The Cinemagraph: A Haunting Photo/Video Hybrid

in Art | May 4th, 2011

As gim­micks go, the mov­ing GIF is almost as old as the inter­net itself. But artists Jamie Beck and Kevin Berg have tak­en their ani­mat­ed pho­tographs, or “cin­ema­graphs,” as Beck calls them, far beyond the orig­i­nal gim­mick. While some of their images tend towards kitsch, fea­tur­ing clich­es like long hair rustling in the breeze, or wine pour­ing from a bot­tle, the duo (see a col­lec­tion of their pho­tos here) has also pro­duced sev­er­al shots of star­tling beau­ty: A sin­gle news­pa­per page rus­tles in a frozen park. The reflec­tion of a taxi­cab glides like a ghost across a win­dow. A beau­ti­ful woman sud­den­ly seems to catch you star­ing at her. The effect is pure para­noia, like ear­ly Polan­s­ki, or a morn­ing walk on no sleep.

So is the cin­ema­graph the future of pho­tog­ra­phy, or just a neat trick? You can join that debate over at flickr.

Thanks to Eric Strenger and @eugenephoto for the tip.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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The Clash Star in Hell W10, a Gangster Parody Film Directed by Joe Strummer (1983)

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | May 4th, 2011

Clash front­man Joe Strum­mer wrote and direct­ed this odd gang­ster par­o­dy in 1983, while the band was on a break from tour­ing. He cast Mick Jones as a well-dressed crime boss, Paul Simonon as his Jim­my Cliff-chan­nel­ing neme­sis, and pret­ty much every­one the band had ever shared a pint with in sup­port­ing roles.

Hell W10 is not exact­ly a mas­ter­piece. The cam­era work is indif­fer­ent, each indi­vid­ual scene lasts longer than it needs to, and we’re not quite sure what the blonde was doing there.  Still, it’s hard not to enjoy any movie with an all-Clash sound­track, and we got a huge kick out of watch­ing Jones scowl in his white tuxe­do like a car­toon Scar­face.

Oth­er high points include the hybrid noir-punk stylings of the titles, and Strum­mer’s own cheeky turn as an aggres­sive cop.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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!

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

Relat­ed Con­tent:

4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

The Clash Live in Tokyo, 1982: Watch the Com­plete Con­cert

“Stay Free: The Sto­ry of the Clash” Nar­rat­ed by Pub­lic Enemy’s Chuck D: A New 8‑Episode Pod­cast

Mick Jones Plays Three Favorite Songs by The Clash at the Library

Watch Audio Ammu­ni­tion: A Doc­u­men­tary Series on The Clash and Their Five Clas­sic Albums

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Seth Godin: The Wealth of Free (Semi-Animated)

in Books, e-books | May 4th, 2011

Every idea has to begin some­where. And, back in 2000, Seth Godin start­ed exper­i­ment­ing with a fair­ly rad­i­cal pub­lish­ing mod­el. Inspired by Mal­colm Glad­well, Godin wrote Unleash­ing the Ideav­irus, which essen­tial­ly argued that free ideas spread quick­er than ideas that cost mon­ey. And it’s the ideas that spread the quick­est that win. So what was the log­i­cal next step? Mak­ing the book avail­able for free (get the ebook here) and see­ing what hap­pened.

The video above tells you the rest of the sto­ry. What it does­n’t tell you is that Godin has since writ­ten a steady stream of best­sellers (find free ecopies here), while author­ing the most wide­ly-read mar­ket­ing blog and found­ing Squidoo. The art­work accom­pa­ny­ing God­in’s talk was cre­at­ed by Stu­art Lang­field.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

Free Online Busi­ness Cours­es

How to Start a Start­up

Start Your Start­up with Free Stan­ford Cours­es and Lec­tures

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Way of Life: Rare Footage of the Hiroshima Aftermath, 1946

in Film, History, Life, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

The recent 9.0‑magnitude Tōhoku earth­quake and tsuna­mi, and sub­se­quent Fukushi­ma nuclear acci­dents were among the most dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters in record­ed his­to­ry. The imme­di­ate con­se­quences are fright­en­ing, but their full, long-term impact remains an unset­tling mys­tery.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Japan has faced a nuclear emer­gency. After the World War II atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, the U.S. gov­ern­ment record­ed the raw after­math of Hiroshi­ma in can­did, grim detail (while Hol­ly­wood was busy lam­poon­ing Amer­i­ca’s nuclear obses­sion). Filmed in the spring of 1946 by the Depart­ment of Defense, Way of Life doc­u­ments how the peo­ple of Hiroshi­ma adapt­ed to life after the atom­ic bomb. Though the archival footage lacks sound, its imagery — mov­ing, heart­break­ing, deeply human — speaks vol­umes about the del­i­cate dual­i­ty of despair and resilience.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

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Free Courses “Netted” by the Webbys

in Online Courses | May 3rd, 2011

Worth a quick men­tion. Today our con­stant­ly-grow­ing list, 350 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties, was fea­tured by Net­ted, a dai­ly newslet­ter writ­ten by the Web­bys, the same peo­ple who give awards for excel­lence on the web. I don’t know if we’re achiev­ing excel­lence on the web. But I do know this: It’s hard to find a col­lec­tion of resources that’s more valu­able than this. The cours­es come from insti­tu­tions like Stan­ford, Yale and MIT. They cov­er most every top­ic — from phi­los­o­phy and his­to­ry to com­put­er sci­ence, physics and math. And they’re all FREE. Find the col­lec­tion here. Hope you enjoy.

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David Byrne: How Architecture Helped Music Evolve

in Architecture, Music, TED Talks | May 3rd, 2011

Since the break-up of Talk­ing Heads in 1991, David Byrne has made a good career for him­self as a solo artist, work­ing in film and music, and also becom­ing an active sup­port­er of cycling. Overt­ly intel­lec­tu­al, Byrne has giv­en lec­tures on a great vari­ety of top­ics – from Carl Jung to the ways in which venue and con­text shape artis­tic cre­ation.

The TED talk above was giv­en in Feb­ru­ary 2010 in Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, and here David Byrne presents his ideas on the inter­re­la­tion­ship between music and archi­tec­ture. A tran­script of this talk can be found on the TED Talks page.

Byrne was not the first to explain the link between music and archi­tec­ture. In 2002, renowned archi­tect Daniel Libe­skind deliv­ered a Proms Lec­ture on that very top­ic (find the audio stream here) and, in 2007, Jonathan Cole pre­sent­ed his own lec­ture, “Music and Archi­tec­ture: Con­fronting the Bound­aries between Space and Sound,” at Gre­sham Col­lege, Lon­don. But it is Byrne’s talk that approach­es the sub­ject from the prac­ti­cal point of view of a musi­cian.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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Phoenix Still Rising: Egypt After The Revolution

in Current Affairs, Film, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | May 3rd, 2011

Much has been said, tweet­ed and writ­ten about the 2011 Egypt­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, glo­ri­fy­ing it as one of the most land­mark tri­umphs of free­dom in recent his­to­ry. Yet the West­ern media has deliv­ered sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle on its after­math, leav­ing the lived post-rev­o­lu­tion real­i­ty of the Egypt­ian peo­ple a near-mys­tery.

This beau­ti­ful short film by British film stu­dio Scat­tered Images offers a rare glimpse of a phoenix still strug­gling to rise from the ash­es of oppres­sion. With incred­i­ble visu­al elo­quence, the film peels away at the now-worn media iconog­ra­phy of the rev­o­lu­tion itself, reveal­ing how life after it has actu­al­ly changed — or has­n’t — as Egypt remains a nation in tran­si­tion, with a future yet to be decid­ed.

Polit­i­cal­ly, there is a vac­u­um. The rev­o­lu­tion demand­ed a gov­ern­ment account­able to the peo­ple and ruled by trans­par­ent insti­tu­tions. But now, the only ruler is uncer­tain­ty.

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary inter­est­ing­ness. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic and Desig­nOb­serv­er, and spends a great deal of time on Twit­ter.

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The World’s First (and Slightly Scandalous) Hand-Tinted Motion Picture

in Film, History | May 2nd, 2011

The world’s first hand-tint­ed motion pic­ture was pro­duced by Thomas Edis­on’s com­pa­ny, Edi­son Stu­dios, in 1895, more than 115 years ago. The dancer, Annabelle Moore (1878–1961), was just a teenag­er when this film was released, and her dance caused both a sen­sa­tion and a scan­dal. (Note the flash­es of under­gar­ment, all the way up to above the knee, about 29 sec­onds in.) It may have been a sign of things to come: Moore would go on to star as the Gib­son bathing suit girl in the first Ziegfeld fol­lies, where she remained until her mar­riage and retire­ment brought her back to respectabil­i­ty in 1912.

The film is also worth com­par­ing with a sim­i­lar but much more del­i­cate­ly paint­ed ver­sion done just five years lat­er by the Lumiere broth­ers.

(Spe­cial thanks to the recent­ly-launched Weyume)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly

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Oil’d, by Chris Harmon

in Current Affairs, Video - Politics/Society | May 2nd, 2011

We’re often obsessed with oil. A year ago, the issue was off­shore drilling. The Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon rig had explod­ed, and crude oil was spilling into the Gulf of Mex­i­co at a rate of 53,000 bar­rels a day. We all watched help­less­ly as BP threw every­thing but the kitchen sink at the prob­lem. (Remem­ber the golf balls?) Three months passed and 4.9 mil­lion bar­rels ripped into the ecosys­tem before the well was final­ly capped. Time to talk about it? Hard­ly. Now the dis­cus­sion has moved on to sky­rock­et­ing oil prices and the issues sur­round­ing them, like the caus­es (con­flict in the Mid­dle East, ris­ing con­sump­tion in Chi­na and India, com­mod­i­ty spec­u­la­tion at home…) and the polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions for the 2012 U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion if gas prices stay high. Weighty issues, to be sure. But before we allow the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon oil spill of 2010 to fade into our col­lec­tive amne­sia, Chris Har­mon, a Brook­lyn-based design­er, ani­ma­tor and writer, has cre­at­ed a work of ani­mat­ed typog­ra­phy to put some of the stag­ger­ing facts into per­spec­tive.

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Vladimir Nabokov Marvels Over Different “Lolita” Book Covers

in Books, Literature | May 2nd, 2011

In this short excerpt from a TV pro­gram called “USA: The Nov­el,” Vladimir Nabokov com­ments on dif­fer­ent for­eign edi­tions of his nov­el Loli­ta. The indi­vid­ual cov­ers he dis­cuss­es are list­ed here; the full pro­gram is avail­able here, and it con­tains some mem­o­rable quotes by the author (from chap­ter 1: “Mr Nabokov, would you tell us why it is that you detest Dr. Freud?” — “I think he’s crude, I think he’s medieval, and I don’t want an elder­ly gen­tle­man from Vien­na with an umbrel­la inflict­ing his dreams upon me. I don’t have the dreams that he dis­cuss­es in his books, I don’t see umbrel­las in my dreams or bal­loons.”).

Find­ing a pub­lish­er for Loli­ta proved to be rather dif­fi­cult for Nabokov. A Decem­ber 1953 review of the man­u­script said: “It is over­whelm­ing­ly nau­se­at­ing, even to an enlight­ened Freudi­an. To the pub­lic, it will be revolt­ing. It will not sell, and will do immea­sur­able harm to a grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion. […] I rec­om­mend that it be buried under a stone for a thou­sand years.” (Get more infor­ma­tion at Stan­ford’s “The Book Haven”) Loli­ta was first pub­lished in 1955 (orig­i­nal cov­er here) and has since been trans­lat­ed into many lan­guages with a wide vari­ety of cov­er designs (find a good col­lec­tion at this site).

Short­ly after Loli­ta’s pub­li­ca­tion, Nabokov dis­cussed his nov­el on the CBC pro­gram “Close Up”: see part one and part two.

Bonus: Lit­tle known detail — Nabokov held the post of cura­tor of lep­i­doptera at Har­vard’s Muse­um of Com­par­a­tive Zool­o­gy. He col­lect­ed many but­ter­flies and devel­oped a the­o­ry of but­ter­fly migra­tion which dis­put­ed all pre­vi­ous the­o­ries and was­n’t tak­en seri­ous­ly by biol­o­gists then. Only recent­ly did genet­ic stud­ies vin­di­cate his once bold the­o­ry. Some of Nabokov’s beau­ti­ful draw­ings of the but­ter­flies he stud­ied can be enjoyed cour­tesy of Fla­vor­wire.

You can find this video housed in our col­lec­tion of 235 Cul­tur­al Icons.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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Obama Announces Death of Osama bin Laden (Video)

in Current Affairs, History | May 1st, 2011

It’s news and it’s instant his­tor­i­cal footage. Tonight, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma announced that Osama bin Laden, the mas­ter­mind behind the 9/11 attacks, was killed Sun­day by US forces in Pak­istan, right out­side of Islam­abad (and, in a for­ti­fied man­sion, no less). The US began search­ing for bin Laden back in 1998, fol­low­ing the bomb­ing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tan­za­nia. 13 years lat­er, the pur­suit of Al Qaeda’s leader is over…

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