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'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.'
I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?
[Harold Pinter]
Nobel Lecture, 'Art, Truth & Politics'
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Part 1
Cell and Body
PART & WHOLE
First of all we must understand that we are a collective. We must remember that together we make up a body. A body has an order to it; ways in which its parts must interact. If its parts do not interact properly then it goes wrong.
We live in an age of individualism. Each cell of the body has been, and is being, reprogrammed. Each cell is being given a new script. It says "the important thing is not that you are part of a body - that you, along with all these other cells make up a bigger part. The important thing is that you are an individual cell. You are unique! You are unlike all other cells."
The cells that best express their individuality are promoted, and thought of as better. Over time each cell begins to lose sight of the fact that it is within a body. All it can see is its own borders.
Some cells become rampant. Obsessed with their own image they multiply rapidly, producing copy after copy of themselves. They do not see the affect that this is having on the body. So in love are they with their own image that they forget they are part of a body at all. Occasionally another cell will remember, and will try to make others remember; but they are dismissed as 'old fashioned' and told to 'move with the times.'
It isn't long before the body becomes ill, and dies. In its last moments each cell remembers what it had long ago forgotten: that no matter how hard they try and think of themselves as individuals separate from all others, they are, in the last, a part of something bigger. And that in order to preserve themselves, they must always keep one eye on that bigger thing.
We see this interdependence in the fragile balance of eco-systems. How the extinction of one species will have a knock-on effect on everything around it. We catch a potent whiff upon hearing that "if the bees become extinct then we will too.'
So this is where we start. This is what every cell must remember. Like it or not, it is part of something greater.
Each of us, then, is a citizen as well as an individual. The citizen is the side of us that remembers the body, and always keeps it in mind. We walk a line between the two.
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Part 2
Rules of the body
ORDER OF PARTS
So what are the rules of our body? What does it need in order to stay balanced and healthy?
The rules of our collective body are much the same as the rules of our physical body. Both systems work in roughly the same way.
A physical body is made up of lots of parts that are all different. Each has its role to play in the working of the body. When every part fulfills its function effectively then the body is balanced and healthy.
The body becomes unhealthy when it becomes imbalanced. This can happen in a number of ways. Two examples:
1. Outside influences lead to bad habits. A badly designed chair encourages a poor posture. Certain muscles become weak and other muscles are required to take over their job. One muscle is underused whilst another is overused; and importantly, used in ways in which it wasn't designed for. This leads to stresses and strains and further imbalances.
2. Outside influences cause a cell to forget its original programming. Like a derailed train, it slips free of its natural borders and runs riot, causing havoc. It multiplies excessively. It does not know when to stop. The body becomes critically imbalanced; it 'gets cancer.'
Each of these imbalances has its counterpart in our collective body:
1. We underuse and devalue people with certain skills, whilst placing undue emphasis on those with other skills.
2. In a general sense we can see cancer as unchecked expansiveness; growth without limits. Sound familiar?
The most important thing for us to recognise is that a healthy body needs a set of rules and meanings that is shared by all of its parts. Each must, in the last, always work for the good of the whole.
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Part 3
The Role of Culture
MAINTAINING ORDER
We can call these rules and meanings 'culture.' Culture is the invisible mesh that keeps the whole thing in place. It tells each what to do, and why. It places importance on some things over others. It says 'go this way, not that way.' It is the sense that guides each and every part of the body.
Every part is programmed with its own set of rules and meanings - its own instinctive culture. However, these can sometimes be overruled by those imposed by the brain. We can describe instinctive programming as intuitive - a knowing without learning - with the impositions of the brain being rational; based, in other words, on external experience.
When a body forgets its instinctive culture it is at risk of becoming unbalanced.
We can reprogramme our physical bodies in many ways. For example, if someone with two fully functioning legs were to decide to sit in a wheelchair and avoid standing he would begin reprogramming, by sending the following message to his legs: "you two aren't needed anymore." His legs would begin to feel left out, unwanted, useless. They would lose all respect for themselves. Their muscles would weaken, their vitality drain away. If he stayed in the chair long enough he may lose the use of his legs completely.
Culture is, then, of great importance to the functioning of the body. It is the way in which we programme ourselves.
How, then, do we currently use culture? Which ways does it tell us to go? What does it tell us to do? What does it place importance on? And is what it tells us good for our collective body?
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Part 4
Body in Chaos
DISORDER
In recent times we have placed such emphasis on the individual - on cell over body, part over whole - that we have lost sight of the connection between culture and the body. Instead of serving to preserve a harmony of parts, it mostly focusses on the needs and desires of the individual cell.
We know from both objective and subjective experience (from experimental research along with our own day-to-day observations) that the images that surround us (both moving and still) can affect us deeply. We take in influences consciously and unconsciously. When we see a film we may be so taken with a certain character that we seek to model ourselves upon them. But our thoughts and actions may also be influenced in ways that we are unaware of. This is why advertisers pay so much for relatively miniscule timeslots; they know all-too-well the power of subconscious influence. And if a 5 second advert can alter our thought patterns, imagine what a 2 hour film can do.
Yet we exist in a society that largely refuses to acknowledge the connection between culture and programming. Such is the breakdown between cell and body - part and whole - that we can view the merit of our cultural objects independently of the affect they may have upon us as a whole. This is akin to body urging its cells into anarchy - "reproduce like mad! Kill each other! Its all great entertainment!" - whilst believing that it will remain healthy and balanced.
So whilst a film may glorify dysfunctional ways of thinking and behaving, we focus on its merits as a film. Yes, its characters may be horrific; and the way of life it promotes unhealthy - but it is a good film. We talk about how good its actors were; how convincing its effects; how well written it is; how well shot; and so on. Taste takes precedence over nutrition. In seeing films this way, we see them through the eyes of the individual and we forget our duty as citizens; we forget the body.
We must never lose sight of the vital role that culture plays in the well-being of the body. We must always look to see what messages it is sending out; which directions it is telling us to go; what it is telling us to do; who it lifts up; who it runs down. And we must always ask: is this good for us?
In enjoying the selfish pursuits of the individual, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that our actions have no consequences. We have untethered culture from its traditional restraints and have let it drift off; its ascendency a tribute to individuality.
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Three things we must remember:
1. We are part of a something larger, a collective body.
2. A body must have order.
3. Order is maintained through shared meaning i.e. culture.
And so the first and last thing we must ask of any cultural object is:
Is this good for my community, my society - my body?
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Related posts:-
Everything is Connected
A Higher Power
You or The Work
The Real Thing
The Tyranny of Novelty
Life Amongst the Rubble
Post-modernist Soup
The Perils of Radical Subjectivity
Guiding Fiction
Twisted out of Shape
Let It Flow
Showing posts with label Postmodernism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Postmodernism. Show all posts
Welcome to La-la Land
We are lost in images.Prom night. These girls are in love - obsessed, consumed - by an image. The image is of the fantasy prom, or a disney princess. The most likely source of this image is a film.
We make the mistake of thinking that our fantasy images can be real. We seek to bring them over into the real world, blurring the line between fantasy and reality.
For these girls the dress, the makeup - the 'prettifying' or 'slutifying' - are not about wanting to appeal to boys; even if from the outside it would appear so. Boys have nothing to do with it. It is about realising the fantasy image. The real world signifiers (short skirt = male attention) become insignificant next to the fantasy signifiers (short skirt = what the fantasy person wears, i.e. fulfilment of image). Meaning is lost in a world of cut-out fantasy images.
The reality of the situation (the actual prom) threatens to bring the person back down to earth, because reality cannot compare to fantasy. But instead of realising our mistake and relinquishing our images, we attempt to twist reality to fit our fantasies. We dismiss what is real, making everything unreal.
On this charge, film has a lot to answer for. Films sell us fantasies that get lodged in our brains. They give us images that we are compelled to realise - make us chase apparitions - and they do it without us even realising. Their images filter into our subconscious, sneaking in through the back door. Before we know it we have built layer upon layer on top of them. We have based our hopes and dreams - our lives - upon them. They become near impossible to dislodge without risking a total breakdown.
And often all of this happens whilst we are young. Their images become so ingrained and prevalent that we may even think that they are part of the natural order; that human beings naturally desire these things and that, importantly, there is no viable alternative. Once you've built a skyscraper it seems like madness to knock it down to check its foundations.
Films are not the only culprit; and the symptoms of our 2D culture are not just confined to young girls who want to be princesses. When an image - the short skirt, the revealed leg - becomes detached from its real world signifier - male attention - meaning gets lost. When this happens over and over again, it becomes the norm.
We are in a culture that encourages us to lose sight of reality. One thing can mean a million things. Play around, be creative. It needn't mean that. It needn't mean anything. Eveything is unanchored.
From a narrow perspective this all seems like good fun. Life is short, so play around while you can. But there are severe consequences.
Through repetition of this pattern, we are becoming more and more conditioned to only look for the image, and not for the truth that lies underneath it. As long as you say you're sorry convincingly enough then I don't care whether you actually are or not. I'm only interested in the speech, the sensation: not the reality.
We are becoming conditioned to stop short at the surface, and to not look beyond it. Ours is a superficial culture, in most senses of the word. In some contexts we may be able to convince ourselves that this is a harmless development. But in others we cannot.
Politicians need no longer even make a show of sticking to their word. They can say one thing whilst openly doing another, just as long as the way in which they said it is convincing enough; that it sounded right, good, strong. They can be as dishonest as they like, as long as they have the right stuff; a winning smile, an air of heroism, a good marketing campaign.
Politics, as with so many things, has become unanchored. We need only look at the majority of our media coverage to see that it is almost entirely show. Journalists - by name only - touch every superficial detail whilst circumventing the mundane and often inconvenient reality.
When a person loses sight of what is real and what is fantasy we generally seem to consider them a bit barmy. If we can, we try and bring them back to the real world, remind them of what is true and what is false.Collectively we are going barmy. Can we bring ourselves back to the real world?
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Related posts:-
The Real Thing
The Tyranny of Novelty
Life Amongst the Rubble
Post-modernist Soup
The Perils of Radical Subjectivity
Information and Knowledge
Tasteful Distance
Arrows pointing at Arrows
Leaving the Vessel
Only Playing
Stand Tall
Contrary to what people might think, Nuts was staffed by left-leaning middle-class family men (and women) who were smart, funny and talented. The office would usually be found picking apart last night's Newsnight, rowing about politics or discussing house prices.
[...] They were the funniest, brightest group of people I'd ever had the pleasure of working with.
[Terri White]
"My success was built on other women's boobs", Observer Magazine
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The people who can lead must lead.The people who know better must act better.
There is a tendency in our culture for those of us who know better to indulge in things that we do not truly like or believe in whilst justifying our actions through irony.
We stand at the threshold of some sinful place and delight in its sights, whilst assuring anyone that passes by that we think it is terrible and depraved.
Yet we stay and watch.
We can see this clearly in the overarching nature of popular culture. There are those of us who may not see any problems in a programme like Jeremy Kyle for instance. We may see it as harmless entertainment, and may even think of it in a positive light.
But there are those of us who, if we think deeply enough, will find many things about it problematic. Yet we continue to watch it regardless of our reservations.
We watch with two sets of eyes. We delight in its base appeal - its cheap thrills and cheap laughs. Yet we also see beyond these shallow attractions. We see its problems, and the problems that it poses and reflects on a larger scale.
Irony is often a refuge for those of us who know better, because it allows us to have our cake and eat it. It allows us to split in two; to speak of principles, whilst acting in a manner that is contrary to them. It is a form of detachment; part of us breaks off and floats free above us, able to see and comment upon what we are doing without being tied down to our body and our acts.
Whilst irony may distance us from the consequences of our actions, it does not protect us from them. It is like a painkiller: we may not feel the pain but it is still there.
Irony finds its natural home in a culture of appearances; in a culture where we are judged by what we seem to do, rather than what we actually do. By what we seem to believe in, rather than what we actually believe in.
We are like a person who imagines themselves to be a bird. They may be able to maintain the fantasy for a while but eventually, and inevitably, they will find themselves on a rooftop ready to fly toward the heavens. Soon enough their body - that undeniable anchor - will remind them of who they are; and soon enough they will come crashing back to earth.
There is only so long that this kind of fantasy can continue before we come collectively crashing downwards; before reality begins to assert itself upon us, regardless of our posturing.
That time is now.
These times demand an end to irony. They demand that we become attached. That we become reconciled to what is real, and that we become responsible for it.
We can no longer afford to shelter within irony in order to avoid the reality of our actions. The only way we can create a more balanced and healthy environment is to be led towards it by those who are able to lead. If our leaders shrug their duty, then what hope do we have?
It is acts that convince, not words. In any collective, there are those who have the strength and vision to lead the way. But it seems that our current culture is so unhealthy and unbalanced that even these people - our guiding spirits - have lost their way. By indulging in cheap and unhealthy habits they make themselves cheap and unhealthy. Instead of leading us to great things, they lead us further and further into an abyss.
Base culture has become so pervasive that it has become acceptable for anyone to indulge. Taken with a pinch of irony, anything becomes acceptable. Where do we draw the line? How much of ourselves are we willing to let go of? How low are we all willing to sink?
There will always be those who live in holes, who see only darkness and depravity. But these people must be balanced by their opposite. If, as we are doing more and more, we all decide to crawl down into these holes, then what hope can we have for our future?
Base culture is like junk food. We know it is bad for us, but it offers a quick and temporary appeal. It does not nourish us, but it tastes good whilst it lasts. It stimulates our taste buds with exaggerated flavours, giving us an instant hit.
Indulging in base culture ironically - with a degree of self-awareness and separation; with conflicted intent - is akin to eating junk food ironically. Regardless of your stance, it is going into your system and wreaking the same havoc as it is with anyone else.
The pattern of indulging in something that we know is bad for us is one of addiction.
The things that we are addicted to will ruin us in the end. The things that our society is addicted to will ruin us all if we are not careful.
If you can do better then you must.Be honest about your dependencies.
Be strong.
Fight your addictions.
Just as those who are tall must stand tall and avoid slouching or stooping lest they risk problems in later life; those who are morally tall must also strive to stand at their full height.
Our culture vulgarizes us and encourages us all to stoop down. We must fight against its influence and stand at our true height, whatever it may be.
We must stop pandering to a culture that is beneath us. By engaging in it, even if only ironically, we are propping it up and ensuring its existence.
Do it not only for yourself, but for those who are relying on you to show them the way.
Do what you can.
Those who know better must act better.
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In the Mysteries, celibacy is reserved for those who have reached a certain degree of spiritual unfoldment. When advocated for the mass of unenlightened humanity, however, it becomes a dangerous heresy, fatal alike to both religion and philosophy.
[Manly P. Hall]
'Qabbalistic Keys to the Creation of Man', The Secret Teachings of All Ages, p.378
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Related posts:-
Sailing the Turbulent Seas
Only Playing
You or The Work
Sell Out
Perils of Radical Subjectivity
Life Amongst the Rubble
Playing With Your Self
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Serious - Playful
Solid - Liquid
Actuality - Potentiality
Closed - Open
Rest - Motion
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We realize that what we like and what our tastes are don’t necessarily define the spirit of what we truly are deep down inside. And that we should have fun with our tastes.
Those pursuits—searching out songs, finding out about artists, or just experiences that entertain us, that delight us — that’s what makes life fun and worth living.
And I want us to remember how playful that should be. And the minute it starts to hold us back or feel stressful, or that we have to cling too hard to any one idea of ourselves, it’s just good to step back and kind of remember that it’s all just supposed to be fun. So I guess that means to not take things too seriously.
[Andrew WK]
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In the organizational context, Nevis saw resistance to change--for example, someone's refusing to "join in"--as an expression of the differentiation of opposites (polar differentiation) [...]
Seeing this resistance as an inner conflict - rather than just seeing the loner as being obstinate - the Gestalt practitioner has something to work with [...]
One could, for example, ask the individual to experiment with what it feels like to move in the direction of one pole or the other. In so doing, he can begin to see his resistance as a matter of choices, and become aware that he is being pulled in different directions by opposing (and equally valid) needs.
[Herb Stevenson]
'Paradox: A Gestalt Theory of Change'
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Do you believe you can know yourselves if you don't somehow construct yourselves? ... We can only know what we succeed in giving form to.
Ah, you believe only houses are constructed? I construct myself continually and I construct you, and you do the same.
And the construction lasts as long as the material of our feelings doesn't crumble and as long as the cement of our will lasts.
Why do you believe firmness of will is so highly touted, and constancy of feelings? The former has only to waver a little, and the latter has only to be altered by one degree or change ever so slightly, and it's goodbye to our reality! We realize immediately that it was only our delusion.
Firmness of will, then. Constancy of feelings. Hang on, hang on, to avoid these plunges into the void, to keep from encountering these unwelcome surprises.
But, oh! what fine constructions result.
[Luigi Pirandello]
One, No One & One Hundred Thousand, p.41, 42
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Sickness, in Pirandello as in many other great writers, is experienced as a situation in which all automatic behavior is suspended and the perceptive faculties, outside of the normal rules, seem to expand and see "with other eyes".
'One, No one and One Hundred Thousand'
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Related posts:-
The Colour Wheel
Sailing the Turbulent Seas
The Oak and the Stream
Walk a Straight Line
Incursions of the unknown
Hold it Still
Don't commit to it
Shedding Skin
Status Quo
Satisfying Narratives
Guiding Fiction
Creative Partnerships
Do Not Disturb
Break-down
A Safe Space
Serious - Playful
Solid - Liquid
Actuality - Potentiality
Closed - Open
Rest - Motion
................................................................................................................................................................................
We realize that what we like and what our tastes are don’t necessarily define the spirit of what we truly are deep down inside. And that we should have fun with our tastes.Those pursuits—searching out songs, finding out about artists, or just experiences that entertain us, that delight us — that’s what makes life fun and worth living.
And I want us to remember how playful that should be. And the minute it starts to hold us back or feel stressful, or that we have to cling too hard to any one idea of ourselves, it’s just good to step back and kind of remember that it’s all just supposed to be fun. So I guess that means to not take things too seriously.
[Andrew WK]
................................................................................................................................................................................
In the organizational context, Nevis saw resistance to change--for example, someone's refusing to "join in"--as an expression of the differentiation of opposites (polar differentiation) [...]
Seeing this resistance as an inner conflict - rather than just seeing the loner as being obstinate - the Gestalt practitioner has something to work with [...]
One could, for example, ask the individual to experiment with what it feels like to move in the direction of one pole or the other. In so doing, he can begin to see his resistance as a matter of choices, and become aware that he is being pulled in different directions by opposing (and equally valid) needs.
[Herb Stevenson]
'Paradox: A Gestalt Theory of Change'
................................................................................................................................................................................
Ah, you believe only houses are constructed? I construct myself continually and I construct you, and you do the same.
And the construction lasts as long as the material of our feelings doesn't crumble and as long as the cement of our will lasts.
Why do you believe firmness of will is so highly touted, and constancy of feelings? The former has only to waver a little, and the latter has only to be altered by one degree or change ever so slightly, and it's goodbye to our reality! We realize immediately that it was only our delusion.
Firmness of will, then. Constancy of feelings. Hang on, hang on, to avoid these plunges into the void, to keep from encountering these unwelcome surprises.
But, oh! what fine constructions result.
[Luigi Pirandello]
One, No One & One Hundred Thousand, p.41, 42
................................................................................................................................................................................
Sickness, in Pirandello as in many other great writers, is experienced as a situation in which all automatic behavior is suspended and the perceptive faculties, outside of the normal rules, seem to expand and see "with other eyes".
'One, No one and One Hundred Thousand'
................................................................................................................................................................................
Related posts:-
The Colour Wheel
Sailing the Turbulent Seas
The Oak and the Stream
Walk a Straight Line
Incursions of the unknown
Hold it Still
Don't commit to it
Shedding Skin
Status Quo
Satisfying Narratives
Guiding Fiction
Creative Partnerships
Do Not Disturb
Break-down
A Safe Space
From Postmodern to Altermodern
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[...] there's a need for a new cultural era now.
We're at an early point in a new century. One hundred years ago exactly, the cultural idea that came to be known as Modernism was starting to gel. Now, sure, it's possible that the era we've been in for the last fifty years or so -- which Charles Jencks, from the late 1970s onwards, influenced others to call Postmodernism -- could just hang around forever.
From inside its palace of mirrors I've often wondered how on earth we could escape from its mechanisms: irony, quotation, the collapse of high and low, here and there, now and then, art and commerce.
Postmodernism was so slippery, so able to glom on new styles from any era or any culture and make them part of itself, so "right" for our age of global consumerism, that it seemed to me that we'd need Islamic revolution, or communist revolution, to break its grip.
What's the problem with Postmodernism? In some ways I love Postmodernism; my Wikipedia entry (and I have no idea who wrote it) squeezes the word "postmodern" into the second sentence: "Most of his songs are self-referential or postmodern."
I actually think this was completely unnecessary to say, though, because every pop musician recording in capitalist countries between 1957 and 2007 has been postmodern. The form of pop music we've known has been absolutely central to postmodernism's whole enterprise. Recently, I've had a strong sense that the medium of pop music has died, drowning in the abyss of ubiquity -- exhausted by attempts to match its former glories, yet unable to turn the page and reinvent itself.
One thing that could revitalize pop music and other cultural forms exhausted by their own continuous vampirism of other times, other cultures, and, finally, desperately, their own past, is that act of page-turning.
I have decided to take Nicolas Bourriaud's declaration that postmodernism is dead very seriously indeed, precisely because I think it comes at the right time, and there's a need to declare this now.
[Momus]
................................................................................................................................................................................
Related posts:-
Living in the Post-modern
Optimism (as cultural rebellion)
Tasteful Distance
[...] there's a need for a new cultural era now.
We're at an early point in a new century. One hundred years ago exactly, the cultural idea that came to be known as Modernism was starting to gel. Now, sure, it's possible that the era we've been in for the last fifty years or so -- which Charles Jencks, from the late 1970s onwards, influenced others to call Postmodernism -- could just hang around forever.
From inside its palace of mirrors I've often wondered how on earth we could escape from its mechanisms: irony, quotation, the collapse of high and low, here and there, now and then, art and commerce.
Postmodernism was so slippery, so able to glom on new styles from any era or any culture and make them part of itself, so "right" for our age of global consumerism, that it seemed to me that we'd need Islamic revolution, or communist revolution, to break its grip.
What's the problem with Postmodernism? In some ways I love Postmodernism; my Wikipedia entry (and I have no idea who wrote it) squeezes the word "postmodern" into the second sentence: "Most of his songs are self-referential or postmodern."
I actually think this was completely unnecessary to say, though, because every pop musician recording in capitalist countries between 1957 and 2007 has been postmodern. The form of pop music we've known has been absolutely central to postmodernism's whole enterprise. Recently, I've had a strong sense that the medium of pop music has died, drowning in the abyss of ubiquity -- exhausted by attempts to match its former glories, yet unable to turn the page and reinvent itself.
One thing that could revitalize pop music and other cultural forms exhausted by their own continuous vampirism of other times, other cultures, and, finally, desperately, their own past, is that act of page-turning.
I have decided to take Nicolas Bourriaud's declaration that postmodernism is dead very seriously indeed, precisely because I think it comes at the right time, and there's a need to declare this now.
[Momus]
................................................................................................................................................................................
Related posts:-
Living in the Post-modern
Optimism (as cultural rebellion)
Tasteful Distance
TOTP vs Popworld
Should we be sad? Probably not. TOTP was only really worth watching for those moments when defiantly underground music somehow gatecrashed the charts.
Seeing this show, with its eternal Smashey and Nicey-ness, try and accommodate things like acid house was always fun.
TOTP had to try to appeal to both 'the kids,' and their Daily Mail-reading parents, a gloriously impossible task that gave rise to the odd moments of TV gold, such as Altern8 donning chemical suits and bring 'ardkore to the nation's living rooms or Nirvana's very obviously mimed performance of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,' a masterpiece in the art of piss-taking.
But recently, with the charts buried in the living death of neo-AOR and X-Factor sludge, those moments where TOTP could be a clash of very different worlds have become few and far between. And so, the programme lost its point, settling down very comfortably to men on stools singing ballads.
While I don't mourn the passing of TOTP, I do hate what its passing says about TV and pop culture in general. See, it's all about context: in particular, the rise of channel 4's Popworld, its every success mirrored by TOTP further sliding into oblivion.
TOTP was, at least, genuinely enthusiastic about pop music, gamely trying (and dismally failing) to understand all this new-fangled stuff where you couldn't even hear the words. Popworld, by comparison, doesn't - can't - show enthusiasm for anything, except its own cleverness.
For Popworld, everything is to be smirked at: pop music exists as the object of a snide putdown and nothing more. Everything is wrapped around invisible, ironic quotation marks. Actually, scratch the 'invisible': presenter Miquita Oliver's hands routinely flail into the air, out of her control, and you can tell that, deep down, she wants to do those little inverted commas, over and over again, but she stops herself at the last second, aware that such a gesture just wouldn't be cool.
That's sad, hateful and pathetic, of course. But, perhaps more importantly, it's also just very boring. The presenters' self consciously display their boredom towards those around them, but, really, there's little more tedious than a smirking, passionless smartarse sneering in an impeccably arch manner.
TOTP might have been shit, but its cheerfully enthusiastic heart was in the right place. Popworld, by contrast, doesn't have a heart at all.
[Simon Hampson]
Found in FACT magazine
Related posts:-
The Perils of Radical Subjectivity
Life Amongst the Rubble
Tasteful Distance
Only Playing
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