Dear Jez. I guess I’d say that the potential distance between intention and meaning can and should be mitigated by theoretical frameworks. Your project does raise very interesting questions but also necessarily requires consideration of issues around the representation of women of which the passively observed archetype (I suggest you might be attempting to subvert) like the fallen women archetype (I suggest you perpetuate), are stereotypes feminist scholarship has widely analyzed and critiqued. I guess the general point is that in some of the films I’ve felt that deeper consideration of the wider debates and complexities around a given issue would lead to more critically resilient pieces – and yes I still hope they can be as well made as yours is - however many people that takes ☺. Reminds me of a joke about a lightbulb…

i have to say I agree with you wholeheartedly on this marko. All these vapid films are enough to stomach without having to read the banal and obsequious commentaries that accompany them. That much of the work here is being championed for its political profundity and artistic merit makes for pretty grim viewing. It belies a particularly modern brand of glib, non-thinking where any differentiation between real intellectual engagement and flippant gesture no longer appears to exist. And what is this incessant, tired rigmarole of words that constantly rears its ugly head in these contexts? – a language totally reduced in meaning by its own overuse – oh sure, everything’s ‘questioning’, ‘challenging’ and ‘subverting’, isn’t it? How about atrophying our brains to mush instead? Can this whole school of piss-politik not find a new lexicon?; it is de-valuing language and making people duller in more ways than one. I see more integrity and cultural pertinence in trash television than I do in the conceit-soaked drivel that has poured out onto this website. Arrogant, perhaps, but if all those ‘academics’ and ‘thinkers’ (read dull-witted, aspirational thirty-something snobs) that this ‘groundbreaking’ website alleges to attract listened up, they might find something more interesting to write about than their wanky mis-quoted Baudrillard rants that nobody cares to read anyway. Wake up people, there is a real world of ideas waiting outside, it’s not too late.

'dull-witted, aspirational thirty-something snobs'...Wow this is getting fucked up.

Alice Prin has made a political decision not to participate in this forum anymore.

I often wonder why is it that people who consider themselves 'intelligent and educated ', who want, wish, love, desire to impressed others by writing what on the surface seems to be INTELLIGENT THOUGHTS ... always make TOTAL and REAL FOOL of themselves by writing bitter, frustrated totally useless and in essence childish, immature, ridicule thoughts ...
Why bother to waste their precious time by participating in an X discussion ?

Are they so frustrated beyond redemption ?.... Are they full of petty jealousy ?... or perhaps in the end they are not as 'educated', well informed and as intelligent as they wish as ' morons' to believe ?

My grandmother always said to me ... to be educated is one thing ... but to be intelligent and exercise such a 'gift ' and ability with caution that is the tricky part ! ..... and in essence .... an ART !

The Art of being INTELLIGENT has rather little to do with EDUCATION but more to do with CLEVERNESS ... in the POSITIVE SENSE ... so who is in the end the MORON, I wonder ?

That would be a nice project .......... WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE ?
Kids are often more intelligent than grown ups ! .... The problem is the that so called ' grown ups ' are so full of themselves that they act rather ...... STUPID and FOOLISH !

EDUCATION:
the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, esp. at a school or university : a new system of public education.
-the theory and practice of teaching : colleges of education.
- a body of knowledge acquired while being educated : his education is encyclopedic and eclectic.
- information about or training in a particular field or subject : health education.
- a particular stage in the process of being educated : a high-school education

INTELLIGENCE :
-the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills : an eminent man of great intelligence | they underestimated her intelligence.
- a person or being with this ability : extraterrestrial intelligences.

CLEVERNESS:
-quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; intelligent : a clever and studious young woman | how clever of him to think of this!

Basic Terms

1. You must be 13 years and older to use this site.
2. You are responsible for any activity that occurs under your screen name.
3. You are responsible for keeping your password secure.
4. You must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other SHOWstudio users.

A few things seem worth highlighting in this forum.

Firstly why are there so few comprehensive profiles attached to the avatars?

A great deal of time/money and effort goes into maintaining this site and conceiving and implementing the campaigns. It is by no means the norm. Set up pre-Web 2.0 it appears to have avoided the somewhat inevitable ego-maniacal futility of subsequent social networking and portfolio sites. Participants are not inundated with marginal double-click advertising and despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary begins with the assumption that surfers are intelligent debate-enthusiasts and purveyors of valid and valuable opinion.

But any democratic system, upon which the luxury of debate is based, requires identification. Whether it’s your university floor, the corner of Hyde Park or the one in the House of Commons speakers generally identify themselves so you can situate their perspective and incorporate their reasoning in the democratic discussion.

The sniping that has prospered on various sites like YouTube where commentary quickly descends into racist, sexist or generally misanthropic tirades seems endemic of the hyena approach to commentary (and worthy perhaps of its own full-blown SHOWstudio campaign), a covert anonymous pack mentality that favours vicious attack over considered discourse.

It seems strangely symbolic that in the forum sprung from Aitor Throup’s film on identity (or misidentity and its lethal consequences) that the very kernel that ultimately defeats the logic of terrorist endeavour should be so clearly highlighted. When we choose to present our voice covertly without the automatic restraint of responsibility our reasoning rapidly degenerates and is simply superceded by a desire to inflict pain or defeat on our adversaries at any cost. There is no voice without body. Even the supposedly omnipotent and omnipresent gods of various religions have nonetheless felt a curious obligation to put forward physical representatives to the world’s parliament of ideas.

A particularly relevant researcher for what has developed on this site is Stanley Milgram. His two most famous projects were the ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ and ‘Behavioural Study of Obedience’. The first (pre-internet) highlighted the fact that true and complete anonymity is invariably a comfortable illusion and one that can be overturned by the powers that be if they see fit; given the arbitrary nature of extraordinary rendition I’m sure that the CIA would find six degrees of separation from Osama bin Laden more than adequately suspicious proximity to justify extradition. The most disappointingly illustrative chapter of the second project was the one where the test subjects did not themselves administer the lever but the one where they were removed by one; ie they provided the order not the action. 37 out of 40 actor/victims were killed by their ‘anonymous’ captors.

Anonymity seems to breed or liberate us to inhumanity and vendetta.

All the contributors to this project can be traced. You can view their profiles their pictures, in some cases their websites and thereby their contact details. You can skype, email or even call Jez Tozer from his website. From our own website you can even get a map to our studio and are physically (if not legally) free to come and graffiti our front door with any manner of articulate critique (If you need some pointers I’m rather fond of ‘pretensious wanker’ or ‘dull-witted, aspirational thirty-something snob’, though I can’t claim the copyright on the latter).

To be well criticised is a privilege not a disappoinment. Alice Prin’s comment on our film was incisive and extremely accurate and I whole-heartedly agree with her quote and am excited by the prospect of researching the source of that quote. (By the way to respond to that comment it was a question of finance; what I had in my head my collaborator Trevor Forrest wrily informed me would cost in the region of 300,000 pounds. Given that I had roughly 7 pounds 50 in loose change after holding my piggy bank at gunpoint and we had already engaged with both the idea and the project we had to roll with what we could source and ultimately produced something far ‘prettier’ than I would have liked.) But even Alice has provided little or no information about herself, unless of course she’s Kiki de Montparnasse in which case she’s sounding remarkably chipper for someone so long in the grave.

SHOWstudio is an extremely generous project. You know who Alex Fury is, you know who Penny Martin is, you know who Nick Knight is and you know where to find them, likewise the contributors. Should you not perhaps consider the same courtesy rather than basking in the caustic arrogance that anonymity affords? That way, should you turn out to be Noam Chomsky or Anna Wintour, we can be humbled and marvel at your achievements or in the event you’re running a motel and looking after your dead mother while inviting the drivers of passing forums to shower we can admire your multi-tasking ability and simply be grateful for your charitable and insightful commentary before we turn on the shower-head.