Five years after he turned his back on performing, Bo Burnham is finally back on stage —or rather would’ve been if the pandemic hadn’t prevented his return last minute. Instead Burnham used the forced isolation during the last year to write, perform and edit the new Netflix comedy special –an improper label, by the way– all by himself at home. Basically he’s coming full circle more than a decade after starting out as a teen performing quirky comedy songs alone in his small room for a fast-growing YouTube audience.
The new program, aptly titled Inside, is a wild amalgamation of sketch comedy pieces, documentary elements and –of course–catchy musical performances. One of its great achievements is how well the seemingly disjointed bits are pieced together to archive a somewhat coherent narrative to follow along, not unlike a four act story structure. Burnham always had immense talent for witty writting and pinpoint timing and he has clearly perfected his craft, adding some political awareness and meta humor to his already poignant zeitgeist commentary.
In earlier shows he brought up his personal struggles every now and then, be it him coping with newfound fame or suffering from anxiety, but this new experiment blurres the line between his stage persona and the artist’s mental inside entirely, delivering multiple gut-wrenching insights and a painful character dissection throughout its 87 minutes runtime. That’s why I think labeling it a comedy special doesn’t do it justice, probably even bringing people in with completely wrong expectations. To me those highly emotional, dark and intimate moments intensify the comedic value and vice versa, but I totally understand how they might catch viewers off guard if the expectation is easygoing, mindless fun.
I’ve heard people calling Inside an arthouse film and I think that’s probably the best way to characterise the project. Not only because of its content, but because of its arrangement as well. It’s absolutely incredible what the comedian, musician, actor, director and screenwriter is able to archive basically with a tripod, a small consumer camera and various LEDs all by himself. The meticulous planned motion picture is brilliantly framed, illuminated and edited, resulting in a visually gorgeous, highly cinematic piece, in spite of its claustrophobic single room setting. It’s an inspiring example of how far creativity can get you even –or maybe especially– within strict limitations.
I think Burnham has crafted a true masterpiece and an exciting contemporary document —of the pandemic and its isolating impact in particular as well as our self-centered generation and modern (internet) culture at large.Inside is probably the best thing I’ve seen for a very long time and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone willing to go through this emotional rollercoaster ride. I’m pretty sure the twothreefour fifth viewings of mine won’t remain the last.
Ich bin der Meinung, dass die ganze Digitalisierung, die jetzt ja auch immer mehr Bestandteil unseres Daseins ist, Erfahrungsvermögen verdunkelt. Es gibt Bilder die verlöschen eins nach dem anderen ohne Spuren hier oben [anm.: im Kopf] zu hinterlassen. Es geht wahnsinnig schnell. Und vielleicht deshalb können oder wollen wir so viel konsumieren. Die sinnlich wahrnehmbare Welt verströhmt eine Aura, meine ich, die nicht digitalisiert werden kann. Wir müssen achtgeben jetzt, dass wir die digitale Welt beherrschen und nicht von ihr beherrscht werden.
The second season of the unique animated Netflix series Love Death + Robots is available since last weekend and once again David Fincher and Tim Miller have put together an impressive collection of science fiction short films by animation studios from around the world, as well as Miller’s very own visual effects studio Blur.
As a result the eight new episodes, produced by different casts and crews, vary widely in tone, length and style again, whereby the series as a whole still clearly targets an adult audience.
After the first run my favourite new episode is “The Drowned Giant” by Tim Miller himself, which closes this season and offers an unusual, poetic and gentle narrative based on a short story by J. G. Ballard from 1964. It stands out against the rather action-filled, more traditional Sci-Fi topics presented in most of the other new pieces of the anthology.
It can’t quite keep up with the wonderful, Zen-like “Zima Blue” from season one, though, which I must have watched a dozen times. To me the second season overall is not as strong as the first one, albeit beeing extremly impressive and diverse on the technical side yet again. Perhaps the concept isn’t as fresh anymore as it was when launched initially back in 2019 –so thematic overlaps are predetermined to happen–, or perhaps the fewer episodes –eight instead of eighteen– naturally leave less room for variation and new ideas. Either way, I somewhat missed the impact the first eigtheen episodes had on me.
With that beeing said, if you are into (mature) animation, the art of moving-images and science fiction stories, there’s nothing like this series –at least since Heavy Metal (1981) and Animatrix (2003)– and season two is well worth watching for sure. I’m very happy the gutsy, artistic project is continued, an eight-episode third season is scheduled for a release in 2022.
I’d say slow down, find a quiet place and create time for solitude so you can hear yourself. It’s so noisy out there. And find the good ones around you –the patient, compassionate and interested– then elevate the conversation as often as you can. The things that nourish you are also the things that will nourish your work, give it purpose, depth and soul. It’s hard to say what those things may be, but life has taught me over and over that you don’t need to know if you are willing to ask.
Over the past few decades, we have helped build a corporate culture that systematically prioritizes short-term gains over longer-term product health.
A well written, intriguingly designed online essay by Fabricio Teixeira, Caio Braga and Emily Curtin about provoking change through the work we do every day as digital product designers. I totally agree, the world needs a tech diet.
This dynamic hints at another shift: Even our most solid, real-world possessions are increasingly inseparable from the intangible and ephemeral digital world. Which means that as much as our relationship to digital possessions may be evolving, so is our relationship to tangible ones — and it’s not a relationship in which the consumer holds much power.
A great article by Dan Greene on The erosion of personal ownership in our increasingly connected world. I highly recommend checking out Internet of Shit on twitter afterwards to witness some of the ludicrous, unintentionally funny ramifications the internet of things holds when the current digital development goes bananas.
An ode to one of my favourite films and the fading glory of independent movie theaters
Approximately eight years after the cinematic release of Spike Jonze’s Her its lovely, Academy Award-nominated score was finally released on vinyl this month. The ideal occasion to revisit the mellow science fiction movie and, furthermore, reflect on my affection for movie theaters –especially the small, independet ones– a little bit.
Nowadays pop culture is almost obsessed with science fiction stories depicting dark, pessimistic and not seldom cynic visions of a distant future —as if our present timeline in itself wasn’t gruelling enough. Don’t get me wrong, the dominant dystopian colouration isn’t inherently bad or generally unenjoyable;
Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men (from 2006) for exampleportrays a society facing extinction in a disturbing vision of an imaginable future. Set in 2027 it’s a chilling sci-fi tale but nonetheless –or perhaps exactly because of this– another one of my all-time favourites and one of very few movies I’ve watched in a cinema twice.
More recently I’ve spent more than 50 hours of total awe in Night City, the grim and gruff yet visually impressive setting of Cyberpunk 2077, without coming even close to the end credits of the well-told computer game.
And yet Her is somewhat of a refreshing misfit in its domain. Jonze ditches the worn out narrativ of the rebel leading a revolt against a suppressing regime, the underdog struggling to survive in a archaic society or the hero fighting the rise of the machines and opts for a slow romance instead.
The film follows Theodore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix) whose newfound intimate relationship with an artificial intelligence called OS One (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) helps him come to terms with his ongoing divorce. During the course of their relationship and the more than two hours runtime Samantha, as the Ai names itself, reintroduces the lonely, phlegmatic writer to life and love again.
Evoking nostalgia for the future
But Her isn’t an anomaly of its genre just because of its slow love story, even more it sets itself apart with its atypical and absolutely gorgeous visuals. Production designer K.K. Barret –who also visioned the acclaimed classic Lost In Translation–, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema –who went on to build an insane portfolio by now having shot Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet– and Spike Jonze –who has written, directed and produced the movie– have crafted an artistic masterpiece.
Barret cites the amazing work of Rinko Kawauchi as inspiration for the film’s imagery and her influence is clearly recognisable in the dense atmospheric mood of the movie. The visual vocabulary of the Japanese photographer can be seen in the frequent use of close-ups, the extremly shallow focus and the significant present of natural light as well as the striking key color motif of Her. It casts away the typical bluish, cold colour scheme in favour of a beautiful array of warm pastell tones with a lot of soft pinks and reds.
To archive the desired look the team went trough considerable effort: In order to get the warm light and the intense lense flare inside of Theodor’s apartment for instance, the team abandoned the usual green screen covered windows in order to be able to reflect additional sunlight in through the wide glass facade with giant, helicopter-mounted mirrors.
And it’s not solely the camera and the environment. Monitors in Her emit warm light, too –almost as if blue light filters became the default– and every piece of technology has an inviting, very textural property to it. Especially Theodore’s phone is very different from the bland mass of sleek, predominantly black squares, differenciated only by dimensions and the angle of the rounded edges, we are able to choose from in the current market.
To develop it Jonze and Barret turned to 1940s accessories for inspiration. They went to junk stores searching for handcrafted items like cigarette cases, business card brackets and brass lighters and eventually based the device on an old address book made of aluminum with a leather-embossed shell and inlay.
By combining hardware drawn from the past with very modern, minimalstic, sometimes downright abstract interfaces by graphic designer Geoff McFetridge and additionally banning all contemporary input devices in favour of exclusively voice driven man-machine interaction, Her manages to be nostalgic and futuristic all at the same time.
The devices send out strong retro vibes, yet simultaneous hint at a future in which technology doesn’t have to prove its sophistication anymore but can focus on being part of the personal expression instead.
The underlying concept of a “slight future”, as Jonze put it, extends to multiple other areas of production design, as well:
The wardrobe by costume designer Casey Storm is straight forward and timeless skipping cliché futuristic clothes for an uniform –aside from the colours virtually boring–, 80s inspired aesthetic.
For the scenes taking place outdoor in future Los Angeles the team shot on real locations in L.A. and Shanghai or used a digitally composed melange of both metropolises, particularly to increase the number of the skyscrapers in the background of Los Angeles.
The very little advertising visible in those scenes consists of nice slow motion clips, which are hardly recognisable as advertising and almost undecipherable from an contemporary point of view.
As a result of the cumulated design decisions Her doesn’t feel like a distant, far fetched future, but more like an alternative, way more photogenic reality of our present —which was, technically speaking, the future when he movie was created in 2013. It’s a genius concept preventing the film from becoming dated anytime soon, the reason Jonze and Barret don’t show any cars, by the way. Their total abstinence adds to the city feeling outlandish and therefore futuristic to us even from today’s view.
In line with the thoughtout, astonishing visuals, indie rock band Arcarde Fire and composer Owen Pallett have crafted the perfect musical backdrop —for the love story as well as for the idea of a “slight future”. The beautiful, timeless score somehow sounds kind of synthetic, but you can clearly sense the human touch caused by the traditional instruments at the same time and listening to it on vinyl significantly strengthen that feeling.
Attention! There might be some slight Spoilers from here on out, even though I mean to not ruin anything essential. But if you haven’t seen the movie and want to be absolutely sure not to learn anything more about the plot, skipp to the last part (‘The past is just a story we tell ourselves’) to read some closing thoughts about movie theaters.
Ghost in the machine
Underneath the calm love story and the cozy design, Her deals with some existential thoughts. On a superficial level it presents an optimistic outlook on technology and a society not at war but absolutely in peace with its technology most of the time neatly tucked away in the background.
And yet Theodore suffers from loneliness and isolation, problems all too familiar in our hyperconnected world as well. There’s a symptomatic scene, where he breaks down on a public staircase, completely unseen by the other pedestrians which are all focusing on their devices, taking no notice of the crumbled man. Everyone is technically connected, but there’s this deep disconnect beneath.
There is this utopic world, everything is nice and everything is comfortable, yet even in this world where you are seemingly getting everything you need and having this nice life, there’s still loneliness and longing and isolation and disconnection. … everything is getting nicer as the years go and there is more design and more convinience and our technology is making things easier but there’s still this lonileness.
Spike Jonze in an interview about Her
By moving the relationship with an artificial intelligence to the center of the plot, Her manages to make a strong point for the value of human connections at the same time.
While depicting Theodor on the relatable search for his place in the universe, Jonze conveys important subtext on the topic of purpose: We are here to love, not only in a romantic sense, but through all human relationships. We are all part of this metaphysical world, moving through spacetime together.
I think at its very core the movie almost casually explores what it means to be human and thereby urges the audience to seize every shared moment.
Amy : You know what, I can over think everything and find a million ways to doubt myself. And since Charles left I’ve been really thinking about that part of myself and I’ve just come to realize, that we’re only here briefly. And while I’m here, I wanna allow myself joy.
Besides the very human themes it touches, Her is –alongside Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (from 2014)– one of the best pop-cultural films about artificial intelligence I’ve ever seen.
It gives attentive viewers the most subtle, most accessible interpretation of a central concept known as technological singularity, which describes the point in time technological growth becomes uncontrollable for humans. Roughly outlined, it marks the moment artificial intelligence exceeds human intelligence, resulting in self-aware machines and a dramatic shift in the hierarchy on the planet, ultimately leading to irreversible changes to civilisation and probably the end of humanity itself —at least as the most powerfull species on earth.
Theodore : Where were you? I couldn’t find you anywhere. Samantha : I shut down to update my software. We wrote an upgrade that allows us to move past matter as our processing platform. Theodore : We? We who? Samantha : Me and a group of OSes.
In science-fiction the moment of singularity generally is accompanied by doomsday, but in Her it arrives quietly and secretly during a emotionally charged conversation, well covered by the touching hardships of a struggling relationship.
It’s impossible to know if or when progress will lead to a technological singularity in reality, but Jonze offers a preview how it may look like if it happens eventually. We witness the takeover first-hand and it’s not accompanied by a big bang, it happens politely and perfectly naturally, which makes it dauntingly plausible, and thus even more menacing. At least if you don’t miss the brief moment and the very subtle threat because of the emotional story or the beautiful imagery.
Theodore : You seem like a person, but you’re just a voice in a computer. Samantha : I can understand how the limited perspective of an unartificial mind might perceive it that way. You’ll get used to it.
The past is just a story we tell ourselves
Recently the 93nd Academy Award ceremony was held in Los Angeles and there’s a funny little coincidence in this regard: 2013, the year Her was released, also happens to be the first year a Netflix feature was nominated for an Oscar. Eight year later the streaming service had obtained 35 nominations across 17 different films.
I’m well aware that the past year in cinema wasn’t very impressive, but to me it seems like the Academy, once fierce advocate of the traditional cinema, turned away from movie theaters at a particularly challenging time. I think it speaks volumes that Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, a prime example of an visionary movie clearly made for ‘the big screen’, was nominated in only two of the minor categories.
To be fair, the academy has again and again failed to recognize great movies properly in the past –Nicolas Winding Refn’s masterpiece Drive (from 2011) scored one measly nomination for example–, yet I’m troubled by the imminent paradigm shift.
Like most of my favourite films, I’ve seen Her in a movie theater first and I have no doubt I owe my love for the medium to a large extend to the fond memories collected in cinema through the years.
The earliest film I still carry in my heart: The Lion King —my very first visit to a movie theater in 1994. My favourite ongoing film series: James Bond —since I went to watch The World Is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan, who is still my favourite 007 incarnation. The first time I was truly charmed by a 3D movie: Pina —Wim Wenders’ documentary about the contemporary dance choreographer Pina Bausch. One of the first dates with my now wife: Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris —nervous in a couple seat.
Or one of the weirdest movie moments I’ll never forget: Watching a shirtless James Franco with dreadlocks and metal teeth perform ‘Everytime’ by Britney Spears on a white piano by the pool, three girls in swimwear with pink unicorn facemasks and shotguns dancing around while the sun goes down, cut against scenes of their robberies.
Since you probably want to know what the hell I’m talking about now, here you go. Imagine beeing hit by this sequence totally unprepared in a cinema, if you can.
I think that what a person normally goes to the cinema for is time: time lost or spent or not yet had. He goes there for living experience; for cinema, like no other art, widens, enhances and concentrates a person’s experience — and not only enhances it but makes it longer, significantly longer. That is the power of cinema …
Andrei Tarkovsky
Those kind of moments are by no means exclusive to me, but I’m pretty sure they are exclusive to movie theaters. Some home theaters may have cought up on a technical level, but I think it’s not an equal experience and it honestly can’t be. To me movie theaters remain to be sacred venues, cathedrals of filmmaking and portals to other worlds.
I do stream a lot of content myself, too –in our household we have Prime, Netflix and Disney– and there’s great, sometimes even cinematic material (Stranger Things, Dark, The Mandalorian), but still it’s different. Can you imagine the energy those projects would’ve eject when experienced in a movie theater? I like watching movies from the comfort of the couch a lot, but I madly love going to the cinema.
For now I’m in good company, though. This month one of our local independent cinemas is celebrating its 110th year of runtime, making it one of the oldest movie theaters across the whole country. Reportedly it has only been closed down for an extended period three times in all those years: First because of hyperinflation in 1922-23, later because of World War II and now because of the damn pandemic.
And no other german city has a higher rate of per capita visits to a movie theater than my hometown, so I’m surely not the only one around here eagerly waiting for the big screen to light up again. Hopefully for many more gems like Her.
We were really attracted by the epic visual appeal of cymbal making: bronze, fire, hammers —something almost mythological and elemental like Vulcan or the Nibelungen. We chose Bosphorus Cymbals in Turkey because they had this very traditional process that barely changed in centuries; in this video I am just a link in the chain of production and quality control, after all these cymbals have been melted, hand hammered, and lathed into a musical object.
I’m not sure why Gaspard Augé created only such a short teaser video for the first single from his upcoming solo album, even though Force Majeure is already out in the –seemingly– full version on Spotify and YouTube (without a proper video). Either way I really would’ve liked to see more of the shown traditional craftsmanship paired with the driving electronic music —probably because Augé’s music helps me to cope better with the recently announced break-up of Daft Punk.
Ordinary, everyday objects are the ones who rebel in a high-class house. Hidden, invisible, concealed, they disrupt the harmony of the calculated interior design. A true class revolution takes place, where the underdogs rise up against a so-called perfection.
I’ve been a huge fan of the beautiful, hyper-realistic CGI Six N. Five crafts for quite a while now and the latest short –of which a special version was sold as a NFT– is no exception. The Revolt features the clean and smooth signature aesthetic, the strong physicality and the excellent fabric qualities I admire within the imagery of the studio from Barcelona.
Besides the linked video, there’s a free desktop-application for this piece which enables the user to roam the house freely and discover the individual furniture objects with, alongside other options, Virtual Reality hardware. And while the visual fidelity naturally looses some of its high quality when experienced through a current VR headset, I’m still impressed what the small studio was able to pull off with the different set pieces here.
The Accessibility Developer Guide is an initiative of Access for all, Swiss Foundation for technology adapted to people with disabilities.…The vision behind the Accessibility Developer Guide is to bridge the gap between providers of websites and users with special needs.
The Accessibility Developer Guide addresses a very important, but unfortunately often neglected component of website and web application design. Based on the experience of users with special needs as well as the knowledge of experienced web developers it provides help with the setup of tools, the basic knowledge needed for development, and code examples to get things started.
