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Further Reading/Viewing: “The Man with a Shattered World: The History of a Brain Wound,” by A. R. Luria.

“Zjoek/Zhuk,” written and directed by Erik van Zuyen (1987):

Lev Zasetsky could have been an anonymous human data point in history’s largest conflict — just another one of tens of millions of casualties in World War II, the treatment of which stretched deep into the Cold War. But his particular brain injury was so peculiar that he drew the interest of Alexander Luria, the Soviet Union’s most accomplished neuropsychologist, as Lev became a complex mix of scientific oddity and miracle.

Zasetsky’s form of aphasia resulted in him being able to write, but not read his own writing or even understand all of what he had written. It’s a case that delves into the earliest history of Popular Science and reframes our modern understanding of psychology, history, language, communication, and the human spirit.

#science #coldwar #future

Decades before software like Premiere and iMovie made video editing cheap, easy, and accessible for everyone, the only option was chaining a conglomerate of vintage 80s technology – multiple camcorders or VCRs and a TV – to craft custom analog video. Then the Videonics system changed tech history forever.

With professional-grade setups costing up to six figures at the time, the Videonics brought simple editing to the masses at a tiny fraction of the price… in theory. The reality of the Videonics video editing system was a jumbled mess of retro tech that took a near-miracle to make your kid’s 8th grade jazz band concert video look a little more polished.

And getting it all to work over 35 years later? It took 8 VCRs, 2 camcorders, 3 Videonics units and 4 remotes to create a 1987-era YouTube masterpiece. But in the end, it revealed the beauty and drive of the first-generation analog filmmakers and videographers who made YouTube possible for all of us.

GummyRoach:
Weird Paul:
TechnologyConnections:

#retrotech #analog #vhs #filmmaking

Nearly 50 years ago, the Polavision camera blended Polaroid’s revolutionary instant film with on-demand home video – and the result was a landmark advance in analog technology that would become a mystery of science and a winding international journey into vintage tech.

Because now, generations after Edwin Land bet his half-century legacy of innovation and the company he founded on the success of the Polavision, I need to figure out how to get the thing to work… and only one man in the world could help me.

I traveled to Vienna, Austria to meet Florian “Doc” Kaps – the man behind ‘The Impossible Project’ that saved Polaroid from the dustbin of history. With his guidance and his private store of old Polaroid video tapes, perhaps I would be able to record a modern YouTube video with my vintage Polavision camera.

Through it all, Doc immersed me into his world of analog technology and the philosophy behind his mission to re-integrate analog into our daily lives. We cut lacquer records, we felt the fires of an analog restaurant, and we spent too much time trying to resurrect a relic of the past – because technology, vintage and modern, is all about people.

#polaroid #analog #vintagetech #history #cameras #documentary