luka
Well-known member
i actually did read that interview. i was really bored.
Adam Curtis
- Thread starter rob_giri
- Start date
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
His first film from '79
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
Not bad after 2 episodes, pivoting on 1968. Lot of Aphex. He has a way with depicting faces out of old news and documentary stock footage, completely out of time, often looking into camera focusing directly or crowd scenes that punch at your empathy
So often you're looking at ghosts, as baffled as every human is (apart from the Covid cognoscenti). Not many generations have seen so many random faces caught in time, unknowable yet immediately strange and familiar. Britain looks grim as fuck
1 at a time or the Curtisian voice and style mesh starts to droop
So often you're looking at ghosts, as baffled as every human is (apart from the Covid cognoscenti). Not many generations have seen so many random faces caught in time, unknowable yet immediately strange and familiar. Britain looks grim as fuck
1 at a time or the Curtisian voice and style mesh starts to droop
shiels
_
Yes, its a satisfying blend of conjecture, conspiracy, entertainment to good music and nice pics a nice dance of references to pick up. good at conveying a sense of us being unmoored and clueless. and can def give you some interesting people to look further into
but it doesnt join up does it? i dont come away feeling ive understood more about anything, and this is def somewhat intentional, that it questions ideology and coherent explanations of history. but its all about people and ideas, technology too, the material conditions arent considered in depth ar they? this might be down to the fact hes forced to look at everything through the lens of news media and how it glamourises even suffering, how its running scripts and cant help simplifying the world into heroes and villains. in this way its kind of like a not very funny brass eye drawing elegant curves through history
I think ill go back and give the first one another go, but last night i juts felt like i could be watching any of his stuff, i couldnt parse it, or maybe i felt like the message had been received and hed nothing more to say
but it doesnt join up does it? i dont come away feeling ive understood more about anything, and this is def somewhat intentional, that it questions ideology and coherent explanations of history. but its all about people and ideas, technology too, the material conditions arent considered in depth ar they? this might be down to the fact hes forced to look at everything through the lens of news media and how it glamourises even suffering, how its running scripts and cant help simplifying the world into heroes and villains. in this way its kind of like a not very funny brass eye drawing elegant curves through history
I think ill go back and give the first one another go, but last night i juts felt like i could be watching any of his stuff, i couldnt parse it, or maybe i felt like the message had been received and hed nothing more to say
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
I listened to that blindboy interview. I find him a bit annoying, his voice and (ironically, given what he's arguing) his certitude. Despite what he says about John Pilger he does come across as hectoring.
However, I do think what he says about everybody feeling anxious and totally confused by the world, about the sense of a coherent narrative shattering (with conspiracy theories rushing in to fill the vacuum) is OTM. It's what we're constantly struggling with on here, I think - trying to come up with ways to understand the world.
It also makes me wonder about my own personal/private anxiety and alienation. I tend to think of myself as basically cut off from the world (I don't read the news, I'm a fucking ignoramus in fact) so it's intriguing to think that what I think of as my private sense of anxiety and nihilism and even my alienation might be the product of the society/times i live in as much as anything.
However, I do think what he says about everybody feeling anxious and totally confused by the world, about the sense of a coherent narrative shattering (with conspiracy theories rushing in to fill the vacuum) is OTM. It's what we're constantly struggling with on here, I think - trying to come up with ways to understand the world.
It also makes me wonder about my own personal/private anxiety and alienation. I tend to think of myself as basically cut off from the world (I don't read the news, I'm a fucking ignoramus in fact) so it's intriguing to think that what I think of as my private sense of anxiety and nihilism and even my alienation might be the product of the society/times i live in as much as anything.
shiels
_
hes a posh english twat he cant help it. you know what more annoying though? the blindboy voice
the postmodern condition bro
capitalist realism bro
wild greens
Well-known member
Curtis's ability to find new people who have apparently shaped the course of history but he hasn't mentioned in 25+ hours of this shite before is quite impressive
Nonetheless he's got a good eye for stock footage so will watch the lot eventually.
This one feels a lot sleepier than usual
Nonetheless he's got a good eye for stock footage so will watch the lot eventually.
This one feels a lot sleepier than usual
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luka
Well-known member
The idealism of the technique is what we saw with the secret and can be simply expressed in the formula:
(focussed)desire+thought+emotion=production of personal reality.
All structural explanations for experience, whether they are biological, embodied, economic, political or historical, are erased. Materiality disappears into a cloud of psycho-marketing strategy. With magical voluntarism we see a deep confluence between positive psychology, psychotherapy and advertising. This confluence is hardly surprising as these three facets have always been entwined. Smail’s work in The Origins of Unhappiness also point to all this being an intentional strategy first deployed during Thatcher’s demolition of working class communities and organisation. Summarising the argument in that book in an interview with the author of The Therapy Industry, Paul Moloney
Quote:
This work is continued by through ConDem government’s Behavioural Insights Team, or nudge unit, and by the continued spread of psychotherapeutic and behavioural interventions beyond the consultation room. Just as psychiatry autonomised itself from the Asylum following deinstitutionalisation, so to has psychotherapy come to spread itself throughout the social fabric. The most popular form of magical voluntarism today is CBT but motivational interviewing and mindfulness have also metastasized through the body of the social. One of the leading figures of the positive psychology movement, Martin Seligman, has had a profoundly influential role in disseminating the idea that we can train ourselves to be happy through changing our thoughts:
Quote:
(focussed)desire+thought+emotion=production of personal reality.
All structural explanations for experience, whether they are biological, embodied, economic, political or historical, are erased. Materiality disappears into a cloud of psycho-marketing strategy. With magical voluntarism we see a deep confluence between positive psychology, psychotherapy and advertising. This confluence is hardly surprising as these three facets have always been entwined. Smail’s work in The Origins of Unhappiness also point to all this being an intentional strategy first deployed during Thatcher’s demolition of working class communities and organisation. Summarising the argument in that book in an interview with the author of The Therapy Industry, Paul Moloney
Quote:
This work is continued by through ConDem government’s Behavioural Insights Team, or nudge unit, and by the continued spread of psychotherapeutic and behavioural interventions beyond the consultation room. Just as psychiatry autonomised itself from the Asylum following deinstitutionalisation, so to has psychotherapy come to spread itself throughout the social fabric. The most popular form of magical voluntarism today is CBT but motivational interviewing and mindfulness have also metastasized through the body of the social. One of the leading figures of the positive psychology movement, Martin Seligman, has had a profoundly influential role in disseminating the idea that we can train ourselves to be happy through changing our thoughts:
Quote:
luka
Well-known member
A reply to Mark Fisher on magical voluntarism
Short article exploring the idea of magical voluntarism and how it relates to questions of organisation.
