After four decades of predicting technological change and building the tools to achieve it, the engineer and theorist Ray Kurzweil is making his biggest bet on the future. In his bestselling book, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Kurzweil predicts that the next few decades will produce human/machine syntheses capable of solving problems from poverty and climate change to illness, aging and even death. While this may seem far-fetched, Barry Ptolemy’s film utilizes interviews with major figures to explore the plausibility, and potential dangers, of Kurzweil’s predictions. Paired with original footage of Kurzweil traveling the globe to discuss his ideas, Transcendent Man offers a compelling portrait of a man working to escape the boundaries of his own biology.

Presented as part of the Depth of Field 2012-2013 Series: Still Lives

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