A Video Illusion: Can You Spot the Change?

in Science, Video - Science | June 10th, 2011

We’re a bit embar­rassed to admit that it took us three times to spot the change in this fas­ci­nat­ing video illu­sion at New Sci­en­tist, even after read­ing about the research behind the video. The test was devel­oped by Kevin O’Re­gan and his team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris Descartes as part of their work on per­cep­tion. O’Re­gan is best known for his work on change blind­ness, our rel­a­tive inabil­i­ty to per­ceive grad­ual change, and our ten­den­cy to focus sole­ly on what we per­ceive to be the most dynam­ic or inter­est­ing ele­ment of a scene.

If this video isn’t enough to con­vince of you of O’Re­gan’s the­o­ries, he’s post­ed a whole slew of demon­stra­tions at his web­site. Bet­ter yet, you can dis­pel any remain­ing doubts (or self-esteem) by tak­ing this aware­ness test, which is even more dra­mat­ic. It bowled us over. Let us know in the com­ments if it did the same for you.

via Kirstin But­ler

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Walt Disney Presents the Super Cartoon Camera (1937)

in Animation, Film | June 10th, 2011

In 1937, Walt Dis­ney Stu­dios shot Snow White and the Sev­en Dwarfs with a new-fan­gled cam­era, the mul­ti­plane cam­era, which allowed car­toon ani­ma­tion to take a quan­tum leap for­ward. Thanks to this new “super car­toon cam­era,” ani­mat­ed scenes sud­den­ly looked more real­is­tic and three-dimen­sion­al. You only need to watch this pre­sen­ta­tion by Walt Dis­ney him­self (record­ed in 1957) and you’ll see what I mean. Dis­ney shot many of its clas­sic fea­ture films – Pinoc­chio, Fan­ta­sia, Bam­bi, and Peter Pan – with the mul­ti­plane cam­era, and it remained in pro­duc­tion right through The Lit­tle Mer­maid, filmed in 1989. Today, only three orig­i­nal Dis­ney mul­ti­plane cam­eras sur­vive.

A big thanks to Sergey for send­ing this vin­tage clip our way. If you see a good piece of open cul­ture, don’t hes­i­tate to send it our way…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

Disney’s Oscar-Win­ning Adven­tures in Music

Don­ald Duck Wants You to Pay Your Tax­es (1943)

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Stairway to Heaven Played with Google Guitar Doodle

in Google, Music | June 9th, 2011

Google cel­e­brat­ed Les Pauls’ 96th birth­day today with a playable elec­tric gui­tar doo­dle. And, nat­u­ral­ly, some tried to make it sing. Above, we have a ver­sion of Led Zep­pelin’s Stair­way to Heav­en, while oth­ers strummed out ver­sions of The Bea­t­les’ Ob-la-di Ob-la-da, Michael Jack­son’s Bil­lie Jean, and Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi. By pop­u­lar demand, the doo­dle will stay live on Google’s home­page for an extra day.

via Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor

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British Classics on the iPad App (Free… For Now)

in e-books, Literature | June 9th, 2011

We told you this was com­ing, and now it’s here. The British Library has start­ed to release 60,000+ texts from the 19th cen­tu­ry in dig­i­tal for­mat. And they’re get­ting rolled out with the release of a new iPad app. (If you have any prob­lems down­load­ing the app, try doing it direct­ly from the app store on your iPad.)

The upside: The new app cur­rent­ly fea­tures 1,000 works, includ­ing Mary Shel­ley’s Franken­stein, Charles Dick­ens’ Oliv­er Twist and oth­er British clas­sics. The col­lec­tion gives you scans of the orig­i­nal edi­tions. So you can read the works as they orig­i­nal­ly appeared.

The down­side: The app won’t be free for long. Even­tu­al­ly, you’ll have to pay. So get in while you can, or just skim through our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks and Audio Books. All clas­sics, all the time…

via BBC

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Snag­Films: Free Doc­u­men­taries on the iPad (and Web)

MoMA Puts Pol­lock, Rothko & de Koon­ing on Your iPad

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Samuel Beckett in 3‑D: The Making of Unmakeable Love

in Art, Literature | June 9th, 2011

Samuel Beck­et­t’s haunt­ing short sto­ry “The Lost Ones,” which tells of a group of peo­ple doomed to wan­der for­ev­er inside a nar­row cylin­dri­cal prison, makes Wait­ing for Godot seem like Lit­tle Miss Sun­shine. It is also near­ly unadapt­able since a sto­ry dri­ven by the cer­tain­ty of damna­tion leaves lit­tle room for dra­mat­ic ten­sion … until now, per­haps.

This mon­th’s New Sci­en­tist has a nice piece up about Unmake­ablelove, a 3‑D inter­ac­tive sim­u­la­tion based on “The Lost Ones” in which vir­tu­al bod­ies (cre­at­ed with motion cap­ture, the same tech­nique James Cameron used in Avatar) beat them­selves, col­lide into each oth­er, and slouch eter­nal­ly towards nowhere, all dri­ven by a force even more implaca­ble than fate: the com­put­er algo­rithms with which the piece was pro­grammed.

And as with any good work of Exis­ten­tial­ist Despair That Dooms All of Human­i­ty to A Future With­out Mean­ing or Hope, this one impli­cates the audi­ence — spec­ta­tors can only see inside the exhib­it if they sta­tion them­selves by one of six torch­es sur­round­ing the 30-foot space.  And when they do so, infrared video cam­eras project their own like­ness­es into the cylin­der. There are no spec­ta­tors.

Unmake­ablelove was cre­at­ed by Sarah Kender­dine and Jef­frey Shaw, and pre­sent­ed at the Hong Kong Inter­na­tion­al Art Fair in May. You can read more about the fas­ci­nat­ing nuts and bolts of the project here.

via Maud New­ton and A Piece of Mono­logue

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Muddy Waters on The Blues and Gospel Train

in Music | June 9th, 2011

One of the most unique con­certs from the British blues revival of the 1960s was the “Blues and Gospel Train,” filmed May 7, 1964 by Grana­da TV for the BBC. Fans who were lucky enough to get tickets–some 200 of them–were instruct­ed to gath­er at Man­ches­ter’s Cen­tral Sta­tion by 7:30 that evening for a short train ride to the aban­doned Wilbra­ham Road Sta­tion. When the train pulled in at Wilbra­ham Road, the audi­ence poured out and found seats on one plat­form. The oppo­site side, dec­o­rat­ed to look like an old rail­way sta­tion in the Amer­i­can South, served as a stage for Mud­dy Waters, Otis Spann, Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe, Son­ny Ter­ry, Brown­ie McGhee, Cousin Joe and Rev­erend Gary Davis. The per­for­mances are avail­able on DVD as part of Amer­i­can Folk-Blues Fes­ti­val: The British Tours 1963–1966. In the scene above, Mud­dy Waters sings, “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Nev­er Had.”

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Leg­end of Blues­man Robert John­son Ani­mat­ed

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Mark Kelly Beams David Bowie Lines to His Wife, Gabby Giffords

in Life, Music | June 9th, 2011

This week, U2’s 360° Tour hit the west coast of the US, stop­ping first in Seat­tle, then Oak­land and next Ana­heim. Though crit­ics have offered mixed reviews (this v. that), we had our­selves a ball, hor­ren­dous traf­fic jams aside. And we were par­tic­u­lar­ly touched by one moment with a poignant back­sto­ry.

Dur­ing the show, the audi­ence gets beamed up to Mark Kel­ly, an astro­naut on the space shut­tle Endeav­our, who hap­pens to be mar­ried to Gab­by Gif­fords, the US rep­re­sen­ta­tive shot this past Jan­u­ary in Ari­zona. To the 70,000 onlook­ers, Kel­ly says “Tell my wife I love her very much she knows” – the same lines deliv­ered by Major Tom, the fic­tion­al astro­naut, made famous by David Bowie’s Space Odd­i­ty: And, with that, U2 breaks into “Beau­ti­ful Day,” the song that served as a wake-up call for the Endeav­our crew, at Gab­by Gif­fords’ per­son­al request. How’s that for a nice touch?

P.S. Yes we know that Endeav­our returned to earth last week. But we have noth­ing against the will­ing sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief.

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Errol Morris and Werner Herzog in Conversation

in Film | June 8th, 2011

Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty has just post­ed a ter­rif­ic dis­cus­sion between film­mak­ers Wern­er Her­zog (Griz­zly Man, The Cave of For­got­ten Dreams) and Errol Mor­ris (The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line) from 2007. The two doc­u­men­tary titans shared the stage for over an hour, talk­ing about their long friend­ship, the mak­ing of doc­u­men­taries, and Her­zog’s film Encoun­ters at the End of the World. No shoes were served.

via @jessebdylan

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Her­zog and Cor­mac McCarthy Talk Sci­ence and Cul­ture

An Evening with Wern­er Her­zog

“They Were There” — Errol Mor­ris Final­ly Directs a Film for IBM …

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

 

 

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.