Lecture: How Technology Shapes Story

"Margaret Atwood – A State of Wonder: How Technology Shapes Story" by Future Of StoryTelling

The Future Of StoryTelling video series has released an animated lecture from Margaret Atwood on how technology shapes the way we tell stories.  As was the case with the advent of the Gutenberg Press nearly 600 years ago, modern digital platforms such as the internet and ebooks have created new ways for us to distribute and share stories.  Atwood is one author who has never shied away from new technologies, publishing past works on Wattpad and Twitter.  This video is part of a marketing campaign to raise awareness that Atwood will be participating in The Future of Storytelling Summit on October 7 and 8.

"As a critic, activist, and award-winning author of speculative fiction, Margaret Atwood has always been looking ahead. In her glances toward the future, she’s often searching for how technology influences content. The digital transition has already run through an entire era of online evolution, fossilizing a first round of experiments that failed to catch on. But serial stories, online collaborations, and sites like Wattpad, which connects tens of millions of new authors, are leading the way in a new wave of innovation. We’ve always told stories—it’s part of our humanity—but how those stories are created and shared is changing all the time, and Atwood’s looking to share her excitement about it at this year’s FoST."

Video: Cinematics

"Cinematics" by Brazilian art director Pier Paolo

Cinematics is a short animation featuring recapping film history through the depiction of the silver screen's most iconic heroes and anti-heroes from Charlie Chaplin to the old man from Pixar's 2009 tear-jerker, Up, as cartoon characters.  It may not be the most comprehensive crash course in cinematic history, but it's definitely "aww"-inducing.

Documentary: The Gates of Hell

"Auguste Rodin: The Gates of Hell" from Canal Educatif à la Demande

This twenty-five minute doctumentary  from Canal Educatif à la Demande is a discussion of the monumental Auguste Rodin sculpture "The Gates of Hell," which exists in two radically different versions. The first version is the basis of many of Rodin's best known sculptures, including his most famous, "The Thinker," which was originally conceived as a portrait of Dante gazing down at Hell from above. This version of "The Gates of Hell" is notorious among art historians for having never been cast in bronze during Rodin's lifetime.  Despite having never been completed, the piece is now considered to be one of the greatest sculptures of the modern era.  The question this documentary considers is if Rodin's monumental masterpiece a failure?  However, it also explains how the artist used this work to solve major aesthetic issues that faced modern artists at that time.

For more, read this article by Rodin expert Albert E. Elsen. It was scanned from a book, and it clearly wasn't proofread (e.g. very often "h" gets turned into "li" and numbers are generally a mess).