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Clip description
In the early years of the 20th Century, Marconi revolutionised communication, Queen Victoria died, and Australia federated. What’s more, imagination took off as the Wright Brothers flew over America, Pavlov questioned the thought process, Picasso challenged perception and Einstein explained relativity. The workers, inspired by Marx, were stirring; empires were far-flung and expanding; and European aristocrats were surprised to see that wealth could come to ordinary people like Americans.
This clip features animation, photography and historical footage and is narrated by Neville Thiele.
Curator’s notes
Here is what Bruce Petty does best: unfurling complex ideas, forging inventive connections and making it all simple for us to understand.
Employing the advantages of animation, he compresses decades into minutes of real time and wars, revolutions and triumphs into pulsating doodles. All this is disciplined by the knowing, gently ironic voice-over and a sparkling soundscape which captures the excitement of each decade.
