Here we are, last week before the arrival of the inmmersive, fascinanting, hipnotic "Spaces" conference which will be held 2,3 and 4 of October in the University of Murcia. While everyone is finisihing their speeches, here it is a fascinanting piece that it has been resonating into my mind in the last days. The powerful trailer of Adam Curtis collaboration with Massive Attack called (obviously) "Adam curtis vs Massive Attack".
Memory, forgetting and the idea of space, all together during the Manchester Festival of Music.
Enjoy this last week before our glamorous conference! a storm is coming!
“Presented in Black and White digital 4K projection, Visitors reveals humanity’s trancelike relationship with technology, which, when commandeered by extreme emotional states, produces massive effects far beyond the human species. The film is visceral, offering the audience an experience beyond information about the moment in which we live. Comprised of only seventy-four shots, VISITORS takes viewers on a journey to the moon and back to confront them with themselves.
Werner Herzog said of The Act of Killing, "I have not seen a film as powerful, surreal, and frightening in at least a decade...it is unprecedented in the history of cinema."
One of the first things I proposed to myself before starting to look for ideas to cover posts and articles was just the simple, random but necessary question: what is culture? Here I will introduce two quotes that, for very different reasons, inspire my desire of continuing studying Culture Studies.
Raymond Williams say that
“culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested. These are the ordinary processes of human societies and human minds, and we see through them the nature of a culture: that it is always both traditional and creative; that it is both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. We use the word culture in these two senses: to mean a whole way of life--the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning--the special processes of discovery and creative effort.” –
On the other hand, ― Chuck Palahniuk expresses a very emotive declaration about the negotiations of culture and people:
“The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.”
Regarding this last comment I cannot avoid thinking of this video. I saw it two years ago and believe it to be useful for any culture researcher. Motivation is always important to remind us not where we started, but what keeps us moving forward, looking for new ideas, exploring, investigating. And never, never surrender.
Hi all! My name is Jose Manuel Sala, I am currently a PhD student at the Culture and Media Studies department at the University of Murcia. I finished my degree at English and Culture Studies at the University of Leeds and I studied my Master of Contemporary Literature from Leeds Metropolitan University. I am starting to develop my study about memory and identity represented in television series of the last decade.
In my blogging I will post some brief articles, YouTube videos, twisted comments, rhetorical observations about reality, technology, art, literature or any simply random suggestions to anyone studying the same aspects of the cultural aspects of the day by day. I will try to justify (in a very polite way) why authors such as Jean Baudrillard, Derrida, Adorno or Freud can be important in our society in order to (try to) understand how people can connect to each other. Culture Studies is one of the most enriching and innovating aspects to rediscover every aspect of our lives.
continuing studying Culture Studies.