[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View]
Tuesday, February 5th, 2019
| Time | Event |
| 12:00p | Pioneering Sci-Fi Author William Gibson Predicts in 1997 How the Internet Will Change Our World
"What's the one thing that all great works of science fiction have in common?" asks a 1997 episode of The Net, the BBC's television series about the possibilities of this much-talked-about new thing called the internet. "They all tried to see into the future, and they all got it wrong. Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: all, to some extent or other, wrong. And there's another name to add to this list: William Gibson." But then on strolls Gibson himself, fresh off the writing of Idoru, a novel involving a human who wants to marry a digitally generated Japanese pop star, to grant the interview above. In it Gibson admits that computers hadn't gone quite the way he'd imagined thirteen years earlier in his debut novel Neuromancer — but in which he also offers prescient advice about how we should regard new technology even today. "The thing that Neuromancer predicts as being actually like the internet isn't actually like the internet at all!" Gibson says in a more recent interview with Wired. "I didn't get it right but I said there was going to be something." Back in the mid-1980s, as he tells the BBC, "there was effectively no internet to extrapolate from. The cyberspace I made up isn't being used in Neuromancer the way we're using the internet today." Gibson had envisioned a corporate-dominated network infested with "cybernetic car thieves skulking through it attempting to steal tidbits of information." By the mid-1990s, though, the internet had become a place where "a really talented and determined fifteen-year-old" could create something more compelling than "a multinational entertainment conglomerate might come up with." He tells the BBC that "what the internet has become is as much a surprise to me as the collapse of the Soviet Union was," but at that point he had begun to perceive the shape of things to come. "I can't see why it won't become completely ubiquitous," he says, envisioning its evolution "into something like television to the extent that it penetrates every level of society." At the same time, "it doesn't matter how fast your modem is if you're being shelled by ethnic separatists" — still very much a concern in certain parts of the world — and even the most promising technologies don't merit our uncritical embrace. "I think we should respect the power of technology and try to fear it in a rational way," he says. "The only appropriate response" is to give in to neither technophobia nor technophilia, but "to teach ourselves to be absolutely ambivalent about them and imagine their most inadvertent side effects," the side effects "that tend to get us" — not to mention the ones that make the best plot elements. Seeing as how we now live in a world where marriage to synthetic Japanese idols has become a possibility, among other developments seemingly pulled from the pages of Gibson's novels, we would do well to heed even these decades-old words of advice about his main subject. via Big Think Related Content: How Chris Marker’s Radical SciFi Film La Jetée Changed the Life of Cyberpunk Prophet William Gibson Sci-Fi Author J.G. Ballard Predicts the Rise of Social Media (1977) Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. Pioneering Sci-Fi Author William Gibson Predicts in 1997 How the Internet Will Change Our World is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.  |
| 3:00p | Watch a Towering Orchestral Tribute to Kate Bush: A 40th Anniversary Celebration of Her First Single, “Wuthering Heights”
Some Americans like their pop musicians to be more accessible, less theatrical, and eccentric—and generally more desperate for the approval of their audience. Kate Bush, thankfully, has never seemed bothered by this need. She could leave the spotlight when she needed to, or leave the music business altogether for a time, and yet remain a creative force to be reckoned with for four decades now. Her legacy has permeated contemporary music since she appeared in 1978, then retired from the stage the following year after her first tour to focus solely on writing, recording, and making short musical films. Her debut, The Kick Inside, proved that an original new songwriter worth watching had arrived, and she delivered on the promise in ten studio albums and a career she seemed to sum up in the title of “This Woman’s Work,” from 1989’s The Sensual World. It is work she has always done in her own delightfully odd, passionate, eccentrically British, theatrical, and deftly literary way, all qualities that have made her a massive star in the UK and a hero to artists like Tori Amos, Annie Lennox, Grimes, Florence and the Machine, and too many more to name.
Bush's unusual traits also make her a perfect artist to pay tribute to in an orchestral setting, as Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony has done in the 2018 concert also titled “This Woman’s Work” and featuring the very-Bush-worthy vocal talents of guest singers Jennie Abrahamson and Malin Dahlström. It’s “a towering tribute,” the Symphony writes, “with hit songs and pure poetry in special arrangements by Martin Schaub.” And it arrived to mark a special moment indeed: the 40th anniversary of the release of Bush’s brilliantly strange debut single “Wuthering Heights.” See the full performance at the top of the post and excerpted songs throughout, including Abrahamson's cover of "This Woman's Work," above.
Appearing in the ghostly guise and ethereally high-pitched voice of Cathy Earnshaw, doomed heroine of Emily Brontë’s novel, Bush captivated millions in two videos that are now absolute classics. She drew on the mime theatrics of her teacher Lindsay Kemp, who previously mentored David Bowie, and gave us the indelible image of a woman possessed by weird imagination, uncanny musical talent, and some frightening dance moves. The images and sounds she created in just those 3 and a half minutes are iconic. Or, putting it a little differently in a short BBC documentary, John Lydon says, “Kate Bush and her grand piano… that’s like John Wayne and his saddle… her shrieks and warbles are beauty beyond belief.”
If you came to Bush later in her career, say during 1985’s huge Hounds of Love, and somehow missed her unbelievable first fine art-rock performances on film, watch both the white and red dress versions first, then watch the Gothenburg Symphony’s glowing, career-spanning tribute to a woman who “laid the groundwork for [a] generation of performers,” as Marc Hirsh writes at NPR. Even though he is an American who does not care for Kate Bush, Hirsh can't seem to help enumerating the very reasons she is so special to so many, and he features a number of her videos that demonstrate why she's an artist her fans love “from the very core of their being.”
Related Content: 2009 Kate Bush Documentary Dubs Her “Queen of British Pop” The Largest Ever Tribute to Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” Choreographed by a Flashmob in Berlin Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness Watch a Towering Orchestral Tribute to Kate Bush: A 40th Anniversary Celebration of Her First Single, “Wuthering Heights” is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 6:00p | The Mastermind of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh, Presents His Personal Synthesizer Collection
Mark Mothersbaugh’s studio is located in a cylindrical structure painted bright green - it looks more like a festive auto part than an office building. It's a fitting place for the iconoclast musician. For those of you who didn’t spend your childhoods obsessively watching the early years of MTV, Mark Mothersbaugh was the mastermind behind the band Devo. They skewered American conformity by dressing alike in shiny uniforms and their music was nervy, twitchy and weird. They taught a nation that if you must whip it, you should whip it good. In the years since, Mothersbaugh has segued into a successful career as a Hollywood composer, spinning scores for 21 Jump Street and The Royal Tenenbaums among others. In the video above, you can see Mothersbaugh hang out in his studio filled with synthesizers of various makes and vintages, including Bob Moog’s own personal Memorymoog. Watching Mothersbaugh pull out and play with each one is a bit like watching a precocious child talk about his toys. He just has an infectious energy that is a lot of fun to watch. Probably the best part in the video is when he shows off a device that can play sounds backward. It turns out that if you say, “We smell sausage” backwards it sounds an awful lot like “Jesus loves you.” Who knew? Below you can see Mothersbaugh in action with Devo, performing live in Japan during the band's heyday in 1979. Follow Open Culture on Facebook and Twitter 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. If you'd like to support Open Culture and our mission, please consider making a donation to our site. It's hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us provide the best free cultural and educational materials. Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in February 2015. Related Content: Thomas Dolby Explains How a Synthesizer Works on a Jim Henson Kids Show (1989) Watch Herbie Hancock Rock Out on an Early Synthesizer on Sesame Street (1983) All Hail the Beat: How the 1980 Roland TR-808 Drum Machine Changed Pop Music Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veeptopus, featuring lots of pictures of badgers and even more pictures of vice presidents with octopuses on their heads. The Veeptopus store is here. The Mastermind of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh, Presents His Personal Synthesizer Collection is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 9:00p | Watch 66 Oscar-Nominated-and-Award-Winning Animated Shorts Online, Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada
I recently heard someone quip that proposals to cut the Academy Awards are tantamount to suggesting that the NFL trim down the Super Bowl. Certainly for many who would rather watch the former any day of the week, even the play-by-play of technical categories repay attention. Yet people who think of the Oscars like a major sporting event, with big stars and blockbusters going head-to-head, can still value the show as more than pure spectacle. How else, for example, would most of us learn about brilliant animated short films like the National Film Board of Canada’s Animal Behaviour, made by husband and wife team Alison Snowden and David Fine and nominated in this year’s Oscars? (See the trailer above.) Snowden and Fine previously won an Oscar in 1995 for Bob’s Birthday, a hilarious short about an unhappy British dentist. Their latest film takes a charming, anthropomorphic route to the question Fine poses as, “Should what comes naturally to you be something that you seek to change to please others, or should others accept you as you are?” Group therapy participants seeking acceptance include Lorraine, a leech with separation anxiety, Victor, an ape with anger issues, and Cheryl, a praying mantis, writes the National Film Board, “who can’t seem to keep a man.”
The NFB informs us that Animal Behaviour is their 75th Oscar-nomination in the category of Animated Short Film, and whether you’re inclined to watch this part of the awards or not, you can get caught up with their extensive playlist of 66 Oscar-winning and nominated films on YouTube. (Bob’s Birthday is not available, at least in the U.S., but you can watch it here.) See Snowden and Fine's first film, George and Rosemary, a story in which "two golden agers prove that passion isn't reserved for the very young."
Watch the very impressive stop-motion animation of 2007’s Madame Tutli-Putli, an “exhilarating existential journey” directed by Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski. See Chris Landreth’s 2013 Oscar-winning computer-animated short, Ryan, about a character “living every artist’s worst nightmare.”
And see the 2007 Oscar-winning existential animated short The Danish Poet, directed by Torill Kove and featuring narration by Liv Ullmann. The offerings are vast and varied, displaying the very best of Canadian animation, a national art that usually goes unseen and unacknowledged by audiences outside its borders. But after watching several of these films you might agree that NFB animation deserves its long history of recognition at the Oscars. See the complete playlist of films here.
Many of these films can be found in our collection, 1,150 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc.. Related Content: Early Japanese Animations: The Origins of Anime (1917 to 1931) Free Animated Films: From Classic to Modern Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness Watch 66 Oscar-Nominated-and-Award-Winning Animated Shorts Online, Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| << Previous Day |
2019/02/05 [Calendar] |
Next Day >> |