It’s hard to imagine but there’s more to life than music. In the latest instalment of our Show & Tell series, idiosyncratic duo Modeselektor select a series of videos to highlight their interests outside of music and show us that there is more to life than planet Earth. Flat Earthers look away now.
Eames Office: Powers of Ten™ (1977)
In the year 1977, designer and architect couple, Charles and Ray Eames alongside their Eames office produced a nine minute short film. The video starts with a square-shaped section showing the scene of a couple lying at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago.
The film takes the viewers to the outer edges of the universe. Every ten seconds we are taken ten times farther in space. In the middle of the film, the camera moves back to planet Earth at high speed and dives deep into the human body, below minus ten potencies. Macro and nano – it’s amazing how similar the two structures are at both extremes.
The film soundtrack was composed by Elemer Bernstein. 1977 was also the time when humanity began to explore deeper into space and the smallest structures of matter.
Solar System Scale
Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet’s video is the result of research about proportions in our solar system.
They went to the desert and built our solar system on a smaller scale. Some criticise the fact that the orbits of Neptune and Uranus do not match but in my opinion the experiment was worthwhile in any case.
The interesting fact I discovered in this film is that there have been only 24 people in our history who view our planet-sphere as a whole from afar.
Why Drexciya took Detroit electro underwater
We dive into the deep water and back to space. These are the sounds of science fiction in an unknown world. Whether deep water or deep space we can sense the desire for a change. Both places are deserted and with a promise to merge themselves into a new dimension, perhaps showing a better world, and satisfying the urge to escape.
This cinematic contribution is self-explanatory. For us Drexcyia is an essential building block of our musical universe.
For fans of Drexciya you might like this Beat Dissected Drexciya poster for your studio:
Titan Landing
We stay in space and fly to a moon … and this is not our Earth’s Moon but a moon called Titan. This moon orbits Saturn and is the second largest moon in our solar system. Its surface is very cold and dark. There are seas of liquid methane and other organic substances, mountains, lakes and and other landscape features similar to what we have on planet Earth.
Between 2004 to 2017, Saturn and its moons were explored by the Cassini-Huygens probe. In January 2005 the Huygens probe was let down on Titan moon surface. Thousands of pictures were used to create the film of the landing. Science is still questioning whether there were precursors of life on Titan.
Cry in Space
It is not the most profound of questions, but how do you cry on a space station? ISS commander Chris Hadfield demonstrates what happens to tears when they start ‘falling’ in space. After spraying water into his eyes to simulate tears he shows the answer: tears do not fall!
What’s the Most Difficult Place to Get to In the World?
The Internet is full of content with superlatives: “the best”, “the biggest”, “the most stupid” etc. However, this video is great and explores distance and abandoned places.
It’s explained in a typical “non-stop talking” tone, showing the places on our planet which are very difficult to reach, or comparing how long it would have taken 100 years ago to get to San Francisco.
Many things are take for granted today while the speed of technological development gets faster and faster.
Riding the Booster with Enhanced Sound
This video shows different angles of a rocket booster during launch and landing, with the help of cameras attached to the carrier rocket.
It might seem boring to begin with but there is this moment when you hear the sound barrier being broken and then disconnecting from the booster – it’s the metallic sound hearable when the booster “dances” back to earth. It’s fascinating to have an idea of the force, and brutality, needed to escape from and land to our planet.
Modeselektor play The Secret Project Festival in LA on October 13th. For tickets and info visit the website.