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10

projects curated
by

Wendy Levy

2016/04/27

Wendy’s creative work takes place at the intersection of art, innovation and social justice. As the Executive Director of the National Alliance for Media Arts And Culture, she is focused on facilitating collaboration, innovation, strategic growth and social impact for the media arts field. Also a Senior Consultant with the Sundance Institute, Wendy helped develop the New Frontier Story Lab and currently co-facilitates the Sundance/Skoll Stories of Change Program. Wendy was the Director of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Producers Institute for New Media Technologies – the first public media Innovation Lab in the US and is a featured speaker and moderator at venues around the world. She has served as Advisor to World Pulse, Tribeca New Media Fund, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Open Society Foundation’s Documentary Photography Project. Wendy is the recipient of the Princess Grace Statue Award for distinguished contribution to the media arts field.

 

Harsh Wonder: The Mystery & Reality of Being Alive

I think a lot about this Mary Oliver quote:

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising and gave to it neither power or time”

In my mind, the projects on this playlist are essays on the meaning and quality of being alive. They are explorations of human compassion. Reflections of an artist’s vision laden with the richness of communal storytelling and experience. They were all bold experiments at one time, courageous ventures into a new digital technology or socio/cultural practice. For me, these works are their own poetry; each reveals a harsh reality of life on this earth, along with a profound sense of wonder and mystery about the essence of that life.

_30 Days/Ramadan

30 Days/Ramadan is a multifaceted portrait of Muslims' personal experiences of Ramadan across the globe.

Each day during Ramadan, 30 Mosques bloggers Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq visited a different state in the US and wrote about their experience each night, highlighting stories about the people they met, the mosque they prayed in and the food they ate. They ignited a movement inspiring bloggers everywhere to visit mosques in their own communities and share their experiences. The site is full of provocative photography, authentic videos, and of-the-moment social storytelling from an engaged and exhilarated public -- who exhibit a collective amazement that the site even exists. The site is a work of art with a deeply embedded social practice and revolutionary poetic voice where every image is an invitation to look deeper.

_Collisions

This VR film brings audiences into the world of indigenous elder Nyarri Morgan and the Martu tribe of Australia, exploring issues of environmental conservation and sustainability.

Collisions is the new high bar for nonfiction virtual reality. It is the collision of science and spirit, a breathtaking artist’s journey to the Australian desert into the world of Martu elder Nyarri Morgan -- a story where the newest immersive technology splays open the brutal impact of destructive scientific technology. The brilliance here is in how the body & soul travels through the work, how the voice and experience of the indigenous subjects have primary agency, how the viewer is invited in to a worldview that transcends place and time, holding within it the hope for the future of the planet. It’s a masterpiece.

_Network Effect

Network Effect illustrates the addictive, alienating, and anxiety-inducing effects of online life through a barrage of videos, headlines, tweets, and other data.

10,000 clips, 10,000 spoken sentences, a limited amount of time until you are bumped off the site for 24 hours. Network Effect is a sexy and mesmerizing journey into the psychological impact of life on the Internet. The project positions the data we generate as omniscient, the social networks connective; it provides a deep experience of the interplay of mind/body in the native tropes of life online. I love the Carl Jung quote offered floating in the clouds when the site goes dark after your allotted time: Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

_Gone Gitmo

Second-Life and Unity3D versions of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center function as an interactive and educational experience of the prison which the authors term, "Immersive Journalism."

_Highrise: Out My Window

In the Emmy Award-winning web documentary "Out My Window," filmmaker Katerina Cizek explores highrise living around the world.

_Hollow

In the interactive documentary "Hollow," filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon collaborates with the residents of McDowell County, West Virginia to tell the story of population decline in the rural United States.

_The Johnny Cash Project

A crowdsourced music video, "The Johnny Cash Project" pays tribute to the iconic Man in Black.

_Question Bridge: Black Males

"Question Bridge: Black Males" facilitates conversations within the African American male community across political, class, geographic, and generational divisions.

_The Whale Hunt

A nine-day whale hunt in northern Alaska is told through a large, interactive photo mosaic.

_Alma: A Tale of Violence

Interactive tablet and web documentary "Alma: A Tale of Violence" lets its audience members move between a former gang member’s confession and a stream of imagery that supplements her story.

14

projects curated by

Ingrid Kopp

10

projects curated by

The MIT Game Lab

9

projects curated by

Sue Ding

33 Pl Playlists

33 playlists, a changing roster of prominent documentary makers, festival organizers, technologists and critics sharing their top picks.

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