HyperNormalisation ( 2016 ) by Adam Curtis

constructed fake world

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New York 1975 - Patti Smith : it’s a mood of disillusion, “I could not identify with the political movements any longer. All the manic activity in the streets. I’m trying to join them. I felt overwhelmed by yet another form of bureaucracy.

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Rise of a new powerful individualism, that could not fit with the idea of collective political action.

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Instead Patti Smith and many others became a new kind of individual radical. Not active, they turned to art and music to express their feelings towards the political climate.

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“Instead of trying to change the outside, their new idea was to change what was inside people’s heads and the way to do this was through self - expression. Not collective action.

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ironic coolness, a whole generation loosing touch with the reality of power ( new york)

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Soviet Union: idea of transforming the world for people to become new and better human beings. 1980’s dream had failed. A society where no one believed anything or had any vision of the future. So much a part of the system, that it was impossible to see beyond it. Impossible to control everything. Fake version of society emerged - the fairness was hyper normal.

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Roadside picnic - soviet science fiction book - shadows go the wrong way, reality changes minute by minute, what you see and believe had become unstable

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LSD in the 60’s: new realities that are usually hidden, It freed them from the narrow world that was imposed on them by politicians and those in power.

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Like with Acid, machines as a real alternate universe, a place where you would be liberated from the old corrupt hierarchies of politics and power, explore new ways of being

TRW ( company), that helped build systems supporting the cold war. After they developed a system of credit and depth that where used by the bank to decide on who to give credit. Power of finance, knowing more and more about you, giant network of information.

USA: politics blurring of fact and fiction, Perception Management, US Government distracting people and politicians of having to deal with the complexity of the real world. Anything could be Anything. Reality is something that you handle.

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German left wing politician Ulrich Beck said that, the post cold war world was a runaway world, things so complex and interconnected, that it was impossible to predict the outcome of anything you did.

In an age of individualism, what made people feel secure, was having themselves reflected back to them. Just like a mirror.

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AI changed direction and started to create new systems that did just that but at larger scale. Intelligent Agents, that worked by monitoring individuals by gathering vast amounts of data about their past behaviour and looked for patterns and correlations from which they could predict what they would want in the future. A system that was centred around you. And in an age of anxious individualism frightened of the future, that was reassuring. A safe bubble that protected you from the complications of the outside world.

Predict what they want and how they behave - In the real world not everything can be predicted.

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Internet: people presenting themselves how they want to be perceived

Individuals began to move into bubbles that isolated them from enormous amounts of other information.

connect together as individuals and equals - occupy movement

Arab Spring - democracy seemed to be flourishing , people coming together

Libya - Gadaffi stopped being hero of the west

no vision of the future - revolution without an idea - movement stalled

What is true of false?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/hypernormalisation

Research: Phase 2

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