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Selfies - a visual analysis: Elizabeth Urbanski at TEDxNavesink

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    Hello everyone,
    today we're going to talk about selfies.
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    Selfies are the most modern way we have
    of people showing images of themselves.
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    But we've been showing images of ourselves
    for thousands of years.
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    So, in our talk we're going to look
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    at the relationship
    between what we're doing now
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    and what we've done previously.
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    Say for example
    you don't know what a selfie is,
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    you don't have a tween
    with an Instagram account.
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    I'll tell you,
    a selfie is an instant self-portrait
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    which you take from a mobile device,
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    you outstretch your arm and you snap it.
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    It's all you,
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    there's no professional photographer,
    there's no editor,
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    there's no curator
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    and then you instantly upload it
    to the Internet for global consumption.
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    So your private life is exposed
    for everyone to see.
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    Being a selfie maker,
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    you're both the creator
    and the subject, and you choreograph
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    how you're going to look in a selfie:
    you decide your body language,
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    your proximity to the camera,
    where you're going to look,
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    what you're wearing,
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    your milieu and very importantly
    your facial expression.
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    The medium itself
    has a very specific aesthetic.
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    First of all, most selfies
    have a square format,
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    usually they're viewed
    on an intimate scale,
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    maybe on your cell phone or mobile device.
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    They have a very specific
    photographic distortion
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    which usually is from the arm's length,
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    of the proximity of the camera lens,
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    so this can make your face distorted,
    or maybe part of the background distorted,
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    and then also because
    of the arm's length proximity,
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    the picture itself has a very
    shallow collapsed sense of space.
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    Many selfies,
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    maybe it's because of expertise or not,
    have a blur within the image itself,
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    and finally a lot of the selfies have
    this almost soft, unsaturated sepia tone
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    that have an almost nostalgic
    quality to them.
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    Many people dismiss selfies as being
    narcissistic, frankly many of them are,
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    and most people can't help
    looking at themselves.
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    I mean if you walk past a mirror,
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    almost everyone takes a look to see
    how things are going on.
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    (Laughter)
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    But let's think of selfies
    in relationship to art history.
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    Are they traditional,
    or are they revolutionary?
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    Traditionally, when people
    had their portraits taken, painted,
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    they were done by an artist,
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    and they were seen
    through the artist's eye.
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    Here we have Louis XIV
    as the Sun king, the artist has expertly
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    expressed his view of the world
    of how he wanted to express himself.
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    Sometimes,
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    even if you are
    the most powerful person in the world
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    and you hire the greatest artist,
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    the portraits weren't
    particularly always flattering.
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    But now we've gotten rid of the artist
    as the conduit, as the intermediary.
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    And everyone is an artist,
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    so they can decide
    how they want to brand themselves.
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    And with every image, they can change
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    their brand, their image, to the world,
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    advertising themselves to the world.
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    So, your self is a very fluid concept
    that is constantly being able
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    to be moved and developed unlike
    the portrait of Louis XIV,
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    which we now know hundreds
    of years later what his message was.
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    Let's think about self portraits,
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    traditionally self portraits
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    we think of Dürer here as a self
    constructed artifice,
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    he took ideas, what he wanted his beliefs
    and his ideas and put them in a painting.
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    Here we have Dürer
    equating his artistic genius
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    to that of almost a Christ-like creator.
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    And then we have the contemporary selfie
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    showing us his superiority with his
    all-knowing facial expression.
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    So let's think about selfies that fit
    into other traditional categories.
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    Let's consider body language.
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    Here we have a senator,
    this Roman senator,
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    Audience: Aw!
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    with this very frontal facial expression,
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    this unflinching expression,
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    looking straight at the camera.
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    And today, when people want
    to express power in their image,
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    they use this exact same body language.
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    Let's think about... Here we have
    a Hellenistic Aphrodite,
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    her head is tilted in coy flirtation,
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    as she is flirting
    with the Satyr next to her.
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    And over and over in contemporary selfies,
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    we have the same exact body language.
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    Many times -
    (Laughter)
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    Here we have Hercules,
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    his head is bowed down,
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    his arms are away from his body,
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    so that we can look at his toned,
    muscular, powerful torso,
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    because this is what defines him
    as who he is, as his character.
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    And again and again, in contemporary
    selfies, we have the same idea.
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    Even in this contemporary work,
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    the subject's head is even distorted
    by the camera lens,
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    it's back and a blur because
    his focus is his chiseled physique.
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    So his physicality becomes
    an expression of who he is.
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    Here we have Rembrandt as a young artist:
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    his eyes are sunken and dark
    and deep and moody,
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    he's got pursed lips,
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    his hair with his golden
    highlighted coifs,
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    and we have this contemporary selfie
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    attempting to express
    the same exact poetic angst
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    and anguish of youth and talent.
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    Not only can we refer to
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    art history for references,
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    but also to Hollywood,
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    so here we have Mary Pickford
    as a certain type of ingenue
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    with her golden locks, her doe eyes,
    her can-do spirit,
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    and we have the contemporary selfie
    modeling herself
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    almost exactly with that same idea.
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    Not only are selfies about
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    modeling yourself,
    but also showing people who you are,
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    where you've been.
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    No matter who you are,
    they want you to know where they've been
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    and they want you to maybe be jealous.
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    So not only look where I am,
    but look what I have. (Laughter)
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    Do you value what I have?
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    Do you judge me by what I have?
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    Let me show you what I have.
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    Look who I'm with.
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    No matter who you are and no matter
    how powerful you are,
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    you still want to legitimize your time
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    by showing that you're
    with someone who's of import.
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    We live in a world where we're constantly
    being documented and documenting.
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    Because of this, we're very self-conscious
    of the photographic process.
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    So as a response,
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    when we're taking selfies, a lot of people
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    make a very exaggerated
    facial expression,
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    freeze it and then take the picture.
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    Because they want to make sure
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    that you know that they're choreographing
    that instantaneous expression.
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    Certainly they don't want to be caught
    in a photograph where they're actually
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    instantaneous, unflattering and real.
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    Exposure to Hollywod has shown us
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    how to pose for pictures,
    how to smile for pictures,
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    but now this awareness of
    constant documentation
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    has made a very new expression
    that is really very specific to selfies
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    and has been dubbed the duck face.
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    Selfies are part of the whole history
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    about looking and being looked at.
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    Every selfie is an act
    of having yourself on display.
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    Every selfie is an act of self-voyeurism.
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    So let's consider the gaze
    in some of these pictures.
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    Here we have Manet's Olympia.
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    She is challenging us
    as we look at her nudity.
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    She's looking at us looking at her.
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    And we have this contemporary selfie,
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    taking this very same pose,
    using the same eye contact,
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    everything is very deliberate
    and purposeful.
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    Another idea of looking at the gaze
    is when a subject is looking away.
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    Then they are part of the landscape,
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    part of a still life,
    an object to be admired,
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    without letting the viewer know
    that they're being looked at.
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    So ultimately,
    who is the visual consumer of the selfie,
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    and how do we understand images
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    when they're taken out their
    content and context?
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    Maybe one person
    will read this in one way,
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    and another person in another way.
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    So what we do is
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    we place our individual perceptions,
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    our individual experiences
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    and perspectives on the image,
    and that creates a multitude of readings,
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    a multitude of stories.
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    Because ultimately selfies are a poignant
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    example of the fact that people crave
    to be recognized,
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    they crave to be remembered, validated.
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    This is an attempt to do these things.
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    But this medium, you can look
    at so many images
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    at one time that can be compared,
    contrasted,
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    dismissed, juxtaposed,
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    and every subject creator is always
    searching for originality
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    when they're making their images.
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    We have to think,
    when we're looking at these pieces,
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    when you're looking at a selfie
    or you're taking a selfie,
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    you have to think, how do I fit
    into the historical context?
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    Thank you!
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    (Applause)
Title:
Selfies - a visual analysis: Elizabeth Urbanski at TEDxNavesink
Description:

In her talk about "Selfies", Elizabeth A. Urbanski covers the fascinating and sometimes puzzling phenomenon of publicly posted instant self portraits snapped on cell phones, and examines these self edited pictures through an art historian's lens and attempt to categorize and analyze as well as understand them in relationship to works significant to Western art history.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDxTalks
Duration:
09:54
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