Netflix Makes Documentaries Free to Stream: Design, Politics, Sports, Sir David Attenborough & More
Posted: 20 Apr 2020 04:00 AM PDT
[http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfO-3Oir-qM]
Many of us kept indoors by the COVID-19 pandemic for days — or rather weeks, or perhaps months — have been imbued with a new sense of wonder about our world. Specifically, we're wondering what's going on in it. At the same time as the global scientific community struggles to determine the nature of the new and still poorly understood virus taking lives and immobilizing economies, we hear digital word of consequent phenomena also previously unknown in our lifetimes: wild animals, for instance, making their way into the streets of major cities. We live, it turns out, in a stranger, more mysterious reality than we'd imagined. Fortunately, the internet makes it possible for us to start getting a grip on that reality here in our homes, not least through free streaming Netflix documentaries.
"In the Before Times, Netflix let teachers stream their programming in the classroom," writes Jason Kottke. With schools out of session, "Netflix has decided to put some of their educational programming on YouTube for free (full playlist here). For instance, they’ve put all 8 episodes of David Attenborough’s nature series Our Planet online in their entirety."
Released just last year, that Netflix debut of the highly respected natural historian and broadcaster covers in great visual detail — and, needless to say, with highly evocative narration — everywhere from forests and deserts to jungles and high seas. If as a starting point that all seems a bit epic, as they say, Netflix has also made free single-serving documentary shorts on subjects like the stock market, the exclamation point, and cricket (the British Empire sport, not the insect).
Those come from the series Explained, a collaboration between Netflix and Vox, a site known for its brief "explainer" videos on culture, science, and current events — one of which, on the coronavirus itself, we featured last month here on Open Culture. Netflix has also made free to stream on Youtube other series like Abstract, which looks at the art of design (and whose debut we featured here a few years ago), and Babies, a five-part journey into the life of the human infant. If you prefer a feature-length documentary experience to a daily view or a binge-watch, you'll also find on the playlist Ava DuVernay's 13th, Rachel Lears' Knock Down the House, and Jeff Orlowski's Chasing Coral. When the orders of "stay home" and "social-distance" come to an end, many of us will feel a stronger desire to explore and learn about the world than ever before — in part because of how much of the time indoors we've spent stoking our curiosity with documentaries like these. Access the playlist of documentaries here.
via Kottke
Related Content:
265 Free Documentaries Online
200 Free Documentaries: A Super Rich List of Finely-Crafted Documentaries on the Web
Coursera Makes Courses & Certificates Free During Coronavirus Quarantine: Take Courses in Psychology, Music, Wellness, Professional Development & More Online
Björk and Sir David Attenborough Team Up in a New Documentary About Music and Technology
David Attenborough Reads “What a Wonderful World” in a Moving Video
Use Your Time in Isolation to Learn Everything You’ve Always Wanted To: Free Online Courses, Audio Books, eBooks, Movies, Coloring Books & More
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall, on Facebook, or on Instagram.
Netflix Makes Documentaries Free to Stream: Design, Politics, Sports, Sir David Attenborough & More is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.
Banksy Debuts His COVID-19 Art Project: “My Wife Hates It When I Work from Home”
Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:00 AM PDT
“Who is Banksy?” asked an Artnet roundup of possible suspects in 2016. One might well respond, “who cares?”—a rhetorical question Artnet’s Henri Neuendorf answers. At least a few years ago, before some other things got seriously out of hand, the identity of the notorious guerilla street artist turned international man of mystery was “an obsession that seems to have gripped the world.”
One answer, assessed by curator and street art expert Carlo McCormick, was arrived at through the use of geographic profiling, a “sophisticated statistical analysis technique used in criminology to locate repeat offenders.” McCormick rates its conclusion as probable, but also finds it “scary” to bend such methods to such ends, an anxiety resonant with concerns over surveillance tech used to track COVID-19 vectors.
Another question is whether it matters who Banksy is. “The improbably ornate fiction is always going to be more compelling than the simple mundane truth.” Do we really need to ruin the illusion? If those who want to remain anonymous can be tracked with algorithms—while the rest of us volunteer our personal data daily in a culture of competitive oversharing—is there any room left for privacy? Now that we’re trapped inside for days on end with families, roommates, partners, pets, maybe our only personal space is in the loo (where we’re still inclined to bring our phones).
Posted: 20 Apr 2020 04:00 AM PDT
[http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfO-3Oir-qM]
Many of us kept indoors by the COVID-19 pandemic for days — or rather weeks, or perhaps months — have been imbued with a new sense of wonder about our world. Specifically, we're wondering what's going on in it. At the same time as the global scientific community struggles to determine the nature of the new and still poorly understood virus taking lives and immobilizing economies, we hear digital word of consequent phenomena also previously unknown in our lifetimes: wild animals, for instance, making their way into the streets of major cities. We live, it turns out, in a stranger, more mysterious reality than we'd imagined. Fortunately, the internet makes it possible for us to start getting a grip on that reality here in our homes, not least through free streaming Netflix documentaries.
"In the Before Times, Netflix let teachers stream their programming in the classroom," writes Jason Kottke. With schools out of session, "Netflix has decided to put some of their educational programming on YouTube for free (full playlist here). For instance, they’ve put all 8 episodes of David Attenborough’s nature series Our Planet online in their entirety."
Released just last year, that Netflix debut of the highly respected natural historian and broadcaster covers in great visual detail — and, needless to say, with highly evocative narration — everywhere from forests and deserts to jungles and high seas. If as a starting point that all seems a bit epic, as they say, Netflix has also made free single-serving documentary shorts on subjects like the stock market, the exclamation point, and cricket (the British Empire sport, not the insect).
Those come from the series Explained, a collaboration between Netflix and Vox, a site known for its brief "explainer" videos on culture, science, and current events — one of which, on the coronavirus itself, we featured last month here on Open Culture. Netflix has also made free to stream on Youtube other series like Abstract, which looks at the art of design (and whose debut we featured here a few years ago), and Babies, a five-part journey into the life of the human infant. If you prefer a feature-length documentary experience to a daily view or a binge-watch, you'll also find on the playlist Ava DuVernay's 13th, Rachel Lears' Knock Down the House, and Jeff Orlowski's Chasing Coral. When the orders of "stay home" and "social-distance" come to an end, many of us will feel a stronger desire to explore and learn about the world than ever before — in part because of how much of the time indoors we've spent stoking our curiosity with documentaries like these. Access the playlist of documentaries here.
via Kottke
Related Content:
265 Free Documentaries Online
200 Free Documentaries: A Super Rich List of Finely-Crafted Documentaries on the Web
Coursera Makes Courses & Certificates Free During Coronavirus Quarantine: Take Courses in Psychology, Music, Wellness, Professional Development & More Online
Björk and Sir David Attenborough Team Up in a New Documentary About Music and Technology
David Attenborough Reads “What a Wonderful World” in a Moving Video
Use Your Time in Isolation to Learn Everything You’ve Always Wanted To: Free Online Courses, Audio Books, eBooks, Movies, Coloring Books & More
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall, on Facebook, or on Instagram.
Netflix Makes Documentaries Free to Stream: Design, Politics, Sports, Sir David Attenborough & More is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.
Banksy Debuts His COVID-19 Art Project: “My Wife Hates It When I Work from Home”
Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:00 AM PDT
“Who is Banksy?” asked an Artnet roundup of possible suspects in 2016. One might well respond, “who cares?”—a rhetorical question Artnet’s Henri Neuendorf answers. At least a few years ago, before some other things got seriously out of hand, the identity of the notorious guerilla street artist turned international man of mystery was “an obsession that seems to have gripped the world.”
One answer, assessed by curator and street art expert Carlo McCormick, was arrived at through the use of geographic profiling, a “sophisticated statistical analysis technique used in criminology to locate repeat offenders.” McCormick rates its conclusion as probable, but also finds it “scary” to bend such methods to such ends, an anxiety resonant with concerns over surveillance tech used to track COVID-19 vectors.
Another question is whether it matters who Banksy is. “The improbably ornate fiction is always going to be more compelling than the simple mundane truth.” Do we really need to ruin the illusion? If those who want to remain anonymous can be tracked with algorithms—while the rest of us volunteer our personal data daily in a culture of competitive oversharing—is there any room left for privacy? Now that we’re trapped inside for days on end with families, roommates, partners, pets, maybe our only personal space is in the loo (where we’re still inclined to bring our phones).
