Global wanderer Vincent Moon explores and documents vanishing traditions with his evocative ethnomusical films.

Why you should listen

Vincent Moon rose to acclaim through the Take Away Show, a blog showcasing his videos of indie rock musicians ranging from The National to REM, shot in intimate (and often unusual) locations with camera phones and other everyday technologies.
 
In 2008, Moon embarked on a worldwide journey with only the possessions and video tools he could carry on his back, eschewing profit and a traditional career for a nomadic lifestyle. He has wandered from Central Europe through Africa and into Northern Brazil, documenting and filming traditional music and sacred traditions for his Creative Commons web publishing initiative, Collection Petites Planètes. The New York Times wrote that "Moon proved it’s possible to reinvent an old, tired format (the music video) using the very thing (the Internet) that supposedly killed it.”

What others say

“The best thing to tell people about piracy is this: the only way to avoid piracy is to not make things for money, to share everything for free. In my world, piracy doesn’t exist.” — Now Then, 2012

Vincent Moon’s TED talk

More news and ideas from Vincent Moon

Live from TEDGlobal

Through the looking glass: A recap of session 8 of TEDGlobal 2014

October 9, 2014

In this session, “Lenses,” speakers look through cameras and new lenses — at subjects from the very, very big to the very, very small to the very, very far away. Wendy Freedman talks about a remote location in the Andes, far from the lights of civilization, where the stars can be seen clearly with the naked eye. In that location, […]

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Live from TEDGlobal

Lenses: A sneak peek of session 8 at TEDGlobal 2014

October 9, 2014

Lenses allow us to look at far away worlds and to examine our own more closely. In this session hidden social and scientific fabrics will be amplified by several orders of magnitude, bringing us a richer and more vibrant experience than the naked eye can see on its own. The speakers who’ll appear in this […]

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