Odd NY "Division and Unity" (2017) 1:03 (USA)

As life has changed, we have become increasingly more connected and simultaneously more divided. There is an abundance of information at our fingertips. Everyone can know everything before analyzing the context. Information travels fast and quickly becomes fact. We have uploaded our belief systems and fall victim to cyber attacks, political bias, and mass surveillance. What does the future hold? For centuries we have formed tribes. Unified by flag or ideology. We sought to increase our capabilities, to connect, to communicate. But we didn't understand the world we would cultivate. Do we stand alone? Or stand together? We are one divided. We are many, unified.

Office of Development & Design (ODD) Creative Director team Territory created this work that questions technology's role in dividing us. Visually this film is a complete treat. As for its larger meaning? Well, I don't want to sound divisive, I really don't, but the narrator doesn't really do much but point out the obvious and offers no solutions as to how we go from divided to united. If anything, it acts as a mere commentary on the modern world, we're pretty much all too familiar with at this point. Even the narrator's tone is an interesting choice. There is something friendly but detached from the whole thing. As if an academic's arm were on fire, and rather than screaming about it, recited an essay about the nature of pain and how it relates to fire.

But damn if this film doesn't look cool.

Production Company: Territory Studio / ODD
Creative Director: Andrew Popplestone
Executive Creative Director: Gary Breslin
Executive Producer(s): Tim Case, Matthew Turke
Producer(s) - Joy Whilby, Gen McMahon
Art Director - Nik Hill
Design - Peter Esenyi, Ryan Rafferty-Phelan
2D Animation - Daniel Højlund
Audio - Oli Whitworth