All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace

Synopsis: Adam Curtis’ series of films explores the idea that we have been colonised by the machines that we have built, seeing everything in the world through the eyes of computers. Episode 1, LOVE AND POWER looks at Ayn Rand and her group of disciples and then considers the global utopia that digital entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley set out to create in the 1990s. They were joined by Alan Greenspan who became convinced that computers were creating a new kind of stabilty. Film 2, The USE AND ABUSE OF VEGETATIONAL CONCEPTS looks at how the dream of the self-organising network, based on ideas from the 1960s counterculture, is founded on a flawed understanding of the natural world. The final film The MONKEY IN THE MACHINE AND THE MACHINE IN THE MONKEY argues that because our political dreams seem to have failed we have retreated into machine fantasies that say we have no control over our actions, in order to excuse our failure. The film explores the theories of scientist Bill Hamilton, in the context of the history of the West’s relationship with the Congo over the past 100 years.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Year of release: 2011
Subjects: History; Media studies; Science
Keywords: Congo; history of science; economic history; psychology; history of computing; Rand, Ayn

Name: BBC Active Video for Learning - now BBC Learning
Contact: Carolina Fernandez Jeremy Wilcox (CF - for educational enquiries JW - channel sales manager)
Email: BBCStudiosLearning@bbc.com
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Notes: The BBC Active company has now been absorbed within BBC Learning, a division of BBC Studios. It was originally a joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Pearson Education. Formerly known as ‘BBC Worldwide Learning Studies’ and before that as ‘Videos for Education & Training’

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