Over the last couple of years (how time flies…) I have come across a fair amount of good movies and clips that try to grasp in one way or another some of the aspects of the information revolution we are and have been witnessing around us. From simply trying to state what is information to movies on the rise of the Internet and new means of mass communication, these visualizations all try to communicate and translate (often in an educational manner) this common feeling of change into a more compressed timeframe, for which the movie clip offers a very suitable format. I have collected some of the finest clips and want to post them here today, for your lazy Sunday feeling. If you know of any other, please let me know.

 

The first two clips I encountered only recently via Information Aesthetics, a vey nice weblog which aims to ‘explore the symbiotic relationship between creative design and the field of information visualization’. The first movie draws heavily on Marshall Mc Luhan’s ‘medium is the message’, whilst the second is influenced by Claude Shannon’s noise redundancy principles. The second movie is created by Charles and Ray Eames and contains some very beautiful and poetic visuals, especially after the beginning, so stay tuned. (I’m not able to stream it, so you can find it here)

 

 

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WytNkw1xOIc]

 

 

 

For a nice overview (using pictograms) of the history of the Internet and Internet communication, take a look at the movie underneath, created by graphic designer Melih Bilgil.

 

 

 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4]

 

 

The next two movies were created by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology form Kansas State University. The first one, ‘Information r/evolution‘ explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information’. The second one ‘The machine is Us/ing Us, gives a nice wrap up of the whole Web 2.0 development.

 

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM]

 

 

 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g]

 

 

And finally, most widely known I guess, the ‘Did you know?’ series on the ‘progression of information technology’, which has known many versions since its creation by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY]

 

If you are interested in or want to know more about the history of visual communication, do take a look at this amazing website, which tries to cover the whole history from cave drawings to computer mediated communication. With lots and lots of beautiful pictures.