Pandora’s Box. Part 1: The Engineers’ Plot

Subtitle

Engineers’ plot, The

Synopsis

PANDORA’S BOX is an award-winning 6-part series on the impact of science and technology on everyday life in the 20th century, and their reflection in changing media images of science and scientists.
Part 1 deals with the utopian vision of science and technology in Soviet Russia. Reveals how the Soviet technocrats came to run the Plan, which would order their society along rational, scientific lines, and how they ended by creating a bizarre, bewildering world for millions of people. Footage includes the Magnitogorsk Choir of Industrial Progress singing of the new rational world to come; two men who planned the toothbrushes for the whole of the Soviet Union; and a planner who tells how she scientifically decided the people wanted platform shoes, only to discover that they were out of fashion by the time the factory was built.

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Medium

Television; Television broadcast. col. 60 min.

Year of production

1992

Availability

Off-air recording licence

Notes

Broadcast BBC2, Jun 92.

Uses

Discussions on the image of science.

Subjects

Science

Keywords

history of science; science in the media; Soviet Union

Credits

Producer

Edward Mirzoeff

Contributor

Christine Whittaker

Distributor

Name

BBC Television