Tag: documentary

afghanistan

After so many ‘embedded’ reports and images of Afgahanistan over the past ten years it’s doubly refreshing to experience a film dedicated to exploring everyday life in the country from the inside. This is a stunningly beautiful film which, although lasting  only six minutes, imprints images, the poetry of which is destined to last much, much longer. Watch it on vimeo, in full screen, to really appreciate the beauty.

Afghanistan – touch down in flight from Augustin Pictures on Vimeo.

via the Atlantic

Found Images

You don’t need a video camera to make films: simply use one of the huge number (estimates range from 2 – 4 million in the UK) of CCTV cameras.

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That film was made by hijacking CCTV cameras. A group of young kids bought some relatively cheap and small devices which can sniff out signals broadcast by wireless CCTV networks. Using the surveillance images captured, the kids then created their own. Not only is it a great way of making free videos, it’s also a comment on the ubiquitous surveillance which is now an invisible part of all our lives. Have a look at MediaShed for more information on the form and how to make it.

Nor do you need a camera to make photographic images. Google street view has, since 2007, photographed street views of cities and urban areas in over 30 countries and is still crawling around streets taking high definition images in places as far apart as Israel, Lativa and Peru. Those images are now being used by photographers to produce landscape photographs such as this from Aaron Hobson:

If you want to follow up how Google street view has been the focus for a number of art projects, this article from Wired is a good place to start.

The Umbrella Man

Here’s a nice collection of views on the nature of documentary filmaking made by the National Film Board of Canada. Listen out at 3.00 mins.

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[Click the next button if you missed it]
That was Errol Morris: his understanding of documentary filmaking – ‘creating a story where there really is no story’. There’s a clue to what he’s getting at when he says this in his recently published Believing is Seeing (the title is a nod to Marshall McLuhan’s oft-quoted ‘if I hadn’t believed it I wouldn’t have seen it’) which examines the truth behind a series of iconic photographs. These are photographs which have been understood as testimonies to the truth. In that sense there is no story. We know what we are looking at and it makes sense. Morris digs around though, challenges what we think we are looking at, and from behind the frame discovers webs of meaning and doubt. It’s an epistemological inquiry which links Morris’ previous experiences as a private detective, PhD student of philosophy and director of ads. It’s an inquiry which runs through his award-winning documentaries (The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War) and seems to be central to his latest film, Tabloid which tells the tale of Joyce McKinney a US beauty queen embroiled in a sex scandal in the UK in 1977. It’s the truth behind the iconic events, creating the story where there is no story.

Here’s his latest short documentary, published by the New York Times as part of its series of video op-docs. It’s a powerful telling of the story of manipulation, of the involvement of the ‘umbrella man’ in the assassination of JF Kennedy in 1963 and the story which lies beyond. We may think there’s nothing stranger than fiction but Morris might convince you that, actually, there might be nothing stranger than fact.

via metafilter

Planned Obsolescence

During the Great Depression a man called Bernard London came up with a plan to organise capital and labour in a way that would ensure the continued existance of both, and get the unemployed back to work:

My proposal would put the entire country on the road to recovery, and eventually restore normal employment conditions and sound prosperity. My suggested remedy would provide a permanent source of income for the Federal Government and would relieve it for all time of  the difficulties of balancing its budget.
Briefly stated, the essence of my plan for accomplishing these much-to-be-desired-ends is to chart the obsolesce of capital and consumption goods at the time of their production. I would have the Government assign a lease of life to shoes and homes and machines, to all products of manufacture, mining and agriculture, when they are first created, and they would be sold and used within the term of their existence definitely known by the consumer. After the allotted time had expired, these things would be legally “dead” and would be controlled by the duly appointed governmental agency and destroyed if there is widespread unemployment. New products would constantly be pouring forth from the factories and marketplaces, to take the place of the obsolete, and the wheels of industry would be kept going and employment regularized and assured for the masses.

London, 1932

When a manufactured product lasts forever it’s a tragedy for business.  Once demand is satisfied, production is no longer needed. Jobs are lost. Without a dynamic, growing market, capitalism is under threat – something has to give. Bernard London’s solution was planned obsolescence. Today’s solution is continual consumption. It amounts to the same thing; you can’t have one without the other. Only now it’s euphemistically called ‘product lifecycle’ and the details are taught in all major industrial design courses.

Cossima Dannoritzer’s documentary ‘The Light Bulb Conspiracy’ examines the development of planned obsolescence through the light bulb cartel that limited the life time of a light bulb from 2,500 hours to 1,000; the reduction of the strength of the nylon stocking to ensure breakages; and the inclusion of a microchip in an ink-jet printer which acts as an automatic switch limiting the number of copies the printer will produce. All in the aid of ‘repeated frequent purchase’ – shopping our way to growth. It’s a great documentary and well worth a watch:

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The second half, though a little thin, does offer some pointers to a fightback. When consumers become citizens and harness the power of new communication technologies, resistance and change can take place.

So the story of the 2003 class action against Apple and its iPod. Apple’s stated policy when the iPod’s battery ran out was to suggest that users buy a new iPod. It was quickly revealed that the lithium battery used by Apple had been designed for a short life-span. Unsurprisingly, when rumbled, Apple settled out of court.

Whilst planned obsolescence mitigates the tragedy of business, the obsolete has to be dumped somewhere and at the moment that’s Ghana. But there’s a fight back there too. The source of the rubbish arriving on the landfills is being listed and court action planned to sue those responsible.

There’s also a return to refurbish and repair, something that poorer countries do as a matter of course. It’s now being encouraged as a legitimate business plan. The ethical obligations towards a future generation are being taken seriously by people (including Walter Philips of light bulb fame) who want to design products that last forever.

The movement from cradle to cradle epitomises this philosophy. It’s the idea, taken from the virtuous cycle of nature, that the natural world produces no waste only nutrients. Industrial production should use that model – use only nutrients in the manufacture of products so that those products can never be conceived of as becoming post-use waste.

But for some, this is not enough. What is needed is a wholesale rethink of the productive forces that give rise to unsustainable production of waste: a paradigm change towards de-growth. To others we need to destroy the very civilisation that the industrial complex has built.

Much of the Light Bulb Conspiracy supplements the excellent documentary ‘The Corporation’ especially in the mindset that needs to change if we are to remedy the current tragedy:

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