Jame’s Burke’s Connections series appears as fresh in its ideas today as it did when it was first aired in 1978. Episode 1, The Trigger Effect, is a fantasy dystopia in the form of a news report.
Like the Otolith Group [see the post next to this one], Burke asks a similar “What If?” question. My interest is aroused by the juxtaposed film sequences of machines, which reminds me of Harun Farocki’s films. The musical score also adds great atmosphere. The director and producer was Mick Jackson, who went on to direct Witney Houston in The Bodyguard. Burke was more visionary and went on to found The Burke Institute and www.k-web.org, an “expedition in time, space, and technology to map the interior landscape of human thought and experience.” However, in Connections, there is a species of narrator, the chronicler, whose tone Burke adopts; he’s dispassionate, he’s seen it all. I’m not a fan, but this is the approach Burke takes. The comedy sketch show Not The Nine o’clock News took the piss out of his style in “James Bloody Burke” in 1980.
Farocki explores similar ideas to Burke, namely the relationship between technology, science, and the social through a variety of media — radio, television, print and digital, but does away with the omniscient, know-it-all narrator, preferring to suggest a narrative through association and ditching the idea of a musical score altogether.
Episode 1 The Trigger Effect, Part I
Episode 1 The Trigger Effect, Part II
Episode 1 The Trigger Effect, Part III
Episode 1 The Trigger Effect, Part IV
Episode 1 The Trigger Effect Part V
Posted 1 year ago with 0 notesTags: influences
