The Light Bulb Conspiracy | Cosima Dannoritzer

Cosima Dannoritzer investigates companies that engineer their products to fail as part of planned obsolescence.

The Light Bulb Conspiracy uncovers how planned obsolescence has affected our lives and the economy since the 1920s when manufacturers deliberately started shortening the life of consumer products to increase demand. Shot over three years in Europe, the U.S., and Ghana, the film combines investigative research, including internal company documents and rare archival footage, tracing the beginnings of planned obsolescence to 1925, when a cartel of industrialists calling themselves 'Phoebus' conspired to limit the lifespan of a light bulb to 1000 hours.

This film also profiles several well-known historical advocates, Bernard London, who famously proposed ending the Great Depression by mandating planned obsolescence, and Brook Stevens, whose post-war ideas became the gospel of the 1950’s shaping the throwaway consumer society of today.

Once upon a time... products were made to last. Then, at the beginning of the 1920s, a group of businessmen were struck by the following insight: 'A product that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business' (1928). Thus, Planned Obsolescence was born. Shortly after, the first worldwide cartel was set up expressly to reduce the life span of the incandescent light bulb, a symbol for innovation and bright new ideas, and the first official victim of Planned Obsolescence. During the 1950s, with the birth of the consumer society, the concept took on a whole new meaning, as explained by flamboyant designer Brooks Stevens: 'Planned Obsolescence, the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary...'. The growth society flourished, everybody had everything, and the waste was piling up (preferably far away in illegal dumps in the Third World) - until consumers started rebelling... Can the modern growth society survive without Planned Obsolescence? Did the eternal light bulb ever exist? How can a tiny chip 'kill' a product? How did two artists from New York manage to extend the lives of millions of iPods? Is Planned Obsolescence itself becoming obsolete?

Release Date: 2010

Original title: Prêt-à-jeter
Director: Cosima Dannoritzer
Writer: Cosima Dannoritzer
Stars: Richard Jones, Molly Malcolm, Steve Bunn
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