Oh, this looks magnificent:
“Staring into the Sun is the latest ethno-folk cinema classic from Sublime Frequencies. Ethiopia is known to be one of the oldest areas inhabited by humans and presently has over 80 diverse ethnic groups. Photographer/filmmaker Olivia Wyatt explores 13 different tribes throughout Ethiopia in this visually stunning film. Traveling from the northern highlands to the lower Omo Valley, Wyatt brings together the worlds of Zar spirit possession; Hamer tribal wedding ceremonies; Borena water well polyphonic singing; wild hyena feedings; and bizarre Ethiopian TV segments; presenting an enchanting look at these ethereal images, landscapes and sounds from the horn of Africa.”
Bless Sublime Frequencies, constantly reminding us how much more interesting, rich, deep and marvelous is the field of things-humans-do than what we might settle for.
(In the brief few days between when I bought and sold my iPad, I was amazed at how vacuous and quietly oppressive Apple’s generic yuppie version of good taste has become. Taking Apple as the foremost example of current corporate best practice in branding: they have succeeded in producing the kitschiest version of modernism imaginable, drained of any potentially powerful or surprising theoretical or ideological content, any of the stuff that makes actual design practice vital and engaged, leaving only the bland surface affect, the interface equivalent of something like Dwell‘s clumsy knockoff interiors. Somehow, in the context of a rich person’s toy like the iPad, this recuperation felt even more coercive than it does in their other products. It made me think of the deep concern Jakob von Uexküll felt about the steady homogenization of human lifeworlds, in his terminology, the gradual loss of our diverse universes and possibilities for action. Things like living in New York and seeing documentaries like this one remind me, and fill me with happiness, that we are all of us rough-edged, beautiful, and fiercely strange animals.)