Good Morning from wreckandsalvage on Vimeo.

What are the risks of treating the economy and its markets as a complex machine? Will we be able to keep control of this model-based financial system, have we created a monster?

A story about greed, fear and randomness from the insides of Wall Street.

Director: Marije Meerman
Research: Gerko Wessel

The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. The Free Music Archive is directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet.
Every mp3 you discover on The Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses that would otherwise be prohibited by copyright laws that were not designed for the digital era. Are you a podcaster looking for pod-safe audio? A radio or video producer searching for instrumental bed music that won’t put your audience to sleep? A remix artist looking for pre-cleared samples? Or are you simply looking for some new sounds to add to your next playlist? The Free Music Archive is a resource for all that and more, and unlike other websites, all of the audio has been hand-picked by established audio curators.
The Free Music Archive is a platform for collaboration between WFMU and a group of fellow curators, including KEXP, dublab, KBOO, ISSUE Project Room, and CASH Music. The site combines the curatorial approach that these organizations have played for the last few decades, with the community generated approach of many current online music sites.
Inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement, the FMA provides a legal and technological framework for curators, artists, and listeners to harness the potential of music sharing. Every artist page will have a bio and links to the artists’ home page for users to learn more about the music they discover via the Free Music Archive. We also seek to compensate artists directly. Artist, album and song profiles will contain links to buy the full album from the artist and/or label’s preferred vendor(s). Users can also “tip” an artist if they like what they hear, sending a donation directly to the artists’ PayPal account. Artist profiles include tourdates, encouraging users to step away from the glowing computer screen and see some real live music.

A man (later identified as a thief) representing The Fool, a tarot card typically depicting a young man stepping off a cliff, lies on the ground with flies covering his face like excrement. He is befriended by a footless, handless dwarf (representing the five of swords: defeat) and goes into a city to make money from tourists. The thief’s resemblance to Christ inspires some to use his likeness for the crucifixes which they sell. After a dispute with a priest who rejects the thief’s wax likeness of himself, the thief eats off the face of his wax statue and sends it skyward with balloons, symbolically eating the body of Christ and offering “himself” up to heaven. Soon after, he notices a crowd gathered around a large tower, where a large hook with a bag of gold has been sent down in exchange for food. The thief, wishing to find the source of the gold, ascends the tower; finding the alchemist (played by Jodorowsky).
After a confrontation with the alchemist, the thief defecates into a container. The excrement is transformed into gold by the alchemist who proclaims: “You are excrement. You can change yourself into gold.” The thief is introduced to seven people who are said to be the most powerful but who, like the thief, are mortal. They are related to the planets in astrological terms and portrayed with broad-brush satire, each personifying the worst aspects of his or her planet’s supposed characteristics. The seven consist of: a cosmetics manufacturer, a weapons manufacturer, a millionaire art dealer, a war toy maker, a political financial adviser, a police chief and an architect. They are gathered together by the alchemist who instructs them to burn their money and wax images of themselves.
After several scenes wherein the characters are led by the alchemist through several death/rebirth rituals, they all journey to Lotus Island to gain the secret of immortality from nine immortal masters who live on a holy mountain. Once on Lotus Island they are sidetracked by the “Pantheon Bar”, a cemetery party where people have abandoned their quest for the holy mountain and instead engage in drugs, poetry or acts of physical prowess. Leaving the bar behind, they ascend the mountain and each have personal symbolic visions representing each characters worst fears and obsessions. Near the top, the thief is sent back to his “people” along with a young prostitute and an ape who has followed him to the mountain. The rest confront the cloaked immortals who are shown to be only faceless dummies. The alchemist then reveals the film apparatus just outside the frame (cameras, microphone, lights and crew) and instructs everyone (including the audience for the film) to leave the holy mountain. “Real life awaits us,” he says. The screen fades to pure white.