February 2012
61 posts
WatchWhy Space? A Surreal 1957 Cartoon About Space Exploration
Courtesy of the Internet Archive, this animated film from the Department of Defense makes the case for space.
Watch NASA’s Documentary About the First American to Orbit Earth
John Glenn and the other astronauts who manned the Friendship 7 mission 50 years ago give a play by play description of the effort in this documentary from NASA, including stunning archival footage. For more images from the project, don’t miss Alexis Madrigal’s reconstruction of Glenn’s experience in orbit, in...
Watch 1930s Hong Kong Revealed in a Vintage Travel Film
Hong Kong: Gateway to China is rich with amazing footage of the “mountainous and verdant island,” and worth watching in spite of the condescending narration. Courtesy of the Travel Film Archive, the film captures stunning landscapes of the bay, especially the panorama from the top of the island (skip to about 7:45 to take in the ...
Watch The Oldest Cat Video of All Time?
This 1894 film, one of the earliest produced by Thomas Edison’s Black Maria movie studio, features two cats boxing. Obviously it’s not actually a video, but it’s certainly evidence that even at the dawn of cinema, over a century before YouTube, cats ruled the moving image.
But is this the first recording of a cat in motion? That credit, it...
WatchA Short Animated Biography of Nikola Tesla
Jeremiah Warren’s his quirky animation style makes for an entertaining three-minute whirlwind tour of Nikola Tesla’s career, full of fun facts and more than a little disdain for Thomas Edison. Don’t miss The History of Thomas Edison, a similar treatment of the rival inventor’s life.
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A Short Animated Biography of Thomas Edison
This playful animated short gives an overview of the inventor’s life, while pointing out that he might have been more of an exceptional businessman than a creative genius. Jeremiah Warren created the video to celebrate the 165th anniversary of Edison’s birth.
WatchA Photographer’s Return to 19th-Century Tools and Life in a Cabin
John Coffer, a tintype photographer, has spent the past 25 years living a Thoreauvian existence in a cabin in New York. This beautifully shot documentary is one in a series of short films, This Must Be the Place, which explores the idea of home and the connection between people and their most personal spaces, by David Usui...
Watch Extreme Weather: Episode 7
Extreme Weather looks at the weather-related disasters that seem to be plaguing the planet with increasing frequency due to global warming. This episode covers the freeze in Europe, flood and fires in Australia, and methods for predicting dangerous weather.
WatchOn Living in Harmony With Magical Things
Chong Gon Byun, a multimedia artist in Brooklyn, shares an intimate look at his home, which is packed with art and whimsical objects he has collected during his travels. This short documentary is one in a series called This Must Be the Place, which explores the connections between people and their homes.
WatchBob Chisholm’s Lost and Found Photographs
Bob Chisholm has been taking photographs for decades, but didn’t display them until a 2011 show at The Popular Workshop gallery in San Francisco, Forgotten and Undisturbed. In fact, the gallery writes, most of “the work in the show was discovered in a crawl space in a home in Northern California, left untouched for more than a...
WatchThe Quintessential American Burger Joint
The folks who’ve been working at New York City’s Prime Burger for decades say it’s a little like the mafia — once you’re in, you don’t leave. The restaurant has been in business since 1938, and the staff are in it for the long haul. This documentary is one in a series of short films, This Must Be the Place by Lost...
WatchWhat Obama Can Learn From George W. Bush
In his March 2012 Atlantic cover story, James Fallows explores the U.S. president’s “central mystery”:
Has Obama in office been anything like the chess master he seemed in the campaign, whose placid veneer masked an ability to think 10 moves ahead, at which point his adversaries would belatedly recognize that they had lost long...
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How Water Drops Orbit a Needle in Zero Gravity
In this video from NASA, astronaut Don Pettit demonstrates how water drops orbit a charged knitting needle in the absence of gravity, modeling a solar system.
WatchThe Daredevil Ingenuity of the All-American Soap Box Derby
This documentary about the national soap box derby of 1936 in Akron, Ohio, was sponsored by an assortment of newspapers and General Motors. Via the Prelinger Archive.
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‘Who’s the Boss?’ A Textbook Guide to Surviving Your Hellish 1950s Marriage
A husband and wife fight over the wife’s decision to keep her job and her name in this short film produced by McGraw-Hill in 1950. The short, courtesy of the Prelinger Archive, is based on Marriage for Moderns, a textbook published by the company.
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Hunter Longe’s Psychedelic Art Bends Video With Magnets
Hunter Longe’s video installations use magnetic fields to scramble and warp VHS video feeds, erasing information stored on the magnetic tape. The technique dates back to the early work of Nam June Paik, at least, but Longe takes the theme of electromagnetic forces further, exploring its tensions and aesthetics in his 2011...
WatchTransit: A Kurdish Teen Fights for Asylum in Norway
Espen Rasmussen, an Oslo-based photographer, has spent seven years documenting displaced people around the world for his Transit project, a multimedia work that includes photography, video, a website, and an exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. Here he tells the story of 17-year-old Rahman, an illegal immigrant from Iran. A reception...
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Why We Procrastinate—An Infographic Guide
As a design student, Ryan Perera is no stranger to procrastination, so he set out to create this helpful animation.
Via the Curious Brain.
WatchFriday Fauna: A 1938 Film About Kittens
Three Little Kittens, an educational film for kids, follows three newborn kittens through life on a farm. Courtesy of the Prelinger Archive, the film crafts little stories from spontaneous moments between the siblings.
