series

1899 – La Révolution (TV Series 2020)

spacetime coordinates: 1787. Amid the decadence of the Ancien RégimeJoseph Ignace Guillotin is responsible for investigating mysterious murders. He then discovers the existence of “blue blood”. This unknown virus spreads within the aristocracy. The virus has devastating effects: the infected nobles attack the “little people“, upsetting the established hierarchy. The revolt spreads and is the prelude to the French Revolution.

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La Révolution is a 2020 French-language supernatural drama series produced by Netflix starring Doudou Masta, Julien Sarazin and Ian Turiak. In January 2021, the series was canceled after one season. (wiki)

imdb

movies

1871 – Edge of the World (2021)

spacetime coordinates: Borneo in 1839

Edge of the World is an adventure drama film directed by Michael Haussman and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the British soldier and adventurer James Brooke (1803-1868). Edge of the World is a co-production between the US, the UK, Malaysia, and China. (wiki)

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imdb

animation

1839 – Justice Society: World War II (2021)

timespace coordinates:  Metropolis >> early 1940s  France, the Bermuda Triangle,  AtlantisManhattan.

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Justice Society: World War II is an American animated direct-to-video superhero film produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment. It is the 41st film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line.


The Justice Society of America (JSA) is a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The team was conceived by editor Sheldon Mayer and writer Gardner Fox during the Golden Age of Comic Books. The JSA first appeared in All Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940–1941), making it the first team of superheroes in comic books.

imdb   /   rt

documentary, series

1830 – Around the World in 80 Gardens (Documentary | TV Series 2008)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Mexico, Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, India, Brazil, ArgentinaChile, USA, China, Japan, Italy, Morocco, Spain, South Africa, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia

Around the World in 80 Gardens is a television series of 10 programmes in which British gardener and broadcaster Monty Don visits 80 of the world’s most celebrated gardens. A book based on the series was also published. (wiki)

imdb

documentary, theory, video essay

1806 – Why Saudi Arabia Is Building a Linear City (neo 2021)

timespace coordinates: near future desert city

In January of this year, Saudi Arabia announced an immense new development project, that is supposed to set a blueprint for the future of the country and the world. The country will build a city, that stretches along a single 100 mile long line

Linear city as imagined by Spanish urban planner  Arturo Soria y Mata and Soviet planner Nikolay Alexandrovich Milyutin.

Ernst May, a famous German functionalist architect, formulated his initial plan for Magnitogorsk, a new city in the Soviet Union.

A Year in the Linear City is a 2002 weird fiction novella by Paul Di Filippo, published by PS Publishing.

Uncategorized

1791

Machine in the ghost 

Can a robot pray? Does an AI have a soul? Advances in automata raise theological debates that will shape the secular world (read on aeon)


“… With some exceptions, this conception of automata and biotechne preceded the actual construction of robots, with legends about artificial life existing centuries before the accomplishments of a Renaissance engineer such as Turriano. Still, automata and artificial intelligence couldn’t help but have certain religious implications, whereby the ‘magical and mechanical often overlap in stories of artificial life that were expressed in mythic language’.

Even while simple mechanical beings were constructed in Ancient Greece (and the Islamic and Chinese worlds as well), legends about artificial life proliferated across cultures and centuries, and inevitably had a theological gloss to them. Kevin LaGrandeur, a professor of technology and culture, has written that ‘modern cybernetics is at least partially the product of a very old archetypal drive that pits human ingenuity against nature via artificial proxies.’ Witness medieval legends about constructed men, such as homunculi or the golem. In such stories, the emergence of an artificial intelligence allows for the exploration of creation more generally, where we can ask how unique the human mind is and in what way our cleverness can act as a surrogate for the divine.”

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documentary, movies

1762 – The Dig (2021)

timespace coordinates: Suffolk, in the east of England, 1939 – excavation of Sutton Hoo

The Dig (stylized as the DIG) is a drama film directed by Simon Stone, based on the 2007 novel of the same name by John Preston, It stars Carey MulliganRalph FiennesLily JamesJohnny FlynnBen ChaplinKen Stott, Archie Barnes and Monica Dolan

Edith May Pretty was an English landowner on whose land the Sutton Hoo ship burial was discovered after she hired Basil Brown, a local archaeologist, to find out if anything lay beneath the mounds on her property. 

imdb   /  wiki   /   archive footage   /   Sutton Hoo – BBC Documentary (youtube)   /  Smarthistory