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History & The Arts
Music Printing
From the middle of the 15th century onwards, the intellectual and cultural life of the West was revolutionised by the development of the printing press. This album explores the technological problems and solutions specific to the printing of music and shows how technology has transformed the way music scores are produced today. The five video ...
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History & The Arts
Composing with MIDI
In the last 50 years, developments in technology have had a profound effect on the production, recording and manipulation of music. The 8 video tracks in this album introduce Simon Whiteside, a television and film composer, explore his recording studio and explain how he uses MIDI to create music for films and television programmes. Using an ...
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History & The Arts
Art and architecture
The Louvre was designed to house a great art collection for the people of France. Was there a plan from the outset to build a canon of work where the relationships between artists, their origins, their schools and faiths could be traced across centuries? And how did architect I.M.Pei persuade President Mitterrand to allow a pyramid to be built ...
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History & The Arts
The Arts Past and Present: Ireland
Do we use our buildings to declare who we are? How far does our heritage influence our collective identity? This insightful album reveals Ireland's shifting attitudes towards its cultural heritage. In 1922 when it broke free of British rule to become an independent nation state, the Irish nationalists abandoned high-profile buildings like ...
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History & The Arts
The Arts Past and Present: Mosaics
How can we read an image to tell us more about its ancient maker? In this album a mosaic artist, Catherine Parkinson, visits the splendidly-preserved ancient Roman mosaics at Brading Villa on the Isle of Wight. With the help of two archaeologists she discovers that the iconography reveals important clues about the villa inhabitants' world ...
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History & The Arts
Start writing essays
Returning to study or starting it for the first time can be daunting. Many students are frightened of writing essays, but it’s a craft that can be learnt. This album will help you to build confidence in all areas of essay writing. A student discusses with two tutors her writing methods and how she adapts her techniques for exams and assignments....
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History & The Arts
The Arts Past and Present: the Benin Bronzes
Are ancient sculptures ethnographic artefacts or works of art? How can objects like these throw light on the relationship of our culture to other cultures, both in the past and in the present? This album explores some of the issues surrounding interpretation and display of bronze sculptures originating in Benin in West Africa. The video ...
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History & The Arts
Power and people in ancient Rome
The ancient Romans constructed some of the first ever purpose-built venues for mass-entertainment. How do these structures enhance the audience’s experience of the spectacle? This album looks at famous Roman buildings like the Colosseum, a venue designed to impress, where vast numbers of people congregated for gladiatorial combat, chariot-racing...
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History & The Arts
Roman funerary monuments
How and what can we learn from fragments? Thousands of fragmented inscriptions survive from the ancient city of Rome, the majority of which are funerary inscriptions or epitaphs from tombs. This album looks at the impact of funerary monuments. From the Mausoleum of Emperor Augustus, to the more humble tombs of freed slaves, these monuments ...
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History & The Arts
Sensory augmentation devices
How can new technology help you to play a new musical instrument? The E-Sense research programme is experimenting with novel augmentation devices to explore sensory, bodily and cognitive extension. In this interdisciplinary research, philosophy and art combine with various flavours of computing: ubiquitous; wearable; and physical. We take a look...
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History & The Arts
Black British Jazz
What is Black British Jazz? This short film explores the research carried out by The Open University research team led by Dr Jason Toynbee who has been examining the history of Black British Jazz and the stories of the artists who have performed it. This video looks at the history of jazz and how the story dates back as far as 1919, documenting ...
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History & The Arts
Are you a Christian without a church? Take the survey
What does it mean to be a Christian without a church? What exactly do people mean nowadays when they describe themselves as Christian? Share your views, and learn about other people, in this anonymous survey.