Pooja Rangan is assistant professor of culture and media at the New School in New York, and is completing a book on the humanitarian impulse in documentary

Tonight's program features a selection of Leslie Thornton's short films and digital videos that explore how the West looks at the East; how we look at animals, nature, and each other; and how technology impacts these interactions. It includes Thornton's lush and evocative Adynata, which uses excerpts from Theresa Hak-kyung Cha's Dictée and a host of well-known films to create a semiological overload. Her recent Philosophers Walk on the Sublime takes us to the Alps to talk about philosophy. For Sahara/Mohave, Thornton set out to “hone an ‘aesthetic of uncertainty' to question our understanding of the real”-an apt description of her life's work.