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Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams

   2013    Technology
Professor Simon Schaffer presents the amazing and untold story of automata - extraordinary clockwork machines designed hundreds of years ago to mimic and recreate life. The film brings the past to life in vivid detail as we see how and why these masterpieces were built. Travelling around Europe, Simon uncovers the history of these machines and shows us some of the most spectacular examples, from an entire working automaton city to a small boy who can be programmed to write and even a device that can play chess". All the machines Simon visits show a level of technical sophistication and ambition that still amazes today. As well as the automata, Simon explains in great detail the world in which they were made - the hardship of the workers who built them, their role in global trade and the industrial revolution and the eccentric designers who dreamt them up. Finally, Simon reveals that to us that these long-forgotten marriages of art and engineering are actually the ancestors of many of our most loved modern technologies, from recorded music to the cinema and much of the digital world.

Downloaded

   2013    Technology
Alex Winter explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large. He focuses on the advent of digital media sharing, including the rise of game-changing company Napster and controversial pioneers Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. The digital revolution ultimately created a technology paradigm shift and upended the music industry. Audiences will hear insight from well known music artists and figures within the music industry including: The Beastie Boys' Mike D, Noel Gallagher, Henry Rollins, former Sony Music Chairman, Don Ienner, former record producer and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell and Hilary Rosen, former CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America.

The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard

   2013    Technology
An intellectual freedoms documentary based around the interpersonal triumphs, and defeats of the three main characters against the largest industry in the known universe. The media industry. Based on the lives of the three founders of The Pirate Bay: Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm

Fracking The New Energy Rush

   2013    Technology
Iain Stewart investigates a new and controversial energy rush for the natural gas found deep underground. Getting it out of the ground involves hydraulic fracturing - or fracking. We travel to America to find to find out what it is, why it is a potential game changer and what we can learn from the US experience". Sometimes, this is right under the places people live in. He meets some of the people who have become rich from fracking as well as the communities worried about the risks. Director Jeff Wilkinson

Black Fish

   2013    Nature
The story of Tilikum, a captive killer whale that has taken the lives of several people , including a top killer whale trainer, underscores the consequences of keeping these powerful animals in captivity, the problems within the sea-park industry, the man's relationship to nature, and how little has been learned about these highly intelligent and sentient mammals.
Tilikum was captured in the northern Atlantic Ocean in 1983 and taken to Sealand of the Pacific, a now-shuttered park near Victoria, British Columbia. Former Sealand trainers interviewed in 'Blackfish' say the park’s female killer whales would aggressively gang up on Tilikum, particularly when they were confined in a 20-foot-by- 30-foot pool overnight.

The Venus Project: Paradise or Oblivion

   2012    Technology
This documentary details the root causes of the systemic value disorders and detrimental symptoms caused by our current established system. This video presentation advocates a new socio-economic system, which is updated to present-day knowledge, featuring the life-long work of Social Engineer, Futurist, Inventor and Industrial Designer Jacque Fresco, which he calls a Resource-Based Economics.