On a playful journey through self-doubt, a filmmaker dives into his phone notes to reanimate a graveyard of abandoned ideas.
Director: Cameron Nicoll (https://www.cameronnicoll.com/)
Producer: Anne Milne
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Creativity demands sensitivity. Yet, sensitivity can manifest as self-conscious anxiety, making it difficult to create, even when someone deeply wishes to. This tension lies at the heart of the UK director Cameron Nicoll’s ‘Film About.’ For the piece, Nicoll mines his phone notes, a graveyard of ideas for many an unfinished project. As he dusts off these unrealised concepts – including films about reaching the top of a tower and waiting for the moment street lights activate – each seems to form a unique expression of Nicoll’s self-defeating self-doubt.
Nicoll melds these sequences with an interview with Seonaid Cleare, a research fellow at the School of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow, where she studies methods of reducing emotional distress. Detailing how fear of judgment can lead to further isolation, exacerbating the problem, Cleare points to self-compassion as a way to break the crippling cycle. Indeed, once Nicoll lowers his guard and allows himself to create, he proves himself a skilled and thoughtful filmmaker, managing to weave disparate threads into a worthwhile project that’s surely – and perhaps reassuringly – relatable for anyone who’s faced similar struggles.
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Matthew Syed ponders the possibility of experiencing bliss in the midst of suffering.
When David Wright went to Iraq as an 18-year-old soldier – he had no idea the battlefield would become a place where he’d enter deep states of bliss. For decades, David remained silent about the intense joy he experienced alongside the horrors of war.
Matthew Syed ponders the extraordinary possibility of experiencing joy while suffering and hears more about the remarkable potential of the brain to respond to trauma in unexpected ways. He discovers how others too, like actor Renu Arora, experienced something similar when she was hit by a bus – and considers how such stories might help us shift our perspective on pain.
With ex-soldier David Wright, actor/singer/writer Renu Arora, neuroscientist Dr Andrew Newberg, Director of Research at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital in Philadelphia and Dr Steve Taylor, lecturer at Leeds Beckett University in transpersonal psychology and author of the book Extraordinary Awakenings.
Featuring an excerpt sung by Renu Arora from the RSC Enterprise performance recording of Anything Could Happen from The Magician’s Elephant. Music by Marc Teitler and lyrics by Nancy Harris.
Presenter: Matthew Syed
Producer: Vishva Samani
Series Editors: Georgia Moodie and Max O’Brien
Sound Design and Mix: Daniel Kempson
Theme Music by Ioana Selaru
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
January 15, 2021
Art
Grace Ebert
“Eternity” (2019-2020), natural beeswax, wood, glass, Cor-ten steel, 230 x 100 x 100 centimeters. All images © Tomáš Libertíny
Tomáš Libertíny prefers to collaborate when recreating iconic busts and sculptures, although his chosen partners don’t join him in the studio. The Slovakia-born artist tasks tens of thousands of bees with forming the porous outer layers of classic artworks like the “Nefertiti Bust,” Michelangelo’s “Brutus,” and a large jug based on the “Nolan amphora” at The Met.
Encased in honeycomb, the resulting sculptures generate a dialogue between the newly produced organic material and art historical subject matter. Libertíny’s “Eternity,” for example, is based on a 3D model of the original portrait of Nefertiti and is “a testament to the strength and timelessness of the ‘mother nature’ as well as its ancient character as a powerful female reigning against the odds.” Similarly, the artist’s “Brutus” rests on a Coca Cola crate, a reference to Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, although his iteration diverges from the original as it questions “the fragility of fate and finding salvation” in modern times.
“Brutus” (2020), natural beeswax, wood, plastic, 160 x 70 x 60 centimeters
Currently based in Rotterdam, Libertíny provides professional beekeepers with a frame that the insects then colonize during the course of months and in the case of “Eternity,” two years. “I have to guide the building growth like you would with a bonsai, slowly string(ing) the workflow into places where you deem ideal,” he says. “The final result is always a surprise as it is not something you can completely predict like would with traditional craft techniques. It happens that I have to look at the finished piece for a couple of days in order to appreciate it fully.”
Beeswax as a material is inherently contradictory, the artist notes, because of its simultaneous ephemerality and durability—Libertíny’s sculptures have the potential to remain intact for thousands of years if maintained properly—a duality he’s been exploring since he began the Made by Bees series in 2005. […]
Eternity” (2019-2020), natural beeswax, wood, glass, Cor-ten steel, 230 x 100 x 100 centimeters
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In this video essay, I explore what The Orville reveals about life after capitalism, why scarcity is such a driving force in our current system, and how sci-fi holds up a mirror to our own society. There’s a lot to unpack, and the character, Lysella’s story on the Orville makes it all hit a little closer to home.
00:00 Lysella in Space
02:37 Beyond Scarcity
06:13 To Save a Planet
12:25 After Labour
15:57 Sci-fi as Science
And check out the books of Kohei Saito, Yanis Varoufakis, and Daniel Deudney!
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