Released 16/11/16 on BBC iPlayer, Hypernormalisation is Adam Curtis’ critique of globalization, politics, media and perception.
At its core, Adam Curtis hopes to convince the viewer that the many systems of control have willingly turned perception into a soap opera, so effectively, that no one is able to escape its vision.
Through many examples both well known and esoteric, Adam Curtis weaves an entertaining story. The story, music, and post modern abstractions create a documentary that is sometimes more heady and terrifying that it is often difficult to digest. Sometimes it doesn’t come across as a documentary but an alternative history using cues and players from the real world.
The failures that Adam Curtis points to is both defining a complex reality on a simple statistical model, and the pitfalls of making lies the reality for the public. No one seems innocent in this diagnosis. The political class from the US and Russia are the main antagonists, playing out their lies in an interconnected web involving economists, intelligence analysts, political scientists. The financial world is represented as a force that wants for stability and profit on aggregate, yet not all its parts share this vision and can set off a domino effect. The power of liberal counterculture becoming lame in the face of misinformation and ineffective strategies. The general public for being docile and detached from the political process.
Adam Curtis uses many stories and examples, that are interconnected but all conspire to give an unpredictable and devastating outcome.
While there are some convincing arguments made, Curtis fails to logically connect some of his points. Physicist and card counter Jess Marcum is associated with research into nuclear bombs. Both mysterious and terrifying. Curtis points to his statistical analysis failure in predicting the loss of Donald Trump’s money. Even the most brilliant minds cannot bring stability apparently. Yet in this story, Jess Marcum actually predicted the outcome of a high stakes card game. An isolated event, in which he was correct
Adam Curtis constructs a kind of horror based on our lack of knowledge, based on our knowledge being based on lies. I personally agree to some extent that lack of knowledge is an issue. Perfect information would lead to a predictable model. Yet some groups profit from misinformation, protecting their own interests, and creating losers in net positive games.
Creating instability is the strategy of those who seek to profit. The solution as always is greater education and enabling the impoverished and underclasses.
Adam Curtis has created an entertaining and sometimes informative piece of work. It is certainly work a look but one should be wary of the overuse of the doom impending soundtrack.
Epistemimic 