All posts by zap-editor

12. who owns the future

e. Denis Villeneuve, Arrival

ARRIVAL
Denis Villeneuve, Sony Pictures Entertainment
2016, 2 min 31 sec 

Arrival is a 2016 American science fiction drama film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Eric Heisserer. Based on the 1998 short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, it stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker. The film follows a linguist enlisted by the United States Army to discover how to communicate with extraterrestrial aliens who have arrived on Earth, before tensions lead to war.
12. who owns the future

f. Laurance Doyle, Interspecies Communication and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

INTERSPECIES COMMUNICATION AND THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

Laurance Doyle, Seti institute, USA
2020, 1 hour 13 min 29 sec 

Dr. Laurance Doyle is an astrophysicist and principal investigator at SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) with expertise in diverse subjects including extrasolar planets, signal processing and communications theory. He has worked on image analysis from the Voyager mission and Halley’s Comet, developed statistical methodologies to search for extrasolar planets, and is applying those tools to analyze complex patterns and search for meaning in animal communications.

 

05. poetry is not a luxury

g. Henry Jenkins, copyrights

COPYRIGHTS

Henry Jenkins, Enterprise Forum, USA
2009, 4 min


Henry Jenkins III (born June 4, 1958) is an American media scholar and Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He also has a joint faculty appointment with the USC Rossier School of Education. Previously, Jenkins was the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities as well as co-founder and co-director.  Henry Jenkins, talks about copyrights in the age of the convergence media.

09. sharing circles, (e)conomy & doughnut economies

f. Tshering Tobgay, Happiness …

HAPPINESS IS A PUBLIC GOOD

Tshering Tobgay, Yes, Yes, Economy, CNN, USA
2017, 2 min 17 sec

Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay explains why it’s difficult to measure happiness and why economic growth and happiness are not mutually exclusive. If happiness is a public good, is it the government’s responsibility to create the conditions related to it?

 

06. the thought police

g. Sharyl Attkisson, Astrotuf and Manipulation

ASTROTURF AND MANIPULATION OF MEDIA MESSAGES

Sharyl Attkisson, TEDxUniversityofNevada
2015, 10 min 36 sec

In this eye-opening talk, veteran investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson shows how astroturf, or fake grassroots movements funded by political, corporate, or other special interests very effectively manipulate and distort media messages. Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. She is currently writing a book entitled Stonewalled (Harper Collins), which addresses the unseen influences of corporations and special interests on the information and images the public receives every day in the news and elsewhere. For twenty years (through March 2014), Attkisson was a correspondent for CBS News. In 2013, she received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for her reporting on “The Business of Congress,” which included an undercover investigation into fundraising by Republican freshmen. She also received Emmy nominations in 2013 for Benghazi: Dying for Security and Green Energy Going Red. Additionally, Attkisson received a 2013 Daytime Emmy Award as part of the CBS Sunday Morning team’s entry for Outstanding Morning Program for her report: “Washington Lobbying: K-Street Behind Closed Doors.” In September 2012, Attkisson also received an Emmy for Oustanding Investigative Journalism for the “Gunwalker: Fast and Furious” story. She received the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting for the same story. Attkisson received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2009 for her exclusive investigations into TARP and the bank bailout. She received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2002 for her series of exclusive reports about mismanagement at the Red Cross.

03. zombie ontology

g. Bunker Roy, the Barefoot College

THE BAREFOOT COLLEGE

Bunker Roy, Rajasthan, India
2009, 6 min 35 sec

In Rajasthan an extraordinary school teaches rural women and men – many of them illiterate – to become solar engineers, artisans, dentists and doctors in their own villages. The initiative is called the Barefoot College and its founder, Bunker Roy, explains how it works. His dream was to build a college for the poor by the poor.

04. other, a hesitant smile

g. FOX news, Anthropologists In Iraq

ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN IRAQ

FOX NEWS, IRAQ
2 min 13 sec

Anthropology Ass’n Blasts Army’s “Human Terrain”

The executive board of the American Anthropology Association (AAA) has officially expressed “its disapproval of the [Human Terrain System] HTS program,” a military effort that embeds social scientists in the military. The decision to condemn HTS cannot stop academics from signing on, but it will undoubtedly make it harder for the military to recruit qualified […]

The executive board of the American Anthropology Association (AAA) has officially expressed “its disapproval of the [Human Terrain System] HTS program,” a military effort that embeds social scientists in the military. The decision to condemn HTS cannot stop academics from signing on, but it will undoubtedly make it harder for the military to recruit qualified anthropologists to the program, and likely will escalate an already heated war of words between supporters and critics of the work.

07. transition town

e. Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott, …

THE CORPORATION

Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott, Hello Cool World, USA
2003, 1 min 24 sec

THE CORPORATION is a Canadian documentary film written by Joel Bakan, and directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The documentary examines the modern-day corporation, considering its legal status as a class of person and evaluating its behavior towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person. This is explored through specific examples. Bakan wrote the book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, during the filming of the documentary.

08. on bio-piracy & guerrilla gardening

f. Suzanne Simard, How trees talk to each other

HOW TREES TALK TO EACH OTHER

Suzanne Simard, TEDSummit, USA
2016, 18 min, 10 sec

“A forest is much more than what you see,” says ecologist Suzanne Simard. Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery — trees talk, often and over vast distances. Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes.

11. you tickle, therefore I am

h. Karen Barad, Troubling Times, Undoing the Future

TROUBLING TIMES, UNDOING THE FUTURE

Karen Barad, the Futures Lecture Series, Denmark
2016, 36 min 10 sec 

The indeterminacy of time-being at the core of quantum theory troubles the scalar distinction between the world of subatomic particles and that of social phenomena such as colonialism, capitalism, militarism, racism, nationalism and environmental destruction – all of which are entangled with nuclear and particle physics research. Quantum physics is a material-discursive practice with direct ties to the military-industrial complex, and while it gave birth to the atomic age, quantum physics disrupts classical Newtonian physics (which has its own troubled legacy in the service of war, colonialism, capitalist expansion, and empire building), including its foundational notions of space, time, and matter. In this talk, we will take up quantum physics’ immanent deconstructive dynamics, consider ways in which quantum physics troubles modernist conceptions of time, and ask whether quantum temporalities might offer radical political imaginaries for cohabiting this planet more justly by undoing the future.