This 18-minute-long film is, in Misek’s words, a documentary about property, profit, and power.
The film begins with a shot of a turn-of-the-century street teeming with horses and carriages.
Later, tanks roll through Tiananmen Square confronting a lone man.
In black and white, the Hindenburg crashes in New Jersey.
A nuclear bomb explodes, icebergs crash into the ocean, and astronauts plant a flag on the Moon.
Vietnamese citizens stare up at passing American military who film them from on high.
If everyone owns an image, how can one sell it?
Misek is reflecting on archive images' own histories as commodities and on their exploitation as intellectual property.
The film will be available in the public domain for download and remixing as liberated images.
His work also explores legacies of colonialism, gender, and oppression.
Who is filming who?
How can film be an expression of power?
A History of the World According to Getty Imagesis a film that explores profiting off public history.
It questions who controls the camera and the narrative.
