Can a childhood game help us navigate the vast landscape of human knowledge?
In short: Following the end of the Encyclopaedia Britannica print era, performance poet Rives revives a childhood game to explore the beauty of random facts. This talk from the 2012 TEDxSummit in Doha offers a playful reminder that curiosity is the best way to engage with the world.
In this performance, Rives uses the cessation of the printed Encyclopaedia Britannica as a catalyst to reconsider how we interact with information. By resurrecting a game from his youth, he guides the audience through a curated selection of human knowledge, ranging from the geographical to the historical.
The talk highlights specific curiosities, such as Chimborazo—noted as the point on Earth farthest from its center—and Ham the Astrochimp, the first chimpanzee to travel into outer space. By framing these facts through a game, Rives demonstrates how curiosity can transform static data into a compelling narrative.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Reinventing the encyclopedia game - Rives
- Also: Reinventing the encyclopedia game
- Also: scalar.usc.edu — technsolution: Rives: Reinventing the encyclopedia game
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