani­ma­tors.

These 12 prin­ci­ples give ani­ma­tion the clar­i­ty of com­po­si­tion and rich­ness of motion Dis­ney’s stan­dards have us expect­ing. But how to actu­al­ly exe­cute these 12 prin­ci­ples in your own work? Alan Beck­er Tuto­ri­als breaks it down in a series of 12 videos focused on each prin­ci­ple, clear­ly illus­trat­ing how each looks in prac­tice and suc­cinct­ly explain­ing what it takes to do it right — and show­ing what hap­pens when you don’t.

Because most of us grew up watch­ing car­toons, and more than a few of us have tak­en the inter­est with us into adult­hood, we know good ani­ma­tion when we see it. After watch­ing these brief tuto­ri­als, even if you have no pro­fes­sion­al inter­est in bring­ing draw­ings to life, you’ll find out how much qual­i­ty ani­ma­tion has to do with adher­ence to the 12 prin­ci­ples. You can learn about all of them on the series’ Youtube playlist, a view­ing expe­ri­ence that will enrich your mem­o­ries of the best car­toons you watched in child­hood with an under­stand­ing of what made them the best — and an under­stand­ing of what made all the oth­ers seem so cheap. I’m look­ing at you, Grape Ape.

via Devour

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Disney’s 12 Time­less Prin­ci­ples of Ani­ma­tion

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

The Best Ani­mat­ed Films of All Time, Accord­ing to Ter­ry Gilliam

Free Ani­mat­ed Films: From Clas­sic to Mod­ern

Col­in Mar­shall writes on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

The Modernist Gas Stations of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe

in Architecture | April 14th, 2015

Just a few miles from where I live on Los Ange­les’ Olympic Boule­vard stands the Helios House, which, the name notwith­stand­ing, is a gas sta­tion — and quite a strik­ing one. Made of stain­less steel tri­an­gles, it looks like a piece of very ear­ly com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed imagery brought into the mod­ern phys­i­cal world. The Helios House intro­duced me to the con­cept of the archi­tec­tural­ly for­ward gas sta­tion, but, built in 2007, it actu­al­ly came late to the game: wit­ness, for instance, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1956 R.W. Lind­holm Ser­vice Sta­tion in Clo­quet, Min­neso­ta (above and below).

“In the ear­ly 1930s, Wright began devel­op­ing con­cepts for Broad­acre City, a city spread out to the point where it would be ‘every­where and nowhere,’” we wrote when we first post­ed about the build­ing in 2011.

“The design for the Lind­holm gas sta­tion came direct­ly from this con­cep­tu­al project.” Alas, writes The Atlantic’s Daniel From­son, Wright’s ambi­tious design did­n’t catch on: “Cer­tain ele­ments, such as gas pumps hang­ing from an over­head canopy—intended to boost effi­cien­cy and save space—were pro­hib­it­ed by Clo­quet fire bylaws (although, coin­ci­den­tal­ly, hang­ing pumps even­tu­al­ly became pop­u­lar in Japan). The unortho­dox sta­tion was also esti­mat­ed by one trade pub­li­ca­tion to have cost two to three times as much as a stan­dard design.”

But Wright does­n’t stand alone among the mod­ernist mas­ters in hav­ing done gas-sta­tion work. Lud­wig Mies van der Rohe, anoth­er archi­tect with a pen­chant for reimag­in­ing the ele­ments of the city, put his hand (or at least those of some­one in his office ) to the task in 1969, com­ing up with the char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly stripped-down Nuns’ Island gas sta­tion in the mid­dle of Mon­tre­al’s Saint Lawrence Riv­er. Unlike the Lind­holm Ser­vice Sta­tion, it no longer per­forms its intend­ed func­tion, but it does have a repur­posed future as a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter. His oth­er gas sta­tion, put up at the cam­pus of the Illi­nois Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy where he head­ed the depart­ment of archi­tec­ture, has­n’t sur­vived at all.

But Oob­ject includes it in their list of the top fif­teen mod­ernist gas sta­tions, which fea­tures build­ings by Nor­man Fos­ter and Arne Jacob­sen and should make fine fur­ther read­ing if you’ve enjoyed this post. See also Fla­vor­wire’s list of the world’s most beau­ti­ful gas sta­tions, which names not only Wright and Mies van der Rohe’s work, but the Helios House, a few pieces of swoop­ing mid­cen­tu­ry glo­ry in Los Ange­les and Scan­di­navia, and a “Teapot Dome Ser­vice Sta­tion” shaped like exact­ly that. If you’re going to pay today’s gas prices, after all, you might as well fill up under an aes­thet­i­cal­ly notable struc­ture.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Frank Lloyd Wright Reflects on Cre­ativ­i­ty, Nature and Reli­gion in Rare 1957 Audio

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling­wa­ter Ani­mat­ed

Col­in Mar­shall writes on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Stephen Hawking Sings Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song”: Hear the Newly-Released Single

in Astronomy, Comedy, Music, Physics | April 13th, 2015

The “Galaxy Song” first appeared in the 1983 film Mon­ty Python’s The Mean­ing of Life, and it has been revived in lat­er years — on Mon­ty Python albums, and in Mon­ty Python stage plays. Now the song orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten by Eric Idle has been re-record­ed, this time with the lyrics sung by the world-famous physi­cist Stephen Hawk­ing. The lyrics include a lot of astro­nom­i­cal facts, some now con­sid­ered out­dat­ed by schol­ars. But that does­n’t take the fun out of the record­ing.

The song will be avail­able for down­load on iTunes. (If you live in the UK, find it here.) And it will also be released as a 7″ sin­gle. But you can stream it online for free above. Enjoy.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Ter­ry Gilliam Reveals the Secrets of Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions: A 1974 How-To Guide

John Cleese’s Phi­los­o­phy of Cre­ativ­i­ty: Cre­at­ing Oases for Child­like Play

Stephen Hawking’s Big Ideas Explained with Sim­ple Ani­ma­tion

Watch the Only Known Footage of Anne Frank

in History | April 10th, 2015

Almost all of us have read the sto­ry of Anne Frank, but we sure­ly all pic­ture it quite dif­fer­ent­ly. Most of us have seen the pho­tos used on the var­i­ous cov­ers of The Diary of a Young Girl, and some of us have even gone to Ams­ter­dam and walked through the home in which she wrote it. But now, thanks to the inter­net, we have access to his­tor­i­cal imagery that can help every­one envi­sion the life of Anne Frank a bit more clear­ly.

Many years ago, we fea­tured the only exist­ing film of Frank, a 20-sec­ond clip from July 22, 1941 in which she looks on as a bride and groom pass below her win­dow. Though short, the invalu­able footage breathes a sur­pris­ing amount of life into the cul­tur­al image of per­haps the 20th cen­tu­ry’s most impor­tant diarist.

Even more comes from the 3D tour of her house and hid­ing place more recent­ly made avail­able online. The tour’s inter­face, with which any­one who played 1990s graph­ic adven­ture games like Myst will feel imme­di­ate­ly famil­iar, gives you a first-per­son view behind the book­case which for two years kept the Frank fam­i­ly’s liv­ing quar­ters a secret from Ams­ter­dam’s Nazi occu­piers.

The tour’s cre­ators have loaded the dig­i­tal recre­ation of the house with dif­fer­ent spots that, when clicked, tell in audio of a cer­tain aspect of the Franks’ expe­ri­ence there. The far­ther we get from the Sec­ond World War, the more these events might seem, to stu­dents read­ing about them for the first time, like a piece of capital‑H His­to­ry dis­con­nect­ed from their own expe­ri­ence. But resources like these keep the sto­ry of Anne Frank and its lessons feel­ing as imme­di­ate as they should.

You can enter the tour here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mem­o­ry of the Camps (1985): The Holo­caust Doc­u­men­tary that Trau­ma­tized Alfred Hitch­cock, and Remained Unseen for 40 Years

Watch World War II Rage Across Europe in a 7 Minute Time-Lapse Film: Every Day From 1939 to 1945

Did Hol­ly­wood Movies Stu­dios “Col­lab­o­rate” with Hitler Dur­ing WW II? His­to­ri­an Makes the Case

Don­ald Duck’s Bad Nazi Dream and Four Oth­er Dis­ney Pro­pa­gan­da Car­toons from World War II

How Alice Herz-Som­mer, the Old­est Holo­caust Sur­vivor, Sur­vived the Hor­rif­ic Ordeal with Music

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture as well as the video series The City in Cin­e­ma and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.