In one of his popular Shots of Awe videos, Jason Silva suggests we cannot find evidence of intelligent life in the universe because it is too technologically advanced to be found.
They’ve already disappeared, Silva explains, into a virtual black hole.
It is mind-bending stuff, set to stirring music and exploding visuals – just how Silva likes it. And because his videos last for only three minutes or so, just as it gets all too much to contemplate, he punctures the tension with a big wide grin and a question: “How’s that for dinner-party chat?”
Silva, who describes himself as a “wonder junkie” and “performance philosopher”, has earned his international fame in both modern and traditional ways.
In addition to the videos, he is host of the National Geographic show Brain Games, which is seen in 171 countries and has been screening for five years. In the works is NatGeo's Origins: The Journey of Humankind, a historical show tracing modernisation, which debuts in March.
Then there is a healthy gig touring the world speaking at technology and corporate events. He is in Dubai to speak at the Knowledge Summit 2016 on the morning of December 7. He is due to return in February for the Government Summit.
“I keep getting booked for talks here, which to me is always a sign that people are embracing the future, because a lot of my video content is about disruption and creativity and change,” he says.
The 34-year-old earned a degree in film and philosophy from the University of Miami before spending six years as a presenter and producer on Al Gore’s network, Current TV, taking a year off to travel to India, Europe and Mexico when the channel was sold to Al Jazeera and folded in 2011.
When Silva returned in 2012, as online video was becoming legitimised, he decided to lean on his film background for what to do next. It was a prescient move, considering the short attention spans and small-screen addictions that would before long become widely accepted. He has since made more than 150 videos, together viewed more than 100 million times across various platforms, including Facebook and YouTube.
And speaking of dinner parties, if you happen to be seated next to him at one, Silva might want to chat about the philosophical implications of androids in the HBO drama Westworld; optimising our most productive selves in ways exemplified by Jamie Wheal and Steven Kotler's Flow Genome Project; universal basic income; Ernest Becker's idea that love is a religious problem' or nootropics, although he's not supplementing yet. But, for the most part, he will not be interested in – or know much about – the latest fluffy pop culture.
“I’m not a big fan of small talk,” he says, happily. “I prefer finding something meaningful to talk about as quickly as possible.”
Instead Silva is obsessed with how technology is pushing human intelligence to greater places, as well as all things art, science and philosophy.
And while he pushes his viewers to grapple with life’s complexities, he makes sure to reward them with a deeply rooted sense of motivation and hope.
“It’s very important to me to provide an optimistic lens through which to see this stuff,” he says. “I tire of the doom and gloom.”
Shots of Awe has tackled everything from transhumanism to the cosmos as a mind-expanding drug to why we listen to sad songs that make us cry. That one drew more than a million views. It is because we need to release the pain of the human existence, Silva explains as only he can, throwing his whole body into the build-up before reclining in a grassy field.
The videos are made with a skeleton crew: a cameraman, producer and Silva. He takes copious notes and researches constantly, before shooting a batch of up to a half-dozen videos over a day or two every six weeks or so.
Although the videos are slick, visually, Silva usually goes for one take to avoid seeming overly contrived.
“If I’ve been thinking or obsessing about a concept for while, and finally you and I are out to dinner ... and I end up telling you what I’ve been thinking about, that’s the vibe I want,” he says. “I want the videos to feel unscripted and off the cuff, even though it is material I’ve been thinking about and researching.”
Surprisingly, unless there is a sponsor on board, the videos are not really moneymakers, instead their value is in generating interest and exposure for Silva.
While the tech and science stuff does well, the videos that play best online, he says, are those that deal with the kinds of existential questions and issues facing all of humanity.
“People really relate to the ones about vulnerability, loneliness, about the human condition, about hope in the midst of despair,” he says.
As for Dubai, not surprisingly Silva feels at home after multiple visits, and also due to his expatriate upbringing in Venezuela, where he attended an international school before moving the United States.
“I’m familiar with that ‘expat vibe’, people from all over the world who are forced to be really creative and forced to find commonalities rather than differences,” he says. “This is my cup of tea.”
amcqueen@thenational.ae
