EXPEDITION for the FUTURE wins NUMIX 2013 best documentary web series

NOMAD Industries & Tonton win best web series for EXPEDITION for the FUTURE at NUMIX 2013:

Un grand merci à Tonton pour avoir réalisé le site si bien si vite, et avoir inscris la série aux NUMIX. Vous êtes des kings!

Halo Bouvetøya by Jyri Hamalainen

It’s only after Everest that I realized all of the mystique surrounding the mountain. Bouvetøya is similar in that way. People keep coming out with interesting new facets and ideas surrounding the most remote island. Jyri Hamalainen, for example, is an South Africa based author who wrote a mystery adventure romance novel about an expedition to Bouvet. The novel is called Halo Bouvetoya.

Wildlife of South Georgia, Crozet, and Marion Island

After my return from The EXPEDITION for the FUTURE, I presented some images of wildlife to my daughter’s daycare. Here is my collection of penguin, seal, and sea lion images from our time in South Georgia, Crozet, and Marion Island.

Serge Bouchard sur la flêche du temps

Collecting visions of the future, I interviewed a brilliant anthropologist, Serge Bouchard, about the end of the world. He gives a fascinating description of the evolution of our relationship to time, from a cyclical one to an arrow shooting into the future. Thinking of time cyclically, what must that be like?

The End is the Beginning

I edited this last part from Costa Rica on the night of December 20th, uttering the last words: « This is the beginning » at midnight, as the 13th Baktun, the last cycle of the Mayan calendar, came to an end. Though I had planned to finish this story on this symbolic day, the strike of midnight was a most meaningful occurrence, much like the rest of this blessed journey. There are no more coincidences for me anymore, this is a synchronicity singularity. The future is here.

The EXPEDITION for the FUTURE concludes at the Cape of Good Hope.
This is a preliminary web series heading to television in 2013.

Music:
Gavin Bryars’ Last Hymn from The Sinking of the Titanic
The Naked and Famous’ The Source and The Sun from Passive Me, Aggressive You
and Mogwai’s own remix of Mogwai Fear Satan from Kicking a Dead Pig

Shadows of the Future

The Beginning is the End

I was going through Amsterdam on my way home from The EXPEDITION for the FUTURE. In my bag was the only copy of the film, the testament to the epic journey that had taken me from the end to the beginning of human exploration, by way of the last place on this good Earth, Bouvetøya. It wasn’t only that I was carrying the entirety of a half million dollar project in my bag, but mostly it was the message that it held. After having climbed the highest mountain on every continent with my father, this final voyage had closed the loop that the first nomads opened in Africa, to as far as they could walk, the Southernmost point of South America. What I discovered along the way could only be described in the form of an image, that of the gateway I found at the Cape of Good Hope. The future in my hand, the entire story came clear to me then, in this European point of transit, neither here nor there. Amsterdam is the last place I filmed for the expedition for I knew that I had a movie. The loop was closed, the beginning was indeed the end.

The Beginning is the End from The NOMADS on Vimeo.

Norwegian Flag on Bouvetoya

For: Members of the Bouvetoya contingent

From: Bob Headland

The following illustration, from Chr Christensens Hvalfangstmuseum in Sandefjord, Norway, shows the first Norwegian flag deployed Bouvetoya and the hut ‘Villa Haapløs’ (Hopeless House). We know it was left on the island, and now we know it was made of metal. Bearing in mind the usual weather there this seems to have been a wise precaution.

Regards; and more after I return from the Arctic.

Bob H.

R. K. Headland,
Senior Associate,
Scott Polar Research Institute,
University of Cambridge,
Lensfield Road,
Cambridge,
United Kingdom, CB2 1ER.

Hâtons nous lentement et sans perdre courage – vision de Marie-Pierre L. Markon

***Si comme la tortue, symbole du commencement du monde, de longévité et de sagesse ancestrale, nous nous « hâtons lentement et sans perdre courage » (citation de N. Boileau), alors tout est encore possible j’espère…Nous devons continuer d’avancer même s’il fait nuit, prendre le risque du grand saut dans le vide, traverser le fossé au-delà duquel on peut entrevoir l’aube d’un monde qui tournerait moins vite, plus juste, plus harmonieux.***

La Belle Verte – long métrage de Coline Serreau

L’histoire débute sur une planète lointaine (la planète verte) habitée par une civilisation évoluée et égalitaire, vivant en parfaite harmonie avec la nature dans des paysages immaculés, et qui pratiquent certaines disciplines comme la télépathie. Lors d’une réunion du conseil planétaire, les habitants font le constat que cela fait 200 ans au moins qu’aucun volontaire ne s’est désigné pour visiter la Terre, au contraire d’autres planètes, qui déchaînent un enthousiasme très largement supérieur. Cherchant à en connaître les raisons, et profitant de l’expérience d’Osam, le dernier à s’y être aventuré, à l’époque napoléonienne, ils font le constat que la Terre abrite encore probablement une civilisation arriérée caractérisée par les inégalités sociales, le racisme, la monnaie, etc., une situation que l’avènement de la révolution industrielle n’a pu que faire empirer. On y apprend ainsi que sur la planète verte il y a eu également une époque industrielle avec des biens de consommation, mais cette époque est désormais tellement lointaine qu’elle ne s’étudie qu’en cours d’archéologie. Les habitants sont d’avis qu’en déconnectant certains Terriens ils pourront aider cette civilisation à progresser plus rapidement.