The Famous Test Drive of Bertha Benz (1888) The beautiful commercial above tells part of the story about the incredible woman behind the founding of Mercendes Benz. Bertha Benz (1849 – 1944) was a German automotive pioneer. She was the business partner and wife of automobile inventor Karl Benz. On 5 August 1888, she was the […]
Control Through Distraction “Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who […]
A fascinating short film about what life might soon be like in our new media world. Hyper-Reality is a concept film by Keiichi Matsuda. It presents a provocative and kaleidoscopic new vision of the future, where physical and virtual realities have merged, and the city is saturated in media. From the creator of the film: “Our […]
We’re posting the most hated video in the history of YouTube. As you can see it has almost (as of 9/10/20) 150 million hits. This is a lot of hate for sure. The history of the video is very interesting. Rebecca had no idea she was in the video. A bunch of electronic manuevering turned […]
Annadel State Park– Sonoma County, California (Photo by John Fraim, 2001) Guest Post By Rick Sowash Back in the old days — six months ago! — you could have found me every Sunday morning in the tenor section of the Chancel Choir at Cincinnati’s Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church. We were really good! Twenty-five strong, many […]
Guest post by Jeff Einstein Our lives in the digital 21st century are ruled by tens of thousands of digital algorithms. But here’s the one that matters most: Chemical destiny minus meaningful ritual = addiction. Here’s how it works, step by step: We are wired for addiction by virtue of the simple fact that our […]
(For the best experience of the above, watch the short PSA spot before reading about it below!) What happens when you match one of the great filmmakers today up to a PSA or Public Service Announcement? Here, filmmaker Adam Newport Berra’s take on a high school shooting. We see the aftermath of the shooting […]
By Lynne Ramsey / A 1970s Christmas in Scotland How did one arrive at looking at or watching a particular piece of art or music? Like this fourteen-minute film Gasman. How does one come to a particular piece of art? A certain song? A painting? A piece of writing? An image? How does one […]
Director Daniel Newell Kaufman says of this short twenlve minute film, “All Luke and his mom have are two garbage bags full of clothes, and two tickets out of town on the midnight Greyhound. Like he’s assembling a puzzle, Luke has to figure out the why of it – all before the person they’re running […]
Marshall McLuhan at the 67 Perception LSD Conference at the University of Toronto (The Star) John Fraim Media guru Marshall McLuhan met LSD evangelist Timothy Leary for the first time in 1966 at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Leary was in town to testify at the U.S. Senate Hearings on psychedelic drugs. The two […]
