About

Search for content

January 25, 2012
in creators project nature technology film internet
Permalink »

Interactive Film Examines The Shrinking Space Between Nature And Technology | The Creators Project

While watching TV the other night, a commercial came on showing a couple hiking and camping in the woods. The wife was clearly not an “outdoorsy type” and visibly out of her element, but putting on a brave face while scaling the steep cliffs and fighting off mosquitos. Then at night, in the golden glow of the campfire, the guy pulls out a laptop with Boardwalk Empire, “her show,” all cued up and suddenly she’s all glowing and loving camping and life again.

Anyway, images like that make me wonder if we’ve finally reached a point where we’re no longer capable of enjoying nature without the comforting crutch of technology (to speak nothing of the cities, where we’ve proven actively incapable of surviving without our technological appendages). More importantly, do we even consider how our use of technology—even our very presence—impacts animals and nature?

It’s exactly this topic that directors Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison are examining in their new interactive web-based documentary Bear 71, from the innovative National Film Board of Canada (NFB), that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this week.

The 20-minute documentary chronicles the life of a female bear in the Canadian Rockies who was tagged and tracked by Banff National Park rangers from 2001-2009. Told from the first-person perspective of the female grizzly, named Bear 71, the film is split between live footage of the bear’s key experiences and a virtual map that the user can navigate freely

…

The documentary poses questions like “How can we coexist with nature?” and shows that even while we’re able to keep closer tabs on nature and animals through the use of technology and surveillance, it renders us even more detached.

Notes:

  1. martiancat reblogged this from jesuisperdu
  2. ginia reblogged this from bloodwave
  3. bloodwave reblogged this from jesuisperdu
  4. grahamwalzer reblogged this from jesuisperdu
  5. impureunchristianentertainment reblogged this from jesuisperdu
  6. jesuisperdu reblogged this from ninaperlman
  7. ninaperlman posted this