The Slow Cancellation of the Future

“Lately I’ve been feeling like Guy Pearce in Memento” - Drake

Russell Brand’s two-part conversation with Adam Curtis on Under The Skin unpacks Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, Curtis’ remarkable new six-part BBC series that I streamed via YouTube earlier this year (you can listen to a taster here).

While their opinions over the current malaise of global politics were divided, they nonetheless shared common ground over the stark theories of the late Mark Fisher. I’d never heard of the British theorist but found this YouTube lecture from 2014 strangely comforting.  

It led me to order a copy of Ghosts Of My Life, his third and final publication before taking his own life. The British theorist puts forth a bold claim in its opening pages. He charges that musical innovation and its imprint on the culture has been superseded within the twenty-first century. Fisher levels the blame at technological innovation. The constant acceleration of daily life compelling a collective demand for nostalgic facsimiles of yesteryear.

In the age of social handles, when so much of the cultural zeitgeist is driven by the whims of a group of self-appointed ambassadors, we need to have the courage to stray from the centre when inspiration calls our name.

That is the responsibility we owe to ourselves and our dreams.

Xo