A Good Place Within Utopia: In Search of the Dream


A Good Place Within

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Utopias come, and utopias go.

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In this series, we've explored these visions of a good place

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as blueprints for future societies,

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and as new ways of living.

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Grand designs and experimental communities that have often failed.

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But is there another path to utopia?

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Smaller, more human in scale.

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A spark of creativity, a moment of perfection.

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A sense of transcendence.

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Can we find utopia within?

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Is utopia, after all,

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just a state of mind?

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In this episode I turn the camera on perhaps the most intriguing aspect

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of our relationship with utopia -

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how we relate to the idea as individuals.

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This is not about the utopia of the future

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but about the utopia of now.

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I think it's really beautiful and very powerful.

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You could call it the a-ha moment.

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That moment where you go, "Wow."

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The ways we've created to immerse ourselves in a better moment.

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If I'm reading a crowd I can build, like, an entire emotion.

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To push the boundaries of art and expression, to find authenticity.

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People being more expressive, more loving, more argumentative,

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more whatever.

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It's about how the belief in better pushes us to be all that we can be.

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CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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If we want to find utopia,

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perhaps we first need to understand what happens

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when grand utopian visions fail.

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With the Velvet Revolutions of 1989

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followed by the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,

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it seemed to many Western minds that Eastern Europe had suddenly awoken

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from the utopian dream - or nightmare - of socialism.

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But I think that the toppled statues

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gathered here in a park in southern Lithuania

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reveal a fascinatingly complex story

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about our relationships with utopia.

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These are symbols of what was once envisaged as a paradise of equality

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and the power of collective effort.

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But it was a utopia that crumbled.

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The economy stagnated, party power was often arbitrary and corrupt,

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and many people felt that they were not given sufficient freedom.

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And yet, as the old system was swept away, was something lost?

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Deimantas Narkevicius is a Lithuanian artist.

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Originally trained under the Soviet regime,

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he gained growing international attention

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when he captured the strange emptiness left behind

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when Soviet landmarks were suddenly removed.

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I was aware that the city would look different

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when the objects will be gone,

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and I wanted really to document

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their last moment.

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In his 2016 work, Doubled Youth,

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Deimantas recorded the removal of 1950s socialist realist statues

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from a bridge in central Vilnius.

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This lack of cultural sensitivity

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to understand that when the political regime is gone,

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the art objects produced during that regime

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does not automatically represent that regime.

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It becomes cultural objects.

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You seem to be suggesting

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that we still need to respect the cultural output?

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Through culture we understand history richer and more complex.

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Deimantas takes me to the bridge

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to see what's become of the now post-utopian space.

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So when the sculptures were taken down,

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the four plinths were standing empty

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and they were looking really provocative

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because they were suggesting that there was something there,

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obviously, and it's something supposed to be there,

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and, I think, for a while there was even an attempt

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to use them for a car advertisement.

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It didn't work because I think people started to protest

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because it looked very vulgar.

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And then arrived these pots, with the flowers.

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I think there will be debates coming.

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What to do with these empty plinths in the future?

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So it strikes me that there's a kind of hunger now

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for more socially aware kind of art to appear back on the bridge.

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Do you see it that way?

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Well, partly, yes,

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because I think we should understand that the society

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was pretty poor during even the post-socialist period,

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and they were really eager to get, you know, better off, you know,

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like get cars and clothing and houses and so on.

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But I think now, 25 years later, they've got that.

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And people think, what is next? What is the vision?

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Because nobody was thinking about kind of the future.

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They were thinking about the past.

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-So, we're kind of missing utopian vision?

-I think so.

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Plinths...

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with flowerpots on top of them.

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They appear to be metaphors for our society nowadays.

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Perhaps a little short on grand shared aspirations.

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Communal utopian ideologies seem to have failed or faded.

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We're left to shape our own lives but we're still searching

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for that good place, trying to find our own utopias

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in our own countless ways.

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Perhaps the most commonly held utopian dream today

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is the idea that you can buy your way to happiness.

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You can buy your way to a better place.

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It's the utopia of consumption.

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We've long been bombarded by advertising

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with the simple message - purchases make you happy.

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Buying things gives you freedom, choice and control

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in ways that the socialist utopias could never match.

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But is a consumerist utopia, in its own way, just another illusion?

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How much freedom or control do we really have when our desires

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are constantly stimulated but can never be sated?

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As new products become available,

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there's always something else to buy.

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If only I had a bigger telly,

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a flatter telly, a curved telly,

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a 3D telly, a telly with surround sound,

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then I would be in a good place.

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But, of course, it's a myth.

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The good place of consumption always lies just, just, just beyond reach.

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We never quite get there.

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This spectacle of capitalism and consumerism that we live amongst,

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is cheating us into thinking we can find our way to happiness

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through purchasing.

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On the face of it, the digital revolution,

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the massive technological shift we're living through today

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seems to promise yet more of that consumerist spectacle.

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More than 3 billion of us now live our daily lives hooked to screens

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that are so often seeking to sell us ever more goods.

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Now we can access the promise of a consumerist utopia

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at the click of a button.

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But is there a more positive story to tell about the digital world?

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Can it empower us,

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be about more than just consumption?

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Many digital spaces have been imagined to allow us to create

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and, just as importantly, control our own utopias.

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So this is actually the computer we created Civilisation on.

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Sid Meier, creator of Civilisation,

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is one of the great innovators of the digital revolution.

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You had to put eight different disks into your computer

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and copy them over onto your hard drive before you could play.

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He pioneered open world strategy games,

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as personal computers filled homes across the planet

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in the early 1990s.

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Civilisation.

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I'm ready. I can do it.

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"BUILDING NEW WORLD." All in caps.

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In Meier's game, you create your perfect world digitally

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from the comfort of your own home,

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leading a people from the dawn of time to the space age.

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I'm very touched that you chose to call your tribe the English.

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HE LAUGHS

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You're welcome.

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The desire to create perfect digital worlds has proved popular.

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In the last 25 years, Civilisation and its sequels

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have sold over 40 million copies.

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And so it falls upon you to fill our people's true destiny.

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Under your leadership, we shall surely prosper.

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From the seeds of this small settlement

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shall you grow our empire.

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Our people await your command.

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I think there are some real comparisons

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between certain utopian urges,

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the desire to explore, to contest,

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to protect whatever utopian vision it is that one has

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and the game Civilisation.

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-Do you agree?

-I've never actually looked at it that way,

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but now that you mention it I can see the parallels.

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In a utopia, I think we'd expect technology to progress

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and technology to bring us advances and a better life.

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I think we'd expect nations to communicate with each other

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and work together. I think we'd expect exploration,

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I think we'd expect to explore our planet,

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and, after that, explore the solar system and the universe around us

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so, although Civ wasn't really designed

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with the idea of utopia in mind,

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I think many of the processes that are part of the game

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would be part of a utopia.

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To ensure the safety of our borders

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we must defeat the enemy at its source.

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In playing Civilisation,

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there can be quite a desire to defend your ideal utopian society

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that you're building. There's something very human about that.

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I do think the players get invested in what they create

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because they know it's unique -

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they've designed it, they've built it,

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they've made all the decisions that went into getting to this point.

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So there's a strategy we call turtling,

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which is just protecting what you've built because you're really invested

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in it and want to keep it safe from all the forces of the world that are

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trying to take it away from you.

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There is aggressive expansion,

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conquer the world strategy.

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There are also cultural victories

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or wonder victories.

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If you can build these great wonders you can win the game.

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Or if you can bring on world peace

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that's another way of winning the game.

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Truly we have achieved a golden age

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of peace and cooperation.

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Civ has gone from being just a game

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to people really thinking that it represents a version

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of the real world and now they start to think, you know,

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"I'd really like the world to be a peaceful place and want to try that

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"strategy because it's not just a game on my computer."

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It's kind of a representation of what could happen in the world

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and that brings a whole different type of thinking.

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That whole new type of thinking

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could be key to building tomorrow's utopias.

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Look around you.

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The monuments to the old ways of utopian thinking are everywhere.

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Religious salvation,

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empire-building -

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the powerful have shaped our world.

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But now perhaps for the first time in human history,

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the common man and woman have been given the chance to design and share

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their own utopias on a global scale.

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Here in a refurbished tobacco warehouse in East London,

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young people gather not just to get lost in their own utopias but to use

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digital tools to make a difference in the real world.

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I'm going to go and see the Northern Lights.

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Oh, that's exceptionally beautiful.

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It's really very mellow.

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There's a stick on the floor.

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I can pick it up.

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So I am now holding a stick into a fire to see whether it burns.

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That's amazing.

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I think the word digital has been misinterpreted

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in this age as something that's unreal or untouchable,

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something you can't experience.

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For us it's something that's just in another medium.

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It may not be physically touchable

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but the experiences that you can have with it are just as real.

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James Delaney is an architect and entrepreneur who uses the most

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influential game of the last decade to give individuals the tools

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to rebuild their real environment.

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Minecraft, originally a game aimed at children,

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started as a kind of digital Lego.

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Players place and destroy blocks in an infinite world,

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limited only by their imagination.

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When you're building, could it be the case

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that another member of your team is building in the same digital space?

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-Yes.

-At the same time.

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-And I think...

-And can you see them working?

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You can see them working and that doesn't sound like a big deal

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but it makes the whole process responsive,

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so every block you place then becomes a response to

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what others are building around you. You're not alone.

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It's not designing a building from the point of view of a God

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or some kind of disconnected view.

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You're actually in the worlds that you're building

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and I think that really helps you think about how the space

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is going to be experienced and used once you're finished.

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In 2013, James Delaney founded BlockWorks,

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his company which democratises the architectural process,

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through Minecraft.

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In this UN-sponsored programme,

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BlockWorks introduced Minecraft to a poor community in Indonesia

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so that they could work together in redesigning, and then rebuilding,

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their town square.

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So as part of the community consultation,

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we discussed their priorities for the space -

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a playground for the children who didn't have a space to play,

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water fountains, fresh water.

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The elders of the village wanted to see

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this traditional Javanese hut.

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This is all co-designed with the people

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-who are going to end up living in the space?

-Yes, absolutely.

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It comes from them. We... You know,

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I give them a brief talk on the concept of public space

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and different examples from around the world,

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but ultimately it's up to them what they want to see there.

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And I think, you know,

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this taps into a completely new way of thinking about public design,

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which is bottom-up. You know, the architect, as brilliant as he is...

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..is often sort of autocratic in his design of public space,

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and it's his vision of what that space should be.

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But surely, public space which, you know, serves the community,

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the design of that and the experience of that

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needs to come from the people who are going to use it.

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I can't help thinking that computing power and connectivity

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are enabling extraordinary new ways

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of engaging with and shaping the world,

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especially among the younger generations.

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New forms of digitally empowered utopianism,

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with roots back in hack culture.

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The idea of a bottom-up digital revolution isn't new.

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Hacking started as a way to find workarounds and cut-throughs

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because of the limitations of early computing in the 1960s.

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Often unfairly stereotyped and bracketed with cybercriminals,

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real hackers are not what you might expect.

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Here at an international hacking event in Central London,

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200 of Europe's best student hackers have gathered

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for a 24-hour hackathon...

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..to find digital solutions to real-world problems

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in one packed day.

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So, where are you guys all from?

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-I'm from New York.

-I'm from Germany.

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This event seems to be about the power of collaboration,

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when it's unimpeded by power structures.

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I'm from India but I study in Edinburgh.

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What are you hacking? What's the theme?

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Are you picking up on a theme?

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We are doing automated search and rescue for disaster situations.

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Essentially, the idea is to fly a drone over a big area,

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and then we automatically recognise

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where people are that need to be rescued.

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So, I'm kind of trying to get that to work.

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This is a recipe for real social good.

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You're not just adding knowledge to each other,

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you're multiplying knowledge, right?

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Yeah. I came here with like, "Well, I need some..."

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With the idea. And I felt like,

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"Well, on my own, this will take quite a bit of time to do

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"because I have to acquire quite a bit of knowledge."

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By taking it to a hackathon, you have the opportunity

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to meet people with different knowledge backgrounds,

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and then putting everything together,

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and I'm really accelerating this idea.

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So you've got a brilliant answer for the good of humanity,

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for social good.

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Is there any interest - and be honest - in then trying to sell it?

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The best part about this hackathon is we put all that aside.

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We say, "Let's just fix this,

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"let's build the product, and then we'll worry about, you know, money

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"or jobs or prestige or merit or, you know,

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-"acknowledgement."

-Essentially it's fun first, business after.

-Exactly.

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The media often represent hackers as loners,

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locked in their own obsessions.

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In fact, real hacking is about inventive teamwork.

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It's a revolutionary mode

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of collaborative thinking and doing.

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There is that thing of you're learning together,

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you're building together, and you share it with each other,

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and open source communities and every thing like that.

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And it doesn't really matter

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anything about who you are as a person,

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how you identify or anything like that.

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All of those things are kind of forgotten

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when you're on a team together,

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building anything. And that's really nice and it's not something

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that I've seen many other places.

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Hackathons, it's always...

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You're all, at the end of the 24 hours, pretty wrought.

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And then go off to your far-flung corners of the world.

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To sleep. For a day. To sleep.

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But everybody's in the same position and that makes it really nice,

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and everybody's here to do the same thing and build something cool.

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Hackers are no isolated example.

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What they embody - the flattening of the world,

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the belief that the individual can make a difference

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and that hierarchies cannot constrain creativity

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and personal expression -

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is part of a rich seam of utopian culture,

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a deeper tradition that has shaped our history.

0:20:140:20:17

Look closely and you see that the people have been revolting

0:20:270:20:30

for centuries.

0:20:300:20:31

In St Mary's Parish Church in Worley, Lancashire,

0:20:340:20:38

carved into the medieval choir seats,

0:20:380:20:41

you find a much older kind of hacking.

0:20:410:20:43

It's a bit of a weird puzzle.

0:20:500:20:52

Why have we got profane imagery

0:20:530:20:56

sitting in a parish church in Lancashire?

0:20:560:20:59

Here we see a blacksmith, replete with all his tools...

0:21:000:21:03

..shoeing a goose.

0:21:040:21:07

It's insane.

0:21:070:21:08

Under other seats,

0:21:130:21:14

we find a girl with a satyr.

0:21:140:21:15

A warrior being beaten by a woman with a pan.

0:21:170:21:20

The pagan and the pious are mixed up in absurd juxtaposition.

0:21:220:21:26

To understand these images,

0:21:280:21:30

we need to understand the significance

0:21:300:21:33

in the medieval mind-set

0:21:330:21:34

of the carnival.

0:21:340:21:36

Every year, at Shrovetide, before the abstinence of Lent,

0:21:370:21:41

normal rules and hierarchies were hacked

0:21:410:21:44

during a period of utopian excess.

0:21:440:21:47

It's a fleeting part of the year also captured by artists

0:21:500:21:54

like Pieter Bruegel the Elder

0:21:540:21:55

who depicts fun and frivolity

0:21:550:21:58

breaking out prior to the dreary grind of Lent

0:21:580:22:01

and the return to daily life.

0:22:010:22:04

However alien to today,

0:22:040:22:06

the carnivals turning the world upside down is something

0:22:060:22:09

that Thomas Moore, author of the disruptive fiction Utopia,

0:22:090:22:13

would have been very familiar with.

0:22:130:22:15

In the run-up to Easter,

0:22:240:22:27

the world WAS turned upside down.

0:22:270:22:30

Women would dress as men and men would dress as women.

0:22:300:22:33

Social relations would become completely unruly,

0:22:330:22:36

compared to the norm.

0:22:360:22:38

People would drink in excess,

0:22:380:22:40

they'd be out on the street,

0:22:400:22:42

they'd elect a king of fools.

0:22:420:22:44

The week of carnival was really important.

0:22:460:22:49

It was a steam valve that allowed tensions that have built up

0:22:490:22:53

during the year to relax a little.

0:22:530:22:56

But come the end of the week,

0:22:570:22:59

people were almost certainly longing for a return

0:22:590:23:01

to something a little more stable.

0:23:010:23:03

In nearby Middleton, Greater Manchester,

0:23:060:23:09

this tradition of the citizens' utopia survives.

0:23:090:23:12

# We will sing to you a song... #

0:23:140:23:19

This is the annual Pace Egg Play, a revival of medieval customs.

0:23:190:23:25

I am the bold Prince Regent!

0:23:250:23:27

-Oh, yeah?

-Yes.

0:23:270:23:29

I rule in this king's stead.

0:23:290:23:32

And so I am his only heir...

0:23:320:23:35

for there's none upon his head.

0:23:350:23:37

LAUGHTER

0:23:370:23:38

The players mock traditional authority figures.

0:23:380:23:41

I've come to fight for old England's rights.

0:23:410:23:44

Drop on the head, drop on the heart.

0:23:470:23:50

LAUGHTER

0:23:500:23:52

Arise, arise. Most noble knight, arise

0:23:520:23:54

and no more dormant lay.

0:23:540:23:56

It's a miracle!

0:23:580:23:59

TRUMPET BLOWS, CHEERING

0:23:590:24:01

At Easter, the play is taken through six local pubs...

0:24:050:24:10

Oh, is there a noble doctor to be found?

0:24:100:24:14

..becoming more and more slurred...

0:24:140:24:16

Champion of this deep and deadly world...

0:24:160:24:20

..more anarchic...

0:24:200:24:22

SLURRED SINGING

0:24:220:24:23

..and more ridiculous.

0:24:230:24:25

# They say As you very well do know... #

0:24:250:24:29

-That's the wrong song.

-It's the wrong song, yes.

0:24:290:24:32

LAUGHTER

0:24:320:24:33

-I love St John!

-CROWD:

-Hurray!

0:24:330:24:36

It might all seem frivolous, but there's a deeper purpose here.

0:24:360:24:40

CROWD CHEER

0:24:400:24:42

Well, watching the Pace Egg today,

0:24:420:24:44

it seems to me like anyone in authority is fair game.

0:24:440:24:47

-Oh, absolutely.

-Oh, yes. Things like this are an opportunity

0:24:470:24:50

for the downtrodden, as it were,

0:24:500:24:52

to just get a little bit back, you know.

0:24:520:24:55

It was always the case, wasn't it?

0:24:550:24:56

It was the holiday where

0:24:560:24:58

the people, the servants became in charge.

0:24:580:25:02

And the... You know, the lords of

0:25:020:25:04

the manor waited on the servants, and they had their special day.

0:25:040:25:07

And it's all that. It's turning things on their tail, and, you know,

0:25:070:25:11

putting it back at the authority.

0:25:110:25:13

# He's come o'er the sea Old England to view

0:25:130:25:17

# And he's come a Pace Egging with the whole of his crew! #

0:25:170:25:21

Well, Lancashire remains as loopy as it was when I was growing up,

0:25:210:25:24

that's for sure.

0:25:240:25:26

I kind of love this.

0:25:260:25:28

The world is turned upside down at least one day a year in Middleton.

0:25:280:25:32

The fools take over, the kings seem fall and rise again,

0:25:330:25:37

the doctors are mocked, and these guys who are doing this,

0:25:370:25:41

these Pace Eggers, they all understand that they are part

0:25:410:25:44

of a rich, old tradition of mocking power, laughing at authority,

0:25:440:25:48

just to let off a little steam

0:25:480:25:50

before going back to the usual relations.

0:25:500:25:53

The carnival is about coming together

0:25:590:26:01

and sharing a moment of freedom from everyday rules,

0:26:010:26:05

breaking through inhibitions.

0:26:050:26:07

It's an idea that has spurred counter cultures throughout history.

0:26:070:26:11

Music has often been at the leading edge

0:26:140:26:17

of this revolt against the mainstream.

0:26:170:26:19

In recent times,

0:26:190:26:21

it's through musical innovation that downtrodden minorities have found

0:26:210:26:25

moments of escape and transcendence.

0:26:250:26:28

MUSIC: Love Can't Turn Around by Farley "Jackmaster" Funk

0:26:280:26:32

In 1980s Chicago, that minority

0:26:340:26:37

was made up of often poor, black, gay men.

0:26:370:26:40

They found a creative release by subverting established disco music,

0:26:430:26:47

extending the best parts of songs

0:26:470:26:49

and mixing the beats with a distinctive baseline.

0:26:490:26:53

This was house music,

0:26:580:27:01

music designed to get you dancing all night long.

0:27:010:27:04

It was not just blazing hot, but it was damp.

0:27:070:27:11

You couldn't wipe the sweat away enough.

0:27:110:27:13

People were really dancing

0:27:130:27:15

like their life depended on it,

0:27:150:27:17

like there something in it for them beyond just a good feeling.

0:27:170:27:20

You had a moment of absolute freedom.

0:27:200:27:23

And as a teenager, that's a big deal.

0:27:230:27:25

You know? And you're looking for a real experience?

0:27:250:27:29

It was the most real thing that I've ever run across.

0:27:290:27:32

Charles Matlock was right there in the earliest days of house.

0:27:340:27:38

He explains how in clubs,

0:27:380:27:40

like the subterranean Muzic Box in downtown Chicago,

0:27:400:27:43

there was a new utopian search for authentic experience,

0:27:430:27:48

spawning the biggest youth revolution since the 1960s.

0:27:480:27:52

They're largely marginalised communities that were part

0:27:530:27:56

of the scene then. So black kids, Latin kids, a large gay community.

0:27:560:28:00

That was a gay club, so was The Power Plant.

0:28:000:28:02

And so for straight kids to be going there,

0:28:020:28:05

it really was something that...

0:28:050:28:07

You had gay friends and you knew it existed,

0:28:070:28:09

but going to a place where you were in the minority

0:28:090:28:12

and realising that they're just people,

0:28:120:28:15

and they're people that like partying the same as you,

0:28:150:28:17

you realise that these kind of artificial lines that we make

0:28:170:28:20

between straight and gay, and black and white, and what have you,

0:28:200:28:24

they're really artificial

0:28:240:28:25

and they're boundaries that are made up by us,

0:28:250:28:27

and if we don't choose to adhere to them,

0:28:270:28:30

they really, truly don't exist.

0:28:300:28:32

-So the dance floor becomes a kind of melting pot where...

-Absolutely.

0:28:320:28:36

..music that is a product of a melting pot is celebrated

0:28:360:28:40

and brings communities together.

0:28:400:28:42

It is truly one of those things that...

0:28:420:28:45

all you have to have in common with anybody else

0:28:450:28:47

is enjoying this music and wanting to dance to it.

0:28:470:28:50

Were these clubs a kind of escape for the communities of

0:28:500:28:54

young people who were colliding inside them?

0:28:540:28:57

Absolutely. It did provide an escape

0:28:570:29:00

and also safe spaces, such that...

0:29:000:29:03

Again, straight kids go into a gay club,

0:29:030:29:06

I'd never look over my shoulder and say, "Hey, you know,

0:29:060:29:09

"is anybody who doesn't like me thinking about doing something

0:29:090:29:12

"harmful to me?" But members of the gay community certainly did.

0:29:120:29:15

And so this was a place that they could have as their own

0:29:150:29:18

and be themselves and not have to worry about anybody...

0:29:180:29:21

Just the normal oppression that's part of the world.

0:29:220:29:25

So that was definitely an escape for them from this.

0:29:250:29:28

But for all of us, it was an escape from...

0:29:280:29:31

just this normal world that isn't worried about what might you want.

0:29:310:29:35

But it's a temporary release, right?

0:29:350:29:37

It's a temporary vision of a wonderful reality?

0:29:370:29:41

It is. It is. But...

0:29:410:29:44

better to have some time in this other dimension than no time.

0:29:440:29:48

MUSIC: Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald

0:29:480:29:52

House offered a temporary utopia

0:29:560:29:58

that could be revisited again and again

0:29:580:30:00

and that successfully mutated across borders.

0:30:000:30:03

Transnational, it needs no explanation or language.

0:30:030:30:07

When it made its way across the Atlantic,

0:30:100:30:12

it had a huge influence on British youth culture...

0:30:120:30:16

and on me.

0:30:160:30:17

One, two. One, two.

0:30:230:30:25

I don't really know any of them shouting poems the young...

0:30:250:30:29

young ones do nowadays.

0:30:290:30:30

This is one of my heroes of house,

0:30:330:30:36

A Guy Called Gerald.

0:30:360:30:37

His house hit, Voodoo Ray,

0:30:370:30:40

which he composed in a bedroom studio

0:30:400:30:42

and first played at Manchester's Hacienda club in 1988,

0:30:420:30:46

defined a new era of dance music.

0:30:460:30:49

It was an escape. It was somewhere I could go to

0:30:510:30:55

and people like me...

0:30:550:31:00

You go in through them doors, everything would just change.

0:31:000:31:03

INDISTINCT

0:31:060:31:08

Your music and house music took me to a better place.

0:31:100:31:16

-On the dance floor.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And everybody around me

0:31:160:31:18

on the dance floor was temporarily in a better place.

0:31:180:31:21

How do you feel when you see a dance floor erupt

0:31:210:31:24

and you see them come together and share this experience?

0:31:240:31:28

There's that part of a track and everyone is kind of getting it

0:31:280:31:32

at the same time, what it is.

0:31:320:31:34

Then, yeah, that is a utopia.

0:31:340:31:37

Yo, make some noise!

0:31:370:31:39

You're looking in people's eyes, and they're like, you know,

0:31:410:31:44

they're having it, like, the same as you're like, "Wow."

0:31:440:31:48

You can't really buy it.

0:31:480:31:49

It's just like this tipping point.

0:31:490:31:51

It's like this balance that everything,

0:31:510:31:53

like, kicks in at the same time.

0:31:530:31:55

If I'm reading a crowd and feeling what's going on,

0:31:550:31:59

then it's like, you know, I can build, like, an entire emotion

0:31:590:32:03

just from the sounds that I've got available.

0:32:030:32:06

Watching you on stage, you're in a mental space.

0:32:120:32:15

So it's almost like a personal utopia.

0:32:150:32:18

I do it on the bus.

0:32:180:32:19

Like, sometimes the person next to me wants to move,

0:32:190:32:22

you know what I mean? Cos I just like... I just go off, probably.

0:32:220:32:25

If I hit that sweet spot, eyes roll back and everything, I'm sure.

0:32:250:32:29

-I need to seek help.

-HE LAUGHS

0:32:290:32:31

A Guy Called Gerald.

0:32:310:32:33

The UK club scene embraced house music...

0:32:360:32:39

and added its own chemical enhancement.

0:32:390:32:42

With ecstasy prolonging the moment of euphoria, acid house was born.

0:32:440:32:49

MUSIC: Acamar by Frankey & Sandrino

0:32:490:32:52

With drugs and music combining

0:33:040:33:06

to create a form of individual and collective transcendence,

0:33:060:33:09

there were echoes of the 1960s counterculture.

0:33:090:33:12

Back then, the pot-fuelled youth rebellion morphed into a new search

0:33:140:33:18

for the self through Eastern mysticism

0:33:180:33:21

and ever more exotic drugs.

0:33:210:33:23

HE VOCALISES

0:33:230:33:25

But not all cultures have needed drugs to achieve

0:33:310:33:34

an out-of-body experience.

0:33:340:33:36

This is qawwali,

0:33:460:33:48

the devotional music of Sufi Muslims,

0:33:480:33:51

which has its roots in medieval-era Pakistan and India.

0:33:510:33:55

What qawwali singers do

0:33:560:33:57

is they embody the idea

0:33:570:33:59

of taking themselves and

0:33:590:34:01

audiences on a spiritual journey.

0:34:010:34:03

The central concept in qawwali is this idea called qalandri,

0:34:060:34:11

which comes from the word qalandar.

0:34:110:34:14

Qalandars are dervishes.

0:34:140:34:17

And the etymology of qalandar is those without limits or boundaries.

0:34:260:34:32

And in medieval texts, qalandars can read people's minds,

0:34:320:34:38

travel backwards in time and obliterate time and space.

0:34:380:34:42

And what qawwali does is makes this its central concept.

0:34:420:34:47

So the music itself can take you into a similar kind of state?

0:34:470:34:51

-That's the idea.

-Yeah.

0:34:510:34:53

So the idea is that qawwali is like trance.

0:34:530:34:56

During a qawwali concert,

0:34:580:35:00

one singer recites poetry and religious phrases,

0:35:000:35:03

using hand gestures...

0:35:030:35:05

..while a second singer improvises responses.

0:35:070:35:11

The music builds in intensity as the chorus sings a hypnotic refrain.

0:35:170:35:23

By entrancing listeners through being overwhelmed by the music,

0:35:330:35:39

their ego is dissolved, leaving a void.

0:35:390:35:42

And once the void is created,

0:35:420:35:45

it leaves space to be absorbed by divine dimensions.

0:35:450:35:51

Qawwali music is a cosmic quest

0:35:560:35:58

in search of the beloved,

0:35:580:36:00

and more often than not the beloved is God.

0:36:000:36:03

Now, to leave the material world

0:36:130:36:15

and to enter the spiritual world

0:36:150:36:18

requires you to go through a spiritual station called barzakh,

0:36:180:36:23

which means "no place" or "inter-space".

0:36:230:36:28

So, Sufis had a concept

0:36:280:36:31

and a word for "no place",

0:36:310:36:33

200 years before Thomas Moore came up with the word utopia,

0:36:330:36:37

meaning literally "no place".

0:36:370:36:39

Qawwali is utopian,

0:36:410:36:43

not just in the state it tries to induce

0:36:430:36:46

but in its communal endeavour.

0:36:460:36:48

Just like house,

0:36:480:36:49

this is music as individual and shared experience.

0:36:490:36:53

This was not religion with a capital R.

0:36:540:36:57

The Sufis were really about connecting with the common man,

0:36:570:37:01

with the guy working in the fields, the guy living in the villages,

0:37:010:37:04

to give the ordinary person some kind of spiritual nourishment,

0:37:040:37:09

some kind of way of understanding their place in the universe.

0:37:090:37:13

RHYTHMIC CLAPPING

0:37:230:37:25

But what if we don't have to escape via drugs or spiritualism at all?

0:37:270:37:32

What if the way to get to the good place of utopia

0:37:320:37:35

is to appreciate more fully

0:37:350:37:38

ordinary, everyday reality -

0:37:380:37:40

the wonder of the moment.

0:37:400:37:42

THEY CLAP RHYTHMICALLY

0:37:440:37:47

This is clapping music,

0:37:490:37:51

written and here performed by the American composer

0:37:510:37:54

Steve Reich.

0:37:540:37:56

Reich was inspired by traditional drumming patterns.

0:37:560:37:59

One performer in each pair is providing the rhythm

0:37:590:38:02

while the other is clapping the same pattern

0:38:020:38:05

but phasing in and out of tempo.

0:38:050:38:07

The result is one of the classics of pure minimalism.

0:38:070:38:12

APPLAUSE

0:38:160:38:19

To imagine what people will feel

0:38:240:38:25

when you write a piece of music is impossible.

0:38:250:38:28

Where you sit in a room, who you are, what you had for dinner,

0:38:280:38:31

all these things will enter into how you...

0:38:310:38:33

Even the same piece played...

0:38:330:38:35

The same piece played in another time and place.

0:38:350:38:38

Music lives when it's played.

0:38:380:38:40

Steve Reich has pushed musical boundaries

0:38:430:38:46

by encouraging audiences to focus on less.

0:38:460:38:50

He simplifies music to its purist form

0:38:500:38:53

using repetition and also real world sounds as instruments.

0:38:530:38:57

There is this constant set of astonishing innovations.

0:39:010:39:06

You've taken found sounds, you're looping,

0:39:060:39:10

-you are effectively proto-sampling using tape loops.

-Right.

0:39:100:39:14

Well, the word "sampling" didn't exist when we did that,

0:39:140:39:16

it was called tape loops, and tape this and tape that.

0:39:160:39:18

And now when most people say tape, they think of Scotch tape.

0:39:180:39:21

HE LAUGHS

0:39:210:39:23

Audio tape is something that they may or may not have heard of,

0:39:230:39:26

and certainly rarely seen.

0:39:260:39:28

City Life, Reich's 1995 composition,

0:39:340:39:38

uses found sound that he himself recorded in New York.

0:39:380:39:41

With it, he asks us to cut through the chaos of the city noise and find

0:39:450:39:49

music and poetry in the everyday.

0:39:490:39:52

The integration

0:39:550:39:57

of the sounds is basically the idea of marrying, if you will,

0:39:570:40:01

the found sound on the street -

0:40:010:40:03

the slam of the car door becomes the bass drum, say,

0:40:030:40:06

and the air brakes - kshh! - becomes a crash cymbal,

0:40:060:40:10

the Porsche horn becomes an oboe,

0:40:100:40:14

and so on and so forth.

0:40:140:40:16

And I think that kind of thinking is what's in City Life,

0:40:160:40:20

where you take something that's not a musical sound and you think,

0:40:200:40:23

"What's the musical, you know, correlative of that?"

0:40:230:40:26

Reich's work is meditative,

0:40:300:40:33

like house and qawwali,

0:40:330:40:34

but also technically demanding of musicians and audiences alike.

0:40:340:40:39

I get a sense with Reich of the restless explorer,

0:40:390:40:42

a utopian testing of what's musically possible.

0:40:420:40:46

Is your musical drive somehow utopian?

0:40:460:40:50

I think every artist who's the least bit serious...

0:40:500:40:54

..is slightly self-critical,

0:40:560:40:57

and therefore there is more in my trash basket

0:40:570:41:00

than there is in the finished piece.

0:41:000:41:02

So that's certainly trying to make sure that you do your best.

0:41:020:41:06

I think that striving to do the very best job that you can do is a very

0:41:060:41:12

good and fairly common human trait.

0:41:120:41:15

I mean, I certainly hope that the sound man is trying to,

0:41:150:41:20

and the cameraman, are trying to do the best that they can.

0:41:200:41:23

Whether it's Steve Reich's music of the everyday world

0:41:280:41:31

or the lure of qawwali's higher spiritual plane,

0:41:310:41:35

this pursuit of utopia is all about

0:41:350:41:38

more fully experiencing a fleeting moment.

0:41:380:41:42

It's about the utopia of the now.

0:41:420:41:45

How do we get the best out of each moment,

0:41:480:41:51

and, as a result, out of ourselves?

0:41:510:41:54

For the Japanese,

0:41:540:41:55

one way to connect with the pure moment

0:41:550:41:58

is to represent it and express it through haiku,

0:41:580:42:02

the ancient art of extremely precise and brief poetry.

0:42:020:42:07

"6am

0:42:070:42:09

"The cat's tongue in my ear."

0:42:100:42:13

LAUGHTER

0:42:130:42:14

Sorry, that's disgusting.

0:42:140:42:16

-It's really good, though.

-Yeah.

0:42:180:42:20

Maximum impact with minimum words,

0:42:200:42:23

perfection using the fewest syllables.

0:42:230:42:26

That's the utopian goal of these members of the British Haiku Society

0:42:260:42:30

meeting in Fleet Street, London.

0:42:300:42:33

"Apple blossom

0:42:330:42:35

"The clenched fist of her infant, opening."

0:42:350:42:39

The image of the child's hand opening

0:42:390:42:41

but also like apple blossom opening,

0:42:410:42:43

I think it's really beautiful and very powerful.

0:42:430:42:45

Haiku is a very short poem and its purpose is to capture a moment.

0:42:470:42:53

If you see something beautiful

0:42:530:42:55

and you describe that in some way

0:42:550:42:57

that lets the person who's reading it

0:42:570:43:00

know what you're feeling about it,

0:43:000:43:02

that's a beautiful haiku.

0:43:020:43:04

"First coffee

0:43:040:43:05

"The barista's overnight mascara."

0:43:050:43:09

That's a very sharp observation,

0:43:090:43:11

and you know there's an untold story behind it.

0:43:110:43:13

-Yeah.

-And we all just imagine.

-LAUGHTER

0:43:130:43:17

There are haiku that you just think, "Oh, of course!"

0:43:170:43:22

Or, "Oh, I know that feeling."

0:43:220:43:25

You could call it the a-ha moment,

0:43:250:43:26

that moment when you go, "Wow!"

0:43:260:43:29

"Bare, in your bathroom

0:43:290:43:31

"Another girl uses my rose petal mouthwash."

0:43:310:43:34

-VARIOUS:

-Oooh!

0:43:340:43:37

Achieving the a-ha moment comes with limitations.

0:43:370:43:41

"The sky is bluer

0:43:410:43:43

"Always on the other side.

0:43:430:43:46

"Up-chucking homeless."

0:43:460:43:48

The only problem with it, of course, is it's not a haiku moment.

0:43:480:43:52

You've set yourself quite tight parameters.

0:43:530:43:56

Do you find that limiting or do you find it actually liberating?

0:43:560:44:01

It makes you think very hard.

0:44:010:44:04

And I think that's the joy of it, really.

0:44:040:44:07

So it's limiting, but it's limiting in a very thoughtful kind of way.

0:44:070:44:13

It's a bit like meditation.

0:44:130:44:15

You're focusing on one thing.

0:44:150:44:17

"At quayside

0:44:170:44:19

"The fishermen casting out shadows."

0:44:190:44:21

Oh, that's great!

0:44:220:44:24

It seems to me that this is really very, very much

0:44:250:44:29

about living in a moment and being aware of the fact that we are

0:44:290:44:34

living in a moment.

0:44:340:44:35

One of the problems people have, I think,

0:44:350:44:37

is that they have this running commentary on their life,

0:44:370:44:41

and so when they're out and about,

0:44:410:44:44

what they're doing is actually thinking all the time of,

0:44:440:44:48

you know, what the credit card limit is,

0:44:480:44:51

"What time is the train?", you know,

0:44:510:44:53

"Is that girl going to be there?" or whatever or whatever.

0:44:530:44:56

Now, the haiku writer has to step back from that,

0:44:560:44:59

switch off the running commentary of your life.

0:44:590:45:02

And I think that's why it's so popular with Zen Buddhists.

0:45:020:45:04

-Absolutely.

-Because the whole stuff about moments

0:45:040:45:07

and being in the now.

0:45:070:45:09

It's being in that state of being aware.

0:45:090:45:11

Do you feel that, after you're finished writing,

0:45:110:45:15

you go back into the real world...

0:45:150:45:18

..better, enriched, improved?

0:45:200:45:23

I think so, yes.

0:45:230:45:25

Because you're seeing things anew.

0:45:250:45:29

Every time you write a good haiku, it's a small epiphany.

0:45:290:45:34

You've seen the world for what it is.

0:45:340:45:37

Martin Lucas, who was

0:45:370:45:39

an outstanding haiku writer, who died recently,

0:45:390:45:43

he talked about haiku being the news!

0:45:430:45:46

You know, all the stuff that's happening on television,

0:45:460:45:50

that isn't the real news.

0:45:500:45:52

The real news is haiku.

0:45:520:45:54

If you read haiku, you get the truth.

0:45:540:45:56

It's time for me to pursue epiphany.

0:45:570:46:00

You need to bear in mind

0:46:000:46:02

I've never tried to write a haiku before this morning.

0:46:020:46:05

I've come up with my own haiku about utopia.

0:46:050:46:09

"No place, better place

0:46:110:46:14

"Imagine, contest, repeat

0:46:140:46:17

"The itch unscratched."

0:46:170:46:20

It's not... Well, it needs to be about a moment, really.

0:46:200:46:24

And it's not, is it?

0:46:240:46:26

-No.

-And it's got commas is in it.

0:46:260:46:28

We don't do commas in haiku.

0:46:280:46:30

-Oh, we do sometimes.

-Very occasionally, but not all those.

0:46:300:46:33

Yeah, but you're supposed to be listening to me read it, not...

0:46:330:46:36

You're reading over my shoulder!

0:46:360:46:38

OK. I might not be a haiku master, but I'm still struck by the haiku

0:46:390:46:44

writer's desire to record perfectly the moment's perfection.

0:46:440:46:49

Sometimes it's quite tragic what you're writing.

0:46:490:46:51

It's something quite sad and moving.

0:46:510:46:53

Sometimes it's hilarious. Sometimes it's beautiful and succinct.

0:46:530:46:56

But it's always looking for something better.

0:46:560:47:00

I think you're utopians.

0:47:010:47:03

That kind of glimpse of a fleeting moment or of something in transition

0:47:030:47:08

actually reflects our relationship to utopia in that it's never

0:47:080:47:12

something that can be experienced completely, it's always glimpsed.

0:47:120:47:15

Getting that glimpse of a better place that might just help us to be

0:47:180:47:22

better people.

0:47:220:47:24

It seems to me that we try to unpack the significance of an observed

0:47:240:47:28

moment in many ways,

0:47:280:47:29

not just through poetry but through other art forms.

0:47:290:47:33

We love to be transported by storytelling,

0:47:330:47:36

and no more so than through drama.

0:47:360:47:40

At multiplexes and in the theatres,

0:47:400:47:42

we're at home with our various screens.

0:47:420:47:45

I think we seek out the truth of other people's experiences

0:47:450:47:49

in ways akin to reading a haiku.

0:47:490:47:52

Here, we live vicariously through actors' experiences,

0:47:520:47:56

moving out of ourselves and connecting emotionally.

0:47:560:48:00

People go to the theatre.

0:48:000:48:02

People watch movies to see life in all its facets.

0:48:020:48:05

Sometimes life as it is, but also sometimes life as it could be.

0:48:050:48:08

People being more connected,

0:48:090:48:10

more expressive, more loving,

0:48:100:48:12

more argumentative, more whatever.

0:48:120:48:14

To have that additional intensity,

0:48:140:48:16

that additional lifefulness,

0:48:160:48:17

and I think improvisation can really be a way

0:48:170:48:20

that, if actors embrace it,

0:48:200:48:21

you can have a performance that just gives so much more

0:48:210:48:24

to an audience because it's so much more alive,

0:48:240:48:26

so much more rich, so much more felt.

0:48:260:48:28

A makes the shape, B joins.

0:48:280:48:30

Stay there for a moment, and then A says thank you.

0:48:310:48:34

Chris Heimann is an award-winning director

0:48:340:48:37

and an improvisation teacher at Rada.

0:48:370:48:40

You're not trying to create, I would say.

0:48:400:48:41

You're just noticing your own response to what you are doing.

0:48:410:48:45

Here in South London, he's running a workshop using improvisation to help

0:48:460:48:51

actors lose their self-consciousness so as to bring greater authenticity

0:48:510:48:56

to their performances.

0:48:560:48:57

One of the reasons why people act?

0:48:580:49:00

You get more permission to be angry or sad or whatever it is.

0:49:000:49:03

An impulse is also what we are looking for, right?

0:49:030:49:05

As an actor, between your impulse and your expression,

0:49:050:49:08

there is nothing.

0:49:080:49:09

Improvisation like this is inspired by the utopian performance ideas of

0:49:110:49:16

Jerzy Grotowski and the Poor Theatre School,

0:49:160:49:18

which revolutionised acting in the 20th century.

0:49:180:49:22

Overturning old-fashioned declamatory styles,

0:49:220:49:26

Grotowski argued for a transparent actor,

0:49:260:49:29

a kind of minimalism in acting.

0:49:290:49:32

The idea of being...that you have an actor who is so transparent

0:49:320:49:35

that any inner impulse is immediately expressed,

0:49:350:49:38

so there's no filter. There's no armour.

0:49:380:49:40

There's nothing in between the actual impulse happening within

0:49:400:49:44

and the outer expression.

0:49:440:49:46

That's something that I feel that is something very, very raw

0:49:460:49:49

and exciting also for an audience to watch,

0:49:490:49:51

and something to aspire towards.

0:49:510:49:52

These ideas have been hugely influential in experimental theatre

0:49:550:49:59

from Brecht to Brook. The key insight, it seems to me,

0:49:590:50:04

is that all performances are unique,

0:50:040:50:07

a collaboration between performer and audience.

0:50:070:50:10

And there is something very generous here.

0:50:100:50:13

The performer taking a risk, stripping back the mask,

0:50:130:50:16

bearing their inner selves to create

0:50:160:50:18

an empathic connection with an audience.

0:50:180:50:21

That was weird. We kind of had a... Wheee!

0:50:210:50:23

We're going to have a fight, and then it was kind of...

0:50:230:50:26

I'm being a bit submissive there.

0:50:260:50:28

Is this some kind of S&M thing? Then I was kind of...

0:50:280:50:31

"Stop my brain, stop my brain, what's going on?"

0:50:310:50:33

And then your face kind of changed into something like...

0:50:330:50:35

More grace in your face.

0:50:350:50:37

-So, yeah.

-What I would say, if you, as an actor,

0:50:370:50:41

have the courage to wait until something genuinely comes to you

0:50:410:50:45

as an impulse, you might become dangerous without even trying,

0:50:450:50:48

simply because you have the courage to wait for something

0:50:480:50:50

to genuinely trigger something.

0:50:500:50:52

It seemed to me that there was a kind of peeling away

0:50:520:50:56

of actorly conventions

0:50:560:50:58

in order to liberate them a little bit.

0:50:580:51:01

One of the things that I remember from...

0:51:010:51:04

reading Grotowski's works

0:51:040:51:06

is this idea of additive arts versus subtractive arts,

0:51:060:51:10

meaning that, in painting, you start with an empty canvas and you keep

0:51:100:51:13

adding the paint, whereas in sculpting,

0:51:130:51:15

you chip away stuff in order to reveal what's already there.

0:51:150:51:19

And that is definitely the kind of approach that I take

0:51:220:51:24

to actor training.

0:51:240:51:25

It's not about slapping more and more skills onto the actor,

0:51:250:51:28

it's about helping them to let go of unhelpful thoughts, behaviours,

0:51:280:51:34

expectations, to come back to something that is more pure,

0:51:340:51:39

that's already there.

0:51:390:51:40

Almost like a child.

0:51:400:51:42

Searching for authentic moments in drama and storytelling is, I think,

0:51:440:51:48

more than escape from the humdrum of daily life.

0:51:480:51:51

It's about something much bigger - connecting with others.

0:51:510:51:56

Every time we tell a story, every time we enjoy a performance,

0:51:560:52:00

every time we think we can feel someone else's feelings,

0:52:000:52:03

we are exercising one of the most important traits - empathy.

0:52:030:52:09

The more empathetic we are,

0:52:090:52:11

the more generous and tolerant we become as human beings,

0:52:110:52:14

perhaps the closer we get to utopia.

0:52:140:52:18

MUSIC: Ride Of The Valkyries by Wagner

0:52:180:52:21

This kind of generosity,

0:52:240:52:26

this sharing of moving and thought-provoking art

0:52:260:52:29

has a long and rich history.

0:52:290:52:32

For me, one of the most extraordinary attempts to connect

0:52:320:52:35

was made by a 19th-century composer.

0:52:350:52:38

Idealising utopian visions from Norse myth,

0:52:470:52:51

Richard Wagner tried to create a total reality in which audiences

0:52:510:52:55

could emotionally immerse themselves.

0:52:550:52:58

Total art - work that is complete in and of itself.

0:52:580:53:02

This might seem like the naive controlling dream

0:53:040:53:07

of a troubled genius,

0:53:070:53:09

but there's something undeniably generous in Wagner's desire

0:53:090:53:13

to share a fantastical vision that might inspire audiences

0:53:130:53:18

to reflect anew on life.

0:53:180:53:19

Wagner's passion has certainly shaped one man's life.

0:53:200:53:24

Nice to see you. Lovely day.

0:53:240:53:26

Builder Martin Graham connected with Wagner so much,

0:53:260:53:31

he dreamed of staging Wagner's work in his back garden,

0:53:310:53:34

deep in the Cotswolds.

0:53:340:53:36

Just in case I ever fancy building an opera house in my back yard,

0:53:360:53:40

how long does it take?

0:53:400:53:41

Does that count dreaming about it?

0:53:410:53:44

-Yeah, definitely.

-Oh, years, years.

0:53:440:53:46

MUSIC: Siegfried's Funeral March by Wagner

0:53:460:53:49

Over the years, Martin transformed the cow shed next to his house

0:53:520:53:56

into a fully functioning opera house,

0:53:560:53:58

complete with 500 hand-me-down seats

0:53:580:54:01

from the Royal Opera House refit.

0:54:010:54:04

His labour of love has now staged

0:54:050:54:08

the whole of Wagner's 15-hour-long Ring cycle.

0:54:080:54:11

Is there a parallel between Wagner's total work of art,

0:54:250:54:30

this vision of the full, encompassing experience

0:54:300:54:34

for the audience, and the vision that you had here?

0:54:340:54:38

Well, of course. I didn't think of it in that way when I started.

0:54:380:54:41

I just thought, "I want to build the theatre,

0:54:410:54:44

"and then we'll build the pit,

0:54:440:54:46

"and then we'll build the orchestra." But in fact,

0:54:460:54:49

as we went on, people modified their views and thought,

0:54:490:54:54

"Well, maybe it IS possible.

0:54:540:54:56

"Maybe he isn't completely nuts."

0:54:560:54:58

When you listen to Wagner, where does it take your mind?

0:55:090:55:13

It's fantasy,

0:55:140:55:16

and it's magical, and it's emotional,

0:55:160:55:18

and it really tears your inside out.

0:55:180:55:21

Perhaps it all comes back again to innocence.

0:55:290:55:32

Martin Graham's fascination with the magical started with something

0:55:320:55:36

we might all remember and recognise -

0:55:360:55:39

a child's curiosity.

0:55:390:55:41

When I was a little boy, I used to go out in the fields,

0:55:430:55:46

and the first thing I did when I got out of sight,

0:55:460:55:49

so nobody could see me,

0:55:490:55:50

is I put my hand over one eye...

0:55:500:55:52

..and I used to call that my dark eye,

0:55:530:55:56

and it took me to another world.

0:55:560:55:58

And it was a little bit of childish fantasy,

0:55:580:56:02

and it still comes back to me quite a lot.

0:56:020:56:04

If you just want to extract yourself

0:56:040:56:08

from the world and go into the arts, just do that,

0:56:080:56:12

in your own way.

0:56:120:56:14

What I find remarkable is that Martin Graham

0:56:160:56:19

has kept his curiosity and his enthusiasm for the arts

0:56:190:56:23

and has also had the self belief and drive

0:56:230:56:26

to share what he loves with others.

0:56:260:56:28

Do you feel that there is something utopian about this,

0:56:300:56:34

that you are building a better place here?

0:56:340:56:38

There is. There is something absolutely tremendous.

0:56:380:56:40

Because it's like a love affair.

0:56:400:56:42

Once you get going, there is a reciprocity.

0:56:420:56:45

And the sort of people who... Your customers who pay you good money

0:56:460:56:50

and don't mind the odd leaking roof,

0:56:500:56:53

they're the giants of it all

0:56:530:56:55

because they're just endorsing you and encouraging you

0:56:550:56:58

and saying, "Go on."

0:56:580:57:00

And then, of course, they are part of the joint enterprise.

0:57:000:57:03

It's a wonderful, magical feeling to think -

0:57:030:57:06

all those people enjoy themselves for a four-hour,

0:57:060:57:10

five-hour evening, and come out literally beaming with joy.

0:57:100:57:15

For some,

0:57:150:57:18

I think it's almost a religious experience.

0:57:180:57:20

In art, in life,

0:57:260:57:28

to believe in greater than ourselves is an act of imagination,

0:57:280:57:33

of closing the eye,

0:57:330:57:34

of temporarily letting go and moving into a better place.

0:57:340:57:39

From Thomas Moore to Sid Meier,

0:57:410:57:45

explorers to feminists,

0:57:450:57:48

hedonists to artists,

0:57:480:57:51

visionaries and communal pioneers,

0:57:510:57:55

the steps we've taken to improve our world,

0:57:550:57:57

sometimes in the face of great adversity,

0:57:570:58:01

have all started within our imaginations.

0:58:010:58:05

These dreams are deeply personal

0:58:050:58:07

and, at the same time, wonderfully communal.

0:58:070:58:10

And though utopias fail, although our gains can be lost,

0:58:100:58:14

I think that Thomas Moore would be proud that the urge

0:58:140:58:17

to hope for better, for which he coined a name,

0:58:170:58:20

has become something that humans show no sign of losing.

0:58:200:58:24

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