0:00:02 > 0:00:04Hello and welcome to The Culture Show.
0:00:04 > 0:00:07I'm at the Southbank Centre here in London,
0:00:07 > 0:00:09a city limbering up for this summer's Olympics.
0:00:09 > 0:00:14Over the next six weeks we will be bringing you highlights of The London 2012 Festival,
0:00:14 > 0:00:18which is a truly nationwide finale to the Cultural Olympiad.
0:00:18 > 0:00:24We'll also be bringing you the very best of the rest from the world of arts and culture.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31This week, Miranda Sawyer finds out why everyone is smiling for Yoko Ono.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33- Beautiful, beautiful.- OK, ready?
0:00:35 > 0:00:41Martin Amis introduces James Runcie to the lucky lotto lout at the heart of his latest novel.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45I find out what happens when artists take over the classroom.
0:00:45 > 0:00:50- It's reportage.- Get out.- Get out? - Yes, please.
0:00:50 > 0:00:52Thank you.
0:00:52 > 0:00:57And we have a rare performance from the Pina Bausch Dance Company.
0:01:00 > 0:01:06But, first, take the surreal style of veteran film-maker David Cronenberg
0:01:06 > 0:01:10and add the box office appeal of rising star Robert Pattinson
0:01:10 > 0:01:13and you've got the metaphysical road movie called Cosmopolis.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17Mark Kermode took to the streets in style to meet the director
0:01:17 > 0:01:19and his leading man.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25Once dubbed the cinema of extreme,
0:01:25 > 0:01:29David Cronenberg's films span the heart-breaking body horror of The Fly...
0:01:29 > 0:01:33- We've got to get help. I think you must be sick.- You're jealous.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35..to the glacial chill of Crash...
0:01:35 > 0:01:38You've bought yourself the same car again.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45..each work exploring some of the most profound aspects of the human condition.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50Cronenberg's new film Cosmopolis is an intense psychosexual thriller
0:01:50 > 0:01:52from the postmodern novel by Don DeLillo.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55It follows Wall Street tycoon, Eric Packer,
0:01:55 > 0:01:57and his chauffeur-driven limo ride across town
0:01:57 > 0:02:00to get a haircut at his father's old barber.
0:02:00 > 0:02:02During the course of his journey,
0:02:02 > 0:02:05the world outside descends into financial and civil chaos
0:02:05 > 0:02:09triggering the personal and professional disintegration of Packer -
0:02:09 > 0:02:12played by Twilight star, Robert Pattinson.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14We know what the anarchists have always said.
0:02:15 > 0:02:17- Yes.- Tell me.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20The urge to destroy is the creative urge.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23As always with Cronenberg, subtext is supertext -
0:02:23 > 0:02:26the limo becomes Packer's exoskeleton,
0:02:26 > 0:02:30a capitalist carapace in which to exert his wealth, power and control.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35And whilst the casting of blockbuster frontman Pattinson
0:02:35 > 0:02:39as the quasi-psychopathic playboy may be a surprising move,
0:02:39 > 0:02:42he delivers a magnetically credible performance.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46A report from the complex, it's a credible threat not to be dismissed.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48Which means a ride across town is...
0:02:48 > 0:02:53We've had numerous threats, all credible. I'm still standing here.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55Hello, Robert, welcome to The Culture Show.
0:02:55 > 0:02:56Thank you very much.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00Thank you for having me in your limousine - very fancy!
0:03:00 > 0:03:04You said you were worried about being overexposed and typecast.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08I mean, the interesting thing about this character is that there is an element of vampirism about him.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11When I watch this, I think it's like a science fiction movie,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14it is like a horror, it has all those elements in it.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16Yeah, it's like a ghost story.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18Like, that's kinda what I thought about -
0:03:18 > 0:03:20everybody's dead in it,
0:03:20 > 0:03:23like, everyone's dead. The whole world is dead.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26But the vampire aspect of it, I don't think,
0:03:26 > 0:03:29cos he's not trying to take anything from the world.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31He's trying to create a new world,
0:03:31 > 0:03:33he's trying to create a new reality
0:03:33 > 0:03:36which is the opposite of being a parasite.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39You look gorgeous today.
0:03:39 > 0:03:45For someone who is 41 and finally understands what her problem is.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47What is that?
0:03:47 > 0:03:49Life is...
0:03:51 > 0:03:53..too...contemporary.
0:03:54 > 0:03:59The most difficult thing about watching the film is the silences between the words,
0:03:59 > 0:04:03because you're so used to hearing music or sound effects in those gaps.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06Also the structure of the limo when we were shooting it,
0:04:06 > 0:04:09especially the early scenes when you're trying to be confident
0:04:09 > 0:04:12and your voice sounds so dead.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14There's nothing, no reverberation.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17Everyone sounds like you're in shitty headphones
0:04:17 > 0:04:20and it was horrible for a second.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23Obviously, people know you from the movies,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26but, before that, you were doing Shakespeare on stage.
0:04:26 > 0:04:31You're used to projecting and using your voice theatrically, right?
0:04:31 > 0:04:34Not really. I mean, I did a Macbeth,
0:04:34 > 0:04:37which my only review was that no-one could hear me.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41So you're rubbish at projecting?
0:04:41 > 0:04:44I got fired from a play as well for not being loud enough.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48I've never learnt how to project,
0:04:48 > 0:04:50I thought that was like the Brando thing,
0:04:50 > 0:04:52that it could work in theatre.
0:04:52 > 0:04:54I didn't realise that Brando actually could project.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56So this is the ideal role for you,
0:04:56 > 0:04:59if you get fired from a play for not being loud enough -
0:04:59 > 0:05:03a completely silent limousine where everybody can hear every creak of your throat.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05Cronenberg's films make you feel uncomfortable -
0:05:05 > 0:05:09they make you feel uneasy. It is the cinema of unease, isn't it?
0:05:09 > 0:05:13Yeah, you have to be incredibly sympathetic to the movie,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15to a movie that's not sympathetic to you at all.
0:05:15 > 0:05:22Sure, a movie that doesn't present you with a likeable character for most of the running time.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25There was a review of it that said it was "aggressively unlovable" -
0:05:25 > 0:05:29which I thought was perfect - it should be on the poster.
0:05:29 > 0:05:33And I think that it really is that.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35But, I mean, I think that's so much better.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37It's not pandering to an audience, you know,
0:05:37 > 0:05:43it's respecting an audience and so, hopefully, that works.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47Show me something I don't know.
0:05:47 > 0:05:51- Robert, thank you very much. - Thank you very much.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54- Hello there!- Hello, David. Welcome to The Culture Show.
0:05:54 > 0:05:55Thank you.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00In terms of what the central character represents,
0:06:00 > 0:06:02when we were talking to Robert about it,
0:06:02 > 0:06:06he says he's not quite human, he's somebody he described as a ghost.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08How would you describe Packer?
0:06:08 > 0:06:11Well, of course, that's Rob talking after the fact,
0:06:11 > 0:06:16because I think no actor wants to play an abstract concept.
0:06:16 > 0:06:23It's impossible to play yourself as the symbol of American capitalism for example.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26An actor would freak out if you said you're playing this symbol,
0:06:26 > 0:06:31because actors have to use their bodies, they have to use the reality of the other character
0:06:31 > 0:06:33and the reality of the dialogue.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36So I think he's a real person.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41The line which stayed with me most from the film is, you know,
0:06:41 > 0:06:44money is losing its narrative and money is now talking to itself.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47- Yes.- And I don't think I understood what it meant at the time,
0:06:47 > 0:06:49but it stayed in my head.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52These guys are making money by making money and producing money
0:06:52 > 0:06:55and that's it, it's all a closed circle,
0:06:55 > 0:06:58there's nothing else going on.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00There's no escape from the money circle,
0:07:00 > 0:07:04and that's, in a sense, money talking to itself, that's the way I interpret it.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08You've dealt previously with the idea of cars, both in Fast Company,
0:07:08 > 0:07:10and, most famously, Crash.
0:07:10 > 0:07:15Tell me about the philosophy of what the car means to you. I know you're a car enthusiast.
0:07:15 > 0:07:20I am a car enthusiast, but this movie is not a car enthusiast movie,
0:07:20 > 0:07:24- because the car isn't really even a car. I mean, technically... - It's a spaceship.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27It is a spaceship, it's also a prison,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30it becomes... It's a coffin.
0:07:30 > 0:07:32It's a seat of power,
0:07:32 > 0:07:34and it makes his limo a spaceship,
0:07:34 > 0:07:38a kind of vacuum tube, you know? There's no air in it.
0:07:38 > 0:07:43He lives this bubble life that begins to suffocate him and frustrate him
0:07:43 > 0:07:48to the point that he wants to escape from the life that he's created.
0:07:48 > 0:07:49Where's your car?
0:07:51 > 0:07:53We can't seem to find it.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57- David, thank you very much.- Thank you. Thank you for the wild ride.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04And Cosmopolis is in cinemas now.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07Next, from one of the most famous actors on the planet
0:08:07 > 0:08:12to a woman once described by John Lennon as "the world's most famous unknown artist".
0:08:12 > 0:08:16But, now, with a new exhibition showcasing five decades of her work,
0:08:16 > 0:08:20we can now all get to know the artist that is Yoko Ono a little bit better.
0:08:25 > 0:08:26In the last few years,
0:08:26 > 0:08:30DJs have started crashing out remixed tracks like this one.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37And a generation of topless men
0:08:37 > 0:08:40and bikini'd party girls punched their arms in the air.
0:08:40 > 0:08:46But I wonder if any of them would have recognised that breathy, unearthly vocal.
0:08:46 > 0:08:48I would have - it's Yoko Ono.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51Although she has been making music all her life,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53it was her conceptual art that first got her noticed.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56And it still does today.
0:08:58 > 0:09:00As far back as 1964,
0:09:00 > 0:09:04performance works like Cut Piece challenged what art could be.
0:09:06 > 0:09:08Here, a seated Yoko invited members of the audience
0:09:08 > 0:09:10to cut away her clothing.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13And when she reworked Cut Piece almost 40 years later
0:09:13 > 0:09:16it still had the power to shock.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20So, Yoko, we are here at the Serpentine
0:09:20 > 0:09:25and you've chosen to show two of your Cut Pieces opposite each other.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29- Yes.- How do you feel when you look at those pieces?
0:09:29 > 0:09:31Obviously, they're from different times of your life?
0:09:31 > 0:09:34When I see what I did in the '60s -
0:09:34 > 0:09:37innocence, innocence is what comes to my mind.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42And, well, the one I did in 2003
0:09:42 > 0:09:45looks like somebody who went through a shock!
0:09:45 > 0:09:47A shocking life. Which was true.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50It's also interesting, because it has a different meaning,
0:09:50 > 0:09:52because you have a different meaning.
0:09:52 > 0:09:57Well, yes, my life was very different from what I expected
0:09:57 > 0:09:59and that shows.
0:09:59 > 0:10:00But it was not just that,
0:10:00 > 0:10:05I was feeling about expressing how women are treated
0:10:05 > 0:10:08as well as how we can survive it
0:10:08 > 0:10:12by allowing people to do things that they want to do,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15instead of just insisting what we want to do.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19So there were many levels of message in that.
0:10:19 > 0:10:21That's interesting what you say,
0:10:21 > 0:10:24cos that's slightly against the feminist grain -
0:10:24 > 0:10:26the idea that you can be a strong and experienced woman
0:10:26 > 0:10:28and do what you want to do
0:10:28 > 0:10:31while letting other people do what they wish with you.
0:10:31 > 0:10:32You have to do both.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37Nowadays, conceptual art is quite common, back then it was not -
0:10:37 > 0:10:38it was quite shocking to people.
0:10:38 > 0:10:39Well, I'm shocked -
0:10:39 > 0:10:42I'm shocked, because people are talking about conceptual art
0:10:42 > 0:10:45as something that's there and it wasn't.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47And how was it received, that work?
0:10:47 > 0:10:50Well, I think that people thought...
0:10:51 > 0:10:53They didn't know what to make of it.
0:10:54 > 0:10:58That's quite a common reaction to your work though, don't you think?
0:10:58 > 0:11:01Maybe, but now it's starting to get focused.
0:11:01 > 0:11:09It's like all my pieces were in a fog or something and the fog lifted.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12'It would seem that it's technology that has guided Ono's work
0:11:12 > 0:11:14'out of that fog,
0:11:14 > 0:11:18'and it's made her fanciful concepts from the '60s become real.
0:11:18 > 0:11:22'When her vision, Parts of a Light House, was presented in 1965
0:11:22 > 0:11:24'it was no more than an idea,
0:11:24 > 0:11:28'but, in 2007, technology caught up with her imagination
0:11:28 > 0:11:31'and it became her most monumental work to date -
0:11:31 > 0:11:34'the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland.
0:11:36 > 0:11:40'This colossal column of light employs prisms and 15 lasers
0:11:40 > 0:11:43'to shoot light vertically to the heavens.'
0:11:43 > 0:11:44Power to the people!
0:11:44 > 0:11:47'Another recently-realised artwork
0:11:47 > 0:11:51'was inspired by a line from a self-published brochure in 1967.
0:11:51 > 0:11:56'It was Yoko's fanciful quest to collect every smile in the world.
0:11:56 > 0:12:01'John Lennon's smile was one of the first to be harvested -
0:12:01 > 0:12:04'captured by Yoko in this slow motion film from 1968
0:12:04 > 0:12:07'as a portrait that moves.'
0:12:07 > 0:12:12I first wanted someone to smile and I thought, well, John is a good one,
0:12:12 > 0:12:15because he represents the world - so let him do it.
0:12:15 > 0:12:21With John smiling, I thought of that as a portrait on the wall
0:12:21 > 0:12:23and you see him just sort of like...
0:12:23 > 0:12:25You see his face.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28And one day you just look and he just smiles.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31I thought that would be very, very interesting.
0:12:31 > 0:12:36'Now, new media has caught up with Yoko's conceptual idea
0:12:36 > 0:12:39'and her quest for smiles has gone global.'
0:12:40 > 0:12:41Hi, this is Yoko.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44The Smiles film is what I always wanted to do
0:12:44 > 0:12:48and now we are doing it and it's great.
0:12:48 > 0:12:54And now your Smile has developed into a kind of app and people can upload
0:12:54 > 0:12:57their own smiles, so eventually you may get everybody.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00The communication media developed so much
0:13:00 > 0:13:04so now it can do it in so many ways and I am so thankful.
0:13:04 > 0:13:09'Think peace, act peace, spread peace and imagine peace.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12'Big kiss. I love you!'
0:13:12 > 0:13:15# We are smiling. #
0:13:15 > 0:13:17- Oh, you're looking very young. - Thank you!
0:13:17 > 0:13:20- That's just what I want to hear. - Yes, yes.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24- You're looking so good. - Thank you.- Thank you.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31To The Light is at the Serpentine Gallery in London until the 9th September.
0:13:31 > 0:13:37Next, a writer once described as the undisputed master of the new unpleasantness.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41Every Martin Amis novel causes a stir. It's an event.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44His latest, Lionel Asbo, is no exception.
0:13:44 > 0:13:49James Runcie met up with him, but first, we asked Owen Jones, the author of Chavs,
0:13:49 > 0:13:54for his take on Amis's latest working class anti-hero.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59Lionel Asbo is a no-holds-barred satire of the state of England
0:13:59 > 0:14:06and, from the vantage point of Britain's upper-middle-class literati, things look pretty bleak.
0:14:06 > 0:14:08The problem is Martin Amis is writing about
0:14:08 > 0:14:11a cardboard cut-out of broken Britain,
0:14:11 > 0:14:14caricaturing people he is no position to know anything about.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19The novel is set in the fictional deprived London Borough of Diston,
0:14:19 > 0:14:21where no-one makes it to 60.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25Lionel Asbo is a thuggish criminal who wins the Lottery
0:14:25 > 0:14:27and is catapulted to instant celebrity.
0:14:27 > 0:14:31Throughout, Amis draws on the traditional distinction
0:14:31 > 0:14:34between the deserving and the undeserving poor.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37Lionel Asbo isn't in his situation because he's thick.
0:14:37 > 0:14:38He's in it out of choice.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42But Amis also lampoons the so-called "undeserving rich" -
0:14:42 > 0:14:45those who supposedly become wealthy without talent
0:14:45 > 0:14:49and then spend their new-found dosh in a vulgar or a tacky fashion.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53Martin Amis draws from a long tradition of contempt
0:14:53 > 0:14:57for the lower orders among privileged liberal writers.
0:14:57 > 0:15:02In inter-war Britain, it was the likes of Virginia Woolf, HG Wells
0:15:02 > 0:15:06and even George Bernard Shaw who showed contempt for the unwashed masses.
0:15:06 > 0:15:11Woolf mused, "The poor have no chance, no manners, no self-control to protect themselves with.
0:15:11 > 0:15:14"We have a monopoly of all the generous feelings."
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Yes, there are real problems of deprivation
0:15:17 > 0:15:19and unemployment in many of our communities.
0:15:19 > 0:15:24But the real reasons behind these problems - like deindustrialisation or cuts - are rarely depicted,
0:15:24 > 0:15:29and Lionel Asbo's portrait reinforces a one-dimensional image.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36'Owen Jones isn't the first person to object to Martin Amis.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39'Few authors have proved so divisive.'
0:15:40 > 0:15:42Amis is a literary elitist.
0:15:42 > 0:15:46He can be snobbish, patronising, infuriating, contemptuous,
0:15:46 > 0:15:48and even sexist.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51But he is often horribly funny, at times he's a genius,
0:15:51 > 0:15:55and he's got one quality that eludes all too many authors.
0:15:55 > 0:15:57He cannot write a boring sentence.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01'In Money, Amis confronted the Thatcherite '80s
0:16:01 > 0:16:04'through narcissistic ad man John Self.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07'In postmodern murder mystery London Fields,
0:16:07 > 0:16:11'we met sex-mad darts player, Keith Talent.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15'His new book is a modern fairy tale, and Amis explores chav culture
0:16:15 > 0:16:19'and celebrity obsession through his cigarette-toting villain,
0:16:19 > 0:16:20'Lionel Asbo.'
0:16:24 > 0:16:29"Every couple of weeks, Lionel got the dogs pissed on Special Brews.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31"'Interesting, that,' thought Des.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35"In America, evidently, pissed meant angered or pissed off.
0:16:35 > 0:16:36"In England, pissed just meant drunk.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40"After six cans each of potent malt lager,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43"Jeff and Joe were pissed in both senses."
0:16:44 > 0:16:48What's the appeal of that kind of literary grotesque?
0:16:48 > 0:16:52You push them almost into caricature, they're sort of larger than life.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54What's the appeal about doing that?
0:16:54 > 0:16:58It's exciting having characters who do things that you would never do.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01Like having a violent character.
0:17:01 > 0:17:07And, again, it's to tame those violent atavisms that we see all around us.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10Reading a novel, you're...
0:17:10 > 0:17:14The covers of that novel are like bars of the cage
0:17:14 > 0:17:17and you can admire the crocodile and the tiger
0:17:17 > 0:17:21with no risk to yourself.
0:17:21 > 0:17:26John Updike said once, you know, why do we like monsters in fiction,
0:17:26 > 0:17:28why do we like the villains?
0:17:28 > 0:17:31And his answer to that was what we like is life.
0:17:31 > 0:17:37Some people, some characters are just more vivid, more graphic than others.
0:17:37 > 0:17:42Because social realism, it ain't. You're not writing social realism.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45What's the point of it, though, what's the point of this satire?
0:17:45 > 0:17:47What can satire give you that other forms of fiction can't?
0:17:47 > 0:17:52Well, satire is quite difficult to define.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56One definition is that it's militant irony.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59It's irony brought to the pitch
0:17:59 > 0:18:04where you're actually hoping to bring about change.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09"For it was his obstinate belief that Diston Town contained
0:18:09 > 0:18:14"hidden force of mind - nearly all of it trapped or cross-purposed.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17"And how will it go, he often wondered,
0:18:17 > 0:18:19"when all the brain-dead awaken?
0:18:19 > 0:18:22"When all the Lionels decide to be intelligent?"
0:18:24 > 0:18:27Intelligence is one of the themes of the novel, and education,
0:18:27 > 0:18:30the idea that people can get their way out of poverty
0:18:30 > 0:18:32either through crime or through education.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35Is that the nature of the fairy tale you're telling?
0:18:35 > 0:18:42That's, well, it goes back to the notion that, you know...
0:18:42 > 0:18:47..when we brain-dead awaken, what would happen
0:18:47 > 0:18:53if education were as ubiquitous as we'd all like it to be?
0:18:55 > 0:18:59There's a great deal of thwarted intelligence in those lives.
0:18:59 > 0:19:04Education should be a basic right of any citizen.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07Just as health care should be.
0:19:07 > 0:19:12So, I mean, if I had to extract an actual proposition from that novel,
0:19:12 > 0:19:17it would be to educate people we don't think are intelligent,
0:19:17 > 0:19:23but they are. It's there in potentia, in everyone.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26"She said, 'I'll make you famous.'
0:19:26 > 0:19:28"I said, 'I already am famous.'
0:19:28 > 0:19:32"She said, 'Yeah, but famous in the wrong way. You're hated.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35"'I'll work on your image and make you loved.'
0:19:35 > 0:19:39"Loved. Jesus.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42"She's after me to do an I'm A Superstar.
0:19:42 > 0:19:47"Wants me to start a line of clothes. Chav, er...
0:19:47 > 0:19:49"Chav chic.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53"Wants me wearing earrings and a big gold chain around me neck.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57"And a T-shirt with 'Whatever' on it. Or 'Innit' on it."
0:19:58 > 0:20:01Now, you have quite a big pop at celebrity culture
0:20:01 > 0:20:04through tabloid newspapers and a satire of tabloids.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07Even four or five pages are written in Sun-style journalese.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10- Did you have fun with that? - Yeah, very much.
0:20:10 > 0:20:14I can't help thinking I'm better at it than they are.
0:20:14 > 0:20:18In the sort of the alliterative, abusive style.
0:20:18 > 0:20:24And Lionel gets a girlfriend who's not a million miles away from Katie Price.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27- I gather that you read the work of Katie Price.- I did.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30She's called "Threnody" in inverted commas.
0:20:30 > 0:20:33Why are you doing that? It seems quite elitist, all this, it's quite sneery.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37Well, snobbery has to start somewhere.
0:20:37 > 0:20:43I don't think intellectual snobbery is too reprehensible.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47And the amount of attention paid to people
0:20:47 > 0:20:55who haven't really got anything to offer is...SHOULD be alarming.
0:20:55 > 0:20:56No, absolutely.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59But I suppose you're laying yourself open to the charge
0:20:59 > 0:21:01that these are cardboard cut-out characters.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04I mean, if you take a writer like Owen Jones,
0:21:04 > 0:21:10he's said that you don't actually get to the root causes of why society is as it is.
0:21:10 > 0:21:11Why Britain is broken.
0:21:11 > 0:21:18Well, no doubt I don't. But that's not my job.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23That's for the inexact science of economics and sociology.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27I'm not... I'm not bothered about that.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30- Because you're a novelist?- Yeah.
0:21:30 > 0:21:35I mean, that, that's not my job description, to analyse the causes.
0:21:35 > 0:21:40- To analyse anything.- Is it your job to reveal?- It's my job to educate.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43And to give delight.
0:21:43 > 0:21:48"Instruction and delight," said Dryden, three centuries ago.
0:21:48 > 0:21:55That's what literature is for. And I think the emphasis hasn't changed.
0:21:57 > 0:21:59Now, from the state of the nation
0:21:59 > 0:22:02to the so-called festival of the world,
0:22:02 > 0:22:04here at a very windy Southbank Centre
0:22:04 > 0:22:08which currently is positively festooned, barnacled with works of art
0:22:08 > 0:22:10by international contemporary artists.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15And, at the centre of it all, they've got their own, rather unusual, school.
0:22:15 > 0:22:16BELL RINGS
0:22:16 > 0:22:19But this is a school with a difference.
0:22:19 > 0:22:21For one thing, it's in the Hayward Gallery,
0:22:21 > 0:22:24and for another, it's not an art school,
0:22:24 > 0:22:27but all the classes are run by artists,
0:22:27 > 0:22:33which, to me, sounds like the educational equivalent of the lunatics taking over the asylum.
0:22:33 > 0:22:39The Wide Open School is a unique experiment in public learning.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43For one month, you can come and attend classes, lectures
0:22:43 > 0:22:44and workshops
0:22:44 > 0:22:45run by over 100 artists
0:22:45 > 0:22:49covering a predictably unpredictable range of subjects.
0:22:49 > 0:22:53Today's first lecture is by one man with two names -
0:22:53 > 0:22:56Bob and Roberta Smith.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58So what is the Wide Open School all about?
0:22:58 > 0:23:01Artists aren't a unique breed of people.
0:23:01 > 0:23:02We are all autodidacts,
0:23:02 > 0:23:05we're all learning, ourselves, all the time,
0:23:05 > 0:23:09and the point of the Wide Open School is to flag that up
0:23:09 > 0:23:12and I think that is what art is about.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15It is saying I want to find out more about the world
0:23:15 > 0:23:17and I want to think about it in these ways.
0:23:17 > 0:23:21Art makes children powerful.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25All schools must be art schools.
0:23:25 > 0:23:30Make your own damn art, do not expect me to do it.
0:23:30 > 0:23:36My lecture is an active indoctrination on some level.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39- This is a public lecture. - This is a public lecture.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41I know you're a broadcaster,
0:23:41 > 0:23:43but it's good if you enunciate a little bit more.
0:23:43 > 0:23:46Imagine you're Michael Caine or Arthur Smith.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49- OK, I'll try that. - This is a public lecture.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52- This is a public lecture. - That's very good.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59Next up, Michael Landy's course in destruction.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03Landy's famous for his 2001 work, Break Down,
0:24:03 > 0:24:06in which he destroyed each and every one of his own possessions,
0:24:06 > 0:24:09including some of my books which were in his library,
0:24:09 > 0:24:14so I hope the people who have signed up for his class are ready for anything.
0:24:14 > 0:24:20Landy has asked each of them to bring an object of personal significance
0:24:20 > 0:24:22that will be discussed and then destroyed.
0:24:22 > 0:24:24I've brought my digital radio.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29This is a VHS tape which is a documentary about the power of art.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33I brought my teacher's planner from last year.
0:24:33 > 0:24:38While the workshop on destruction does just what it says on the tin,
0:24:38 > 0:24:41not all the classes are quite so easy to understand.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46I am a bit nervous about this workshop.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48It's run by an Austrian collective called Gelitin
0:24:48 > 0:24:49who say they want to turn
0:24:49 > 0:24:54the pupil-teacher relationship upside-down, inside out and on its head.
0:24:54 > 0:24:55Wish me luck.
0:24:58 > 0:24:59Hi...
0:24:59 > 0:25:01Hello.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11'Have you ever had the feeling that you're not entirely welcome?'
0:25:11 > 0:25:16- Get these people out...- Are you part of the workshop? I think...
0:25:16 > 0:25:21- Get out. Get out.- Get out? - Yes, please.
0:25:21 > 0:25:23Thank you, goodbye.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26Goodbye. I've been thrown out!
0:25:26 > 0:25:29I think I did something wrong. I don't know what.
0:25:29 > 0:25:31'Whoops.
0:25:32 > 0:25:37'Someone who knows all about teaching conceptual art is Michael Craig-Martin,
0:25:37 > 0:25:41'artist and former Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths.'
0:25:41 > 0:25:42I feel kind of traumatised.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47I just went to a Gelitin workshop and they threw me out.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50I think it is not the easiest thing to step into
0:25:50 > 0:25:53without giving yourself totally to it,
0:25:53 > 0:25:56so the whole idea of being an observer of it...
0:25:56 > 0:25:57When I was teaching,
0:25:57 > 0:26:01I would never have let any camera come near what I was doing.
0:26:01 > 0:26:07And do you think that, despite the obviously deliberate kind of anarchic atmosphere
0:26:07 > 0:26:10of a lot of these workshops, the chaos of it all -
0:26:10 > 0:26:14despite that, actually what comes through for many people attending
0:26:14 > 0:26:16will actually be very worthwhile?
0:26:16 > 0:26:18The idea of being foolish,
0:26:18 > 0:26:21of doing things you don't really know what you're doing,
0:26:21 > 0:26:23things that are a little crazy, doing things like that,
0:26:23 > 0:26:28there is something you learn from the experience of allowing your mind to go there.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32Maybe that's why he chucked me out, because he knew I was just watching.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34Maybe if you go through the process,
0:26:34 > 0:26:36you learn something in a different way.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39And as you clearly don't intend to do that, you are never going to know.
0:26:39 > 0:26:43How do you know? I might!
0:26:45 > 0:26:48'It's the end of another day at the Wide Open School
0:26:48 > 0:26:52'and Michael Landy's workshop have finished their auto-destructive sculpture.'
0:26:52 > 0:26:54So it's going to perform for people and then,
0:26:54 > 0:26:58hopefully, it'll auto-destruct and die a death.
0:26:58 > 0:27:00And what's the point? Communal catharsis?
0:27:00 > 0:27:05It's to do with trying to go beyond sculpture,
0:27:05 > 0:27:08to make it de-material. That's what I think.
0:27:08 > 0:27:10We'll get on with it, then.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13THEY LAUGH
0:27:14 > 0:27:18That's not very good. It's not very good.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21We're going to have to pull some bits off.
0:27:23 > 0:27:26Can we film this all over again? Can we start all over again?
0:27:26 > 0:27:28This is my career we're talking about.
0:27:28 > 0:27:30- I'm going to watch the rest from indoors.- OK.
0:27:30 > 0:27:35'Well, it is in the nature of experiments that they don't always go to plan,
0:27:35 > 0:27:38'and in this case, the art isn't perhaps the point.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42'As the old cliche goes, it's the taking part that counts.'
0:27:45 > 0:27:49And Wide Open School is at the Hayward Gallery until 11th July.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51That's just about it for tonight.
0:27:51 > 0:27:53If you're looking for more culture,
0:27:53 > 0:27:57try visiting The Space at...
0:27:57 > 0:27:59or Freeview HD channel 117.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03Next week, director William Friedkin, comedian Tim Minchin
0:28:03 > 0:28:05and author Richard Ford.
0:28:05 > 0:28:06But, to play us out,
0:28:06 > 0:28:09here is the formidable Pina Bausch Dance Company,
0:28:09 > 0:28:13who are performing at Sadler's Wells and the Barbican until 9th July.
0:28:13 > 0:28:14Good night.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29# If you're blue and you don't know where to go to
0:28:29 > 0:28:32# Why don't you go where Harlem sits
0:28:32 > 0:28:34# Puttin' on the ritz
0:28:35 > 0:28:39# Spangled gowns upon a bevy of high browns
0:28:39 > 0:28:41# From down the levee, all misfits
0:28:41 > 0:28:43# Puttin' on the ritz
0:28:44 > 0:28:48# That's where each and every lulubelle goes
0:28:49 > 0:28:52# Ev'ry Thursday evening with her swell beaus
0:28:52 > 0:28:54# Rubbing elbows
0:28:54 > 0:28:56# Come with me and we'll attend their jubilee
0:28:56 > 0:29:00# And see them spend their last two bits
0:29:00 > 0:29:01# Puttin' on the ritz
0:29:11 > 0:29:13# Come with me and we'll attend their jubilee
0:29:13 > 0:29:17# And see them spend their last two bits
0:29:17 > 0:29:19# Puttin' on the ritz! #
0:29:19 > 0:29:21Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd