Tales of power

I've been a fan of Adam Curtis since I saw the Century of the Self when I was at university, so it was nice to see him in conversation with Mark Titchner at the 176 gallery space in Camden on Thursday. In summary: "everywhere you look, it's hippies" (in Curtis' world our ideas of nature being the answer and expressing yourself through goods is all down to the hippies). Am really looking forward to his next documentary though, which is going to be about behavioural targeting and how computers reveal us to be predictable. Which raises questions about whether the individuality we prize so much is infact a myth. He links the age of credit to the individualistic society - so if we are no longer individuals, but part of a herd, what does that mean for the financial systems, which are already in such a fragile state.

He also spoke about how the internet is not just a piece of technology, but a belief system. The idea that you can transcend politics and together create stability is held by those Silicon Valley and bears uncanny resemblance to the spiel of the hippies.

Curtis also made some interesting comments about how risk these days is shouldered by the individual rather than by a collective group, something that I'd never considered but which is pertinent in the light of the redundancies being made in our industry and others at the moment. We lose a lot by being 'individuals' when times are rough, something we don't think about when it's all good.

Comments

[Helen-LG]

Sounds really interesting, I'm not familiar with Adam Curtis but I might have to check him out.

Internet as belief system is something I was discussing recently with someone, I wonder if they were prompted into that frame of mind by Curtis...