11 November 2009

Photographing the landscape of oil: Edward Burtynsky on TED.com

In stunning large-format photographs, Edward Burtynsky follows the path of oil through modern society, from wellhead to pipeline to car engine -- and then beyond to the projected peak-oil endgame. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 3:40)

Watch Edward Burtynsky's talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 500+ TEDTalks.

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18 May 2008

How to get involved in TED Prize wishes

Since it began in 2005, the TED Prize has been making wishes that call on the power of the global TED community. Here's a roundup of current TED Prize wishes that you can get involved in -- in large or small ways, with money, ideas, time or skills:

+ In 2007, biologist E.O. Wilson wished that we would help him build a comprehensive catalog of life on Earth. The Encyclopedia of Life launched this spring and is growing -- with many ways for both scientists and non-scientists to contribute. Create an account on the site to hear about the latest updates and opportunities -- including the debut of a tool for uploading your own photos. Find out more about The Encyclopedia of Life and EOL.org>>

+ In 2005, photographer Edward Burtynsky wished for new ways to teach kids about environmental stewardship. Working with WGBH in Boston, his web cartoon show, The Greens, just celebrated its first anniversary and seventh episode. Watch shows online and download art and music, take a movie quiz and share the site with kids you know. Find out more about The Greens >>

+ At TED2008, physicist Neil Turok wished for the TED community's help in developing math and sciences talent all over Africa, though the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). Our next Einstein, he says, could be African. At NextEinstein.org, learn more about AIMS, watch video interviews with students, and find many ways to help in this drive to open 15 math and sciences academies in Africa and fund scholarships for the best and the brightest on the continent. Find out more about NextEinstein.org >>

+ in 2008, writer and activist Dave Eggers gave a hilarious TED Prize talk about his wish: that we will all become personally involved in our local schools, and tell a story about it. Whether you volunteer with a chapter of Dave's 826 National foundation, or on your own, sign in at OnceUponASchool.org and share your story. Find out more about OnceUponASchool.org >>

+ In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim made an audacious wish: to connect the world for one day through the power of film. Last weekend's Pangea Day was a moving 4-hour festival -- and you can replay the day on PangeaDay.org. Watch the films, speakers and music you missed, find ways to take action, and discuss each film on the site (click on "Comments" to expand the discussion). Find out more about PangeaDay.org >>

+ In 2006, Cameron Sinclair asked TED to help him build an open-source platform to help architects connect with communities in need of designs. The result was the Open Architecture Network -- a successful website that acts as both a clearinghouse for building plans and a vibrant social network, allows its users to sample, remix and customize design work for their needs. To help Sinclair's wish come true, join the community at the Open Architecture Network's website.

+ In 2006, Dr. Larry Brilliant wished to start a global early warning system to prevent the spread of infectious disease. The organization that grew out of this wish, Innovative Support To Emergencies Diseases and Disasters (InSTEDD) is a venue for humanitarian collaboration with a focus on those involved in disease tracking and disaster response. You can help Dr. Brilliant now by test-driving an alpha version of their crisis assistance directory.

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12 April 2008

TED Prize update: "The Greens" turns 1!

When photographer Edward Burtynsky won the 2005 TED Prize, he wished that the TED community would help him teach kids how to live green. This month, his web cartoon series for kids, The Greens, turns 1 year old -- and celebrates 3 million page views! Written and produced by WGBH in Boston (with partners including PBS, TV Ontario, National Geographic, Zerofootprint, Earthwatch Institute, Climate Cartoons, and many grassroots organizations), the site is full of great ways to help kids learn about caring for our planet. This month, a clip from The Greens will be distributed to movie theaters across the US. It's a great message and it's fun to share. The Greens' producer Bill Shribman asks:

If you blog, twitter or otherwise inhabit the Interweb, please grab buttons, blurbs or embeddable video from http://www.meetthegreens.org/share/ to help this great kids' project reach an even wider audience. For more information, you can reach the project's producer Bill Shribman at the_greens@meetthegreens.org

Watch Edward Burtynsky make his TED Prize wish >>

Watch the promo for The Greens >>

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29 July 2007

Ed Burtynsky's beautifully monstrous "Manufactured landscapes"

If you are planning (you should) to go see Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary "Manufactured landscapes", which opened last week in theaters across the US after spending a year mesmerizing film festivals audiences and will soon arrive in Europe, make sure you get there in time, for nothing describes the scale and essence of today's globalized industry more tellingly than the opening scene: a seven-minutes tracking shot of the floor of a boundless Chinese factory, row after row after row of disciplined workers and efficient repetition that Stanley Kubrick could have filmed.

"Manufactured landscapes" is based on the work of photographer -- and 2005 TED Prize winner (watch his speech) -- Ed Burtynsky, whose camera has captured stunning images of man-transformed landscapes around the world.

Burtynsky is not much interested in micro: his focus is on vastness, on the scale of the environmental scars and transformations brought forth by industry, energy production and transportation. The documentary (trailer) is a hybrid: it's a meditation that makes very little use of words, leaving it to images and situational sounds and noises to tell the story, and at the same time a convincing illustration of the monstrosity of today's global trade. Although Baichwal shows images from Canada, California and Bangladesh -- and makes generous use of Burtynsky's TEDPrize speech -- the movie's main character is China, the "manufacture to the world": there, Burtynsky, followed by Baichwal's cameras, has shot factories, huge container ports, quarries, the Three Gorges Dam, electronics graveyards, the rapid urbanization of Shanghai. (Another great movie, recently, has shown some of this within a fictional frame: Gianni Amelio's "The Missing Star").

Burtynsky's work (see his books) can be unsettling. He extracts beautiful, sometimes poetic images from outrageous alterations and destructions of the environment. He calls himself an artist -- not a reporter -- and refrains from judging what he photographs or from politicizing it, wanting, as he said at TED, to "make people think harder about our planet's future" without suggesting them a direction. As the film goes I find myself thinking of painters: Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Salvador Dalì because, respectively, Burtynsky's photos of a computer components dump, the stacks of containers in the port of Tianjin, and the lunar shipbreaking beach of Chittagong (Bangladesh) oddly remind of their artworks.

The photographer has a rationale for aestheticizing this devastation: that's a way to gain access. Most of what Burtynsky photographs is on private land: "My work is mostly negotiation, with some photography thrown in", he said half-jokingly at the premiere in San Francisco. There is a scene in the movie where he is shown with his assistants and an interpreter trying to talk Chinese officials into opening the gates to a neverending coal yard, and the key sentence is "we will make it beautiful". Asked how he convinced factory managers to gather all their thousands of employees on a street for the picture that makes the poster of the movie (see image), Burtynsky explained that what Westerners see as a robotization of workers, the Chinese proudly consider an organizational and industrial achievement.

This discrepancy echoes throughout the documentary. It powerfully reminds us that "stuff" doesn't just happen, that it comes from somewhere, although we tend to forget or ignore it (thought of the impact of the extraction industry lately?) And it illustrates how, as we transform nature, we redefine who we are and our relationship to the planet.

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25 June 2007

Ed Burtynsky's Manufactured Landscapes: The Movie

In an extended run at the Film Forum in New York City (and now playing in Philadelphia), the film Manufactured Landscapes is in the spirit of Edward Burtynsky's 2005 TED Prize wishes: to show the world the size, the devastation, the sheer astonishingness of the industrial landscapes we have created -- and to create a desire to learn more. Burtynsky's large-format photographs capture Chinese factories that stretch on for acres, shipbreaking beaches where manual laborers tear apart rusting oil tankers, mountains of slag and rivers of waste. Filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal accompanied Burtynsky as he shot in China and Bangladesh, and offers context around the edges of the visuals. It's stunning and heartbreaking in equal measure.

Watch Ed Burtynsky's 2005 TED Prize acceptance speech here; WIRED.com has posted a portfolio of photographs here. And check out one result of Burtynsky's TED Prize wishes: Meet the Greens, a site and show that teach kids about the environment.

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12 October 2005

Ed Burtynsky brings the big picture to Brooklyn

TED Prize winner Ed Burtynsky is known for his extraordinary large-format photographs, documenting the impact of humans on Earth. His epic slideshow at TED2005 took us through unorthodox landscapes — mountains of tires, rivers of industrial waste — as eerily beautiful as they are disturbing. You can revisit them (at your own pace) at the Brooklyn Museum through January 15th. Or in his book, Manufactured Landscapes, any time you like.

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