GOPHER'S FAVOURITE DOCUMENTARY MAKER I found a scrap of paper with a Gopher URL hurridly scribbled on it sitting next to my old mid-90s PC from which I like to browse the text-only side of the internet. I don't really remember how it got there, but it's among the company of many others which have built up recently, especially since publishing my own little gopher hole. I keep checking it breifly while I'm meant to be doing other things, seeing that it's still exactly how I left it (whoah, big surprise), then to fill the void left by this unsatisfying investigation I set out to find something else of interest. Then wow! I find a great phlog or some other content, but immediately realise that if I look at it properly I'll never get back to whatever I'm meant to be doing. So I tear a corner off of a piece of paper and scribble down the URL, to be deposited next to the computer designated for such unproductive activities. Today's paper scrap pointed me at: gopher://dataswamp.org/1/%7elich Actually I'd already read one post there before, and I found it today as my most recent bookmark in Gopher, but grant me a bit of artistic licence here won't you? "How do we get past platforms?" seems to be a good example of a phlog post folding in on itself and managing to get spat out onto the network just shy of being confronted with the author's Delete button, but it's an interesting read nonetheless: gopher://dataswamp.org:70/0/%7elich/musings/past-platforms.md [And yeah, I'm not going to follow the footnote style of linking. I prefer it this way, put up with it] But the thing that really grabbed me was _yet another_ reference to an Adam Curtis documentary, this time not The Century of the Self, but All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. You just don't see that much reference to Curtis docos around Usenet and the web. In fact I don't remember seeing any on the former (yeah yeah, I know it's practically dead), and on the latter only when I'm specifically searching for them. Somehow Gopher (or maybe IRC and Mastodon (I don't care what you say, my mind jumps to "masturbation" every time I start to read that name), but unlike many others here I don't use those) seems to have accidentally brought together a little Adam Curtis fan club. I'm sure not everyone with content on Gopher likes his docos, but I for one certinly agree that they are wonderful on both counts of entertainment and insight. It wasn't Gopher that first put me on to them though, I found them the old fashioned way back when I was a teenager and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace premiered on SBS (a partially government funded Australian TV station specialising (theoretically) in somewhat niche/foreign content). It was shown in the UK in 2011 but could have been a year or two before it reached Aus (you'd think these things still had to come on a ship). I first chose to watch it because the ads suggested that it had something to do with computers, but of course as soon as it started I was completely sucked in by the history, social analysis, and unique use of archival footage. I don't think I had any luck at pushing friends at school to follow it. Heck hardly anyone in my year probably watched _any_ documentaries when they weren't being forced to by a teacher (whereas I'd already seen some of the ones being shown, and even suggested a few of them). I was hooked though - soon hitting Wikipedia to read up on Adam Curtis and finding the table there of his past productions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis - gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Adam%20Curtis The Internet Archive then had most of his docos for download (they've since mostly been taken down, presumably by the BBC, though there aren't any official DVDs or anything because the BBC can't get permission for all of the archive footage that Curtis uses to be sold commercially - anything on Ebay is probably a fake), so over many hours with the free internet computers at the local library (I wasn't allowed to download anything sizable at home unless it was the end of the month and there was data left in the quota) I amassed the full Curtis collection. After each downloading session I'd have some evenings sat in front of my loudly whirring computer, swivel chair replaced by an old sitting chair from the 70s, some second-hand headphones of the same era making sure that no parents heard any islamic war cries echoing out from The Power of Nightmares and concluded that I was being radicalised on the internet. Making my way right from Pandora's Box through to the latest installment where I began. By the end of an episode there'd be that pause of wonder while my mind would churn over everything it had seen and try to remember how it all went together - not always successful, but I liked it anyway. Then there might be some searches on the web trying to dig up some more details on things that had been mentioned, though these were often mixed between tons of information that makes one appreciate Curtis' ability to summarise (albeit often from an angle that benefits his own message), and complete failures to find reference on the web to events that Curtis had dug up from forgotten books and/or BBC news footage. Today the documentaries can be most easily found at: https://thoughtmaybe.com/by/adam-curtis/ If you want to download, search the video page source code for "mp4" and last time I tried the complete download links were still there in plain text. Or maybe their player actually has a button for a download link - I don't allow such scripts to run in the first place. But besides the documentaries, I also found Adam Curtis' excellent blog, then still regularly updated with new stories accompanied by archive footage (which I found a way to download using rtmpdump and following the trail of XML files used) and images. Even a "rough cut" documentary "Every Day is Like Sunday" found its way there, and in typical Curtis style no mention of a finished version has ever been made since: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/2016/10 Sadly he seems to have adandoned that, even though Wikipedia used to claim that it was once the most visited blog on the BBC website (not sure what competition it had at the time though). Hours of reading to be enjoyed going over his old posts though, in fact I've probably forgotten enough that I could start over and read/watch through them all again. His last two documentaries weren't shown on TV but made as movie-length productions for iPlayer, also probably avoiding issues with some of the more graphic content. They rely more on narrative than interviews, which personally I don't like as much. I think he used interviews well in the TV documentaries, by letting them run and tell a story while at the same time leaving in some of the perculiarities and charisma of the people being interviewed, trusting the viewer to still be able to follow the story without cutting down to single statements. The locations and framing of the interviews are great as well, especially when they so contrast with the story being told. I did still enjoy the iPlayer docos though, and Bitter Lake seems to have been quite well received even though Hypernormalisation seemed to be less of a success. I do think that Curtis has pretty much exhausted ways to express the message that he said himself formed a common thread from The Century of the Self (did he include this one? I think so), The Power of Nightmares, The Trap, and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace; about manipulation of society by different actors in the name of new, individual, freedoms. His series in the 90s: Pandora's Box, The Living Dead, and The Mayfair Set, were facinating without taking on a wider, or at least so clearly defined, social message. Also his single documentaries on the collapse of Barings Bank, and cancer research based on the cells of Henrietta Lacks, work well with his unique style. I'd say that The Mayfair Set is actually my favourite series by Curtis overall. Recently Curtis has been behind the visual design of concerts by the band Massive Attack, reported to be decidedly unconventional. The Guardian seems to be good at following him: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/adam-curtis Documentary-wise, the last word was about a nine (nine!) part doco with the working title "What Is It That Is Coming?": https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/18/adam-curtis-and-vice-director-adam-mckay-on-how-dick-cheney-masterminded-a-rightwing-revolution Given how little of Curtis' produced work corresponds to what he claims to be working on earlier, "What Is It That Is Coming?" seems about the right question. One can only wait and see. While you're waiting, here's one other interview with Curtis published a few years back: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/32/68236/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-i/ https://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-ii/ And here's an article that Curtis write for The Guardian to promote All Watched Over by Machines of Loving grace, in a similar style to his blog posts: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tansley-smuts --- IDEA Not really worth putting in the Ideas section, but I've long wanted to set up a Wiki for Adam Curtis documentary fans. In particular for building up references and deeper research into some of the topics that he touches on in his docos and blog posts, perhaps even to the point of contradicting some of his statements. To much work though, especially to build up enough initial content myself, and I'm not sure if it would attract the right crowd. - The Free Thinker.