New RSAnimate explores the consequences of our divided brains

The RSA is among the winners of the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards 2011 for its animation David Harvey - The Crises of Capitalism. 

The winning video was entered in the Economics category and was won in partnership with animation company, Cognitive Media.

The award comes as the RSA plans to launch its next RSAnimate based on a talk given by psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist regarding his book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.

The RSA puts on over 150 free, public events each year, featuring some of the world's leading thinkers, expert minds, and inspiring practitioners. The RSAnimate series was developed as an innovative way of interpreting the rich content of RSA events, and communicating that content to a new global, online audience.

The RSA events team edit keynote lectures from our most inspiring and challenging speakers down to ten minutes of ideas-rich audio content, then our partners at Cognitive Media produce inventive and accessible animated illustrations to accompany the voiceover.

In the latest animate, Iain McGilchrist reveals that the difference between the two halves of the brain is profound - not just this or that function, but two whole, coherent, but incompatible ways of experiencing the world. He argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in the modern world, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Commenting on the RSAnimation series, RSA Researcher Abi Stephenson said:

"We were so thrilled to receive a gold dolphin at Cannes – it really reflects the global audience the RSAnimate series now has, and shows how hungry people remain for world-changing ideas."

Facts about RSAnimate:

• No. 1 not-for-profit channel on YouTube

• Featured in the NYTimes, Huffington Post, Wired magazine, Boing Boing, BBC Click, Google Buzz, Guardian viral video chart, BrainPickings

• Winner of a Cannes Corporate Media and TV award

• Included in Open University and International Baccalaureate courses and materials (and used as a resource by thousands of teachers around the world)

• Featured in a Smithsonian and Walker Art Centre exhibition

• Inspired an international Youth Summit

• Congratulations and plaudits from everyone from Eric Schmidt to Derren Brown to Yoko Ono