Portraits, Swim, Macau, Simulation, Cosmos
Portraits Of A Pandemic
The Canvas | YouTube | 27th March 2020
The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, through the disturbed work of Expressionist painters Egon Schiele and Edvard Munch. Both contracted the flu; only Munch survived. Schiele crouches in his family portrait with his naked wife and son, awaiting death. Munch sits calmly, in his "Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu," staring from two empty eyeholes at the viewer (7m00s)
Night Swim
Victoria Rivera | Vimeo | 23rd March 2020
A short film about three teenage girls going for a night swim in an abandoned pool. Simultaneously elegant and nail-biting, conveyed entirely through veiled emotions and dark implications. The dialogue is unusually realistic, and the lack of music gives the actors room to explore the tension. I won't say more, for fear of spoilage (12m01s)
Macau: The Story Of China's Golden Child
Polymatter | YouTube | 25th March 2020
Macau, a city off the southeast coast of China, is many things – "a fusion of Chinese and Portuguese culture, Las Vegas on steroids, a distinct political entity with only 28 square kilometers, the country or territory with the highest population density in the world." Its history of perpetual instability under Portuguese control has led to its current state as both a gambling haven for rich Chinese mainlanders and a quiet accomplice to the Chinese government's authoritarianism (33m47s; recommended start at 7m55s)
Simulating An Epidemic
3blue1brown | YouTube | 27th March 2020
Experimenting with epidemiological models for the coronavirus – as one might expect, toggling factors such as social distancing, travel rate and infection probability radically alters how quickly the disease spreads. It is helpful, however, to have a clear visual representation of how radically different the possible outcomes are (23m11s; recommended start at 4m16s)
Beautiful Video Of The Week
A single live close-up of a chemical reaction doubles as a sublime cosmic soup
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