Aeon's many gifts.
About 7 years go a very nice person named Abhi introduced me to the world of Aeon Digital Magazine. I wonder if I would ever have come across Aeon if I had not met Abhi.
I've been following items posted by Aeon all those seven years. Every day the people at Aeon send me three items, some of which I have already shared on Facebook, some with friends individually, and some on this blog.
Mostly they come in the form of written essays, usually less than 3000 words, sometimes longer.
They also send me many fine film works or videos on all sorts of subjects, biographical portraits, documentaries and avant garde works.
Today I received a short video which I wish to share with you:
a film by Hiroshi Kondo
These notes were presented with the video on Aeon:
A commute is often judged good or bad by how long it takes, but sometimes getting from one place to another can yield wrinkles in our experience of time.
The Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Kondo explores this phenomenon in his often breathtaking video Multiverse, layering time on itself to create a hallucinatory vision of countless scooterists flowing through Taiwan’s capital Taipei.
The result is a vision of a city and its people that takes an ordered freneticism and manipulates it to create a sense of time speeding up and standing still.
People are momentarily discernible as individuals before morphing into strange amalgams of humanity. As the piece progresses, the pace becomes increasingly dizzying, until finally the crowd melds into an amorphous blur of light and motion. For another surreal take on the urban world from Kondo, watch his video Eye Know (2014).
Now let's take this discussion one step further...
I often share these essays presented by Aeon with my friends, especially when the essays are on topics which I know are favoured by those friends. Yesterday I shared one with Richard because I know he is deeply interested in AI and how the advent of AI may affect all of our lives. Then there's my friend Dainis with whom I share many articles concerning the history of our species, especially since about 10,000 years ago, the advent of large human gatherings in cities and early civilisations coinciding with the invention of agriculture.
Of course Aeon can't give you three new items every day, some are repeats, just like TV stations repeat programmes over and over... it's not easy finding new stuff of great interest every day.
The Smithsonian Magazine is another favourite source... stunning articles on so many subject areas which I've shared with you all since setting up the Armchair Traveller on FB, and also a few on this blog recently, e.g., the life-cycle of the Periodical Cicada which I posted just the other day.
How could I keep up without these two sources of great articles about subjects which are so important to me? Here's another wonderful video work sent to me by Aeon which I posted on Facebook a few months ago:
Repetition - Max Cooper from Kevin McGloughlin on Vimeo.
If any of my friends would like to post some essays or film works which they love and respect on this site, please know that you are most welcome to do so. All you need to do is to send an email and I will organise a page for you, and if you want any assistance from me I'm happy to oblige.
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I watched the Multiverse video a few times ! :)
ReplyDeleteMultiverse is stunning.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing this when you first shared it from Aeon a while back, Peter, and on rewatching now, it presents me with more big ideas.
This time I'm struck by the fact that in the flow of innumerable souls on their two-wheeled machines, each one might pass through the same point, take up the same space, but experience that point in a different way - arrive with their own unique clothing, helmet, eyewear, individual emotions, experience, life story...
The fractally explosive possibilities of these variations is mind-blowing.
And YET, at the same time, this overwhelming difference appears as ONE; one flow, one movement, one mass, one unending movement, inching forward slowly but surely from one point to another.
It is here in this short film i see the infinite variation of life alongside with the ultimate drudgery of uniform sameness. How can my tiny mind grasp these two extremes? To understand this world is too much!
What an achievement, for such a short doco to take me to this place of overwhelm from the comfort of my armchair!
I wonder what I'll discover next time i watch it...
I deeply appreciate your response Richard. You have expressed what I hope many people would pick up from this amazing work.
DeleteI would like to remind you Richard, what you've articualated applies to most of what we decribe as "great work of art". Why would I bother to have a film in y DVD collection which is not worth a number of viewings?
Gob-smacking stuff!
ReplyDelete