- Surrealist cinema is a modernist approach to film theory, criticism, and production, with origins in Paris in the 1920s. The Surrealist movement used shocking, irrational, or absurd imagery and Freudian dream symbolism to challenge the traditional function of art to represent reality. Related to Dada cinema, Surrealist cinema is characterized by juxtapositions, the rejection of dramatic psychology, and a frequent use of shocking imagery. Philippe Soupault and André Breton’s 1920 book collaboration Les Champs magnétiques is often considered to be the first Surrealist work, but it was only once Breton had completed his Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 that ‘Surrealism drafted itself an official birth certificate.’
- Reverse engineering the mysterious Up-Data Link Test Set from Apollo (righto.com)
Back in 2021, a collector friend of ours was visiting a dusty warehouse in search of Apollo-era communications equipment. A box with NASA-style lights caught his eye—the “AGC Confirm” light suggested a connection with the Apollo Guidance Computer. Disappointingly, the box was just an empty chassis and the circuit boards were all missing. He continued to poke around the warehouse when, to his surprise, he found a bag on the other side of the warehouse that contained the missing boards! After reuniting the box with its wayward circuit cards, he brought it to us: could we make this undocumented unit work?