I entered academia at the moment when the way power works in the modern world was basically becoming much wider and far more intricate. It flowed through culture and consumerism and public relations. It flowed through scientific ideas, and how those scientific ideas were then taken up and turned into technocratic dreams—and dystopias. It flowed through modern ideas drawn from psychotherapy and how to express yourself as an individual. I instinctively recognized that this had happened, but I had no idea how to deal with it, because academia hadn’t realized it yet. So in a way I turned my back on academia and went into television, went to the other extreme. I learned how to do trash. A few years later I worked out that one of the the ways you could tell stories about the workings of modern political power, in ways that political journalists didn’t understand, is through bolting it together with trash techniques. I put jokes in, silliness, self-referential bits about modern culture, and storytelling and emotion—all things I learned through doing trash television.
In Conversation with Adam Curtis, Part I | e-flux
This is cool, but holy shit, this interview gets so good. Adam Curtis is so good at seeing the big picture, and so energetic and enthusiastic about ways of picturing it.
Also, what he’s talking about sounds like pure Foucault, so you know, the academy wasn’t too far behind you there, bro.
(via towerofsleep)
(via notational)
