BR_XXI> "Inventing Brazil"

These videos were edited by me in 2006 as part of my graduation project that had something to do with sustainability projects in Brazil, and so on.. but that's another discussion;

I just wanted to post this playlist for now; it has 3 videos that add up to 17 minutes; the last one is longer, about 12' and had to be divided in 2. It is also, the only one with dialogues which are in Portuguese but I'll work on having it subtitled and upload a higher definition file to Vimeo and post it back here)

All the images were taken from the internet; 'sampled and remixed' and put into this 3 chapter narrative; the 1st one is an ode to men, children and women, and to nature; while embedded in the beautiful soft melodies of Milton Nascimento with his song 'Minas' (which not only is the Brazilian state where this singer was born but is also an anagram of his names..); the 2nd film is a quick flyover portrait of Brazilian cities at the rhythm of the amazing drums and beats from Funk n'Lata's song 'Sambadrome' (which, btw, came out in very cool project; Red Hot + Rio)

Third one has interviews with architects Oscar Niemeyer, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, musicians Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, film director Fernando Meireles, among other 'father-figures' of this country's modern culture such as Darcy Ribeiro who said we should "Invent Brazil"...  Hope you enjoy it...

These videos were produced for educational purpose only and were never meant to have any profit made from it, whatsoever.. I post them here for the same reason and kindly ask permission from its authors and possible copyright owners.

Music; the universal language.

This post begins with what is in my opinion, one of the prettiest, most amazing collaborative endeavours so far; "In B Flat" (see the official website here) is a project created by Darren Solomon in which musicians were asked simply to play whatever they wanted as long as in the 'B flat' tone. You can read the 'Wired' magazine article about it here or read their FAQ.

"play these together, some or all, start them at any time, in any order."

Now, I honestly was so impressed by this I actually watched one by one to understand more of how it works; and on this video below, recorded during the "Notes and Neurons" event at the World Science Festival in 2009 (watch the whole panel here); Bobby McFerrin (wiki) shows us still a bit more about the pentatonic scale and its inert predictability (precisely what makes it so universally comprehensible)

While on the universality of music, the 'Playing for Change' project, goes around the world putting  together artists who never even met to sing 'universal classics' of popular music, while raising money for music education worldwide.

Here's a couple of these songs but you can watch them all on youtube or at their own website (linked above) and you may also donate at the 'Playing for Change Foundation'.

Finally this 30' documentary entitled 'We.Music' shows a bit about music creation among artists from São Paulo, Brazil and how they're facing these new possibilities of collaboration and collective creations and productions. The documentary itself was part of a vast collaboration between artists institutions, sponsors and of course the team @ "Galeria Experiência" who themselves have been working as a 'collective' of photographers who sign their work as one.

(I believe this video still hasn't gotten its English subtitles uploaded so for now, I'll have this one here and asap I'll swap to the subtitled version)


...