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Interview with Craig Baldwin

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I'm very sceptical
of these new media revolutions

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just so you know...

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The video revolution came out 
and very quickly 

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that was turned into America's home video, 

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everything was shot by people 
who were in their homes,

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same thing happened with youtube,

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twenty years ago when a video camera 
came into people's hands, 

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and what they shot is basically...

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their cat getting drunk, 
you know what I mean,

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and that's fine

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but how many billions of cats getting drunk 
do you want to see

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so, that's for me,
a cartoon version of the absurdity

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I'm not asking for there to be 
an avantgarde group of people 

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who will lead the viewers,

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but I'm just saying people should 
step up to the challenge of youtube

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and not just me brush my teeth, 
brush my cat's teeth, whatever...

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and so what?

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Anyway this is an issue about 
utopia and dystopia, 

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it is a central issue,

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 I don't want to say I'm utopian 
or I'm dystopian, that's silly,

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the onus is not on some technological...

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there's been a million technological developments that failed

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all of which could have produced 
some kind of change in society.

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Look at radio,
you have internet radio, sure,

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you have micro-broadcasters, sure,
but in the same period of time

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the 80s and the 90s, you have massive
consolidation here in the US with Clear Channel 

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in the same period of time.

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So you might say...

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well the group of people 
listening to 'alternative' rock or whatever

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grew from 3% to 7%

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in the same period of time 
all the people who listen to the jazz stations

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jazz - good example - jazz

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classical, you know,
that 60% of the people,

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now they have to listen to 

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stations that are run 
by the same corporation.

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In other words,
half as many providers,

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and all their playlists are 
already set by some committee.

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So, yeah, sure, 
we had cable access 

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we had UHF
don't you know...

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We had FM radio, it's all in Specters,
another film I made...

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What I mean is, 
this theory has already been shredded

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since the sixties,
it didn't really...

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all these utopian promises were not delivered.

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they all ended up in 
more consolidation, more power.

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I don't want to be part of the rush of people

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saying that just because we have
this or that platform

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you know, the ugly past is behind us

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because many of the people who control
these new avenues of distribution

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are in fact corporations,
very rich,

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they're larger than the television
from the generation before

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well, they compete now
with the television companies

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Yeah, you can watch my movies, 
or your movies for that matter,

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anywhere in the world but...

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you can also watch anything from Hollywood,
just so you know

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Yeah, through BitTorrent 
or Youtube or whatever

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digitally you can move a file to China or whatever

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but way more bad things are going out
than good things

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yeah it's like the faucet is turned on more
there's more flow,

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again, there's no argument there,

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but just because you have more flow
I don't think it's necessarily a good thing.

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It does open up space
for other kinds of things

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that didn't make it into the flow,

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but they're totally diluted,
if you ask me,

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totally diffused
with all the other stuff

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there's more commercial messaging,
more war,

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there's more misogyny.

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Don't you see,
I'm not a utopian

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I'm realistic

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Just because we have other means 
of making movies and distributing movies

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it doesn't mean 

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that the basic conditions of life on the planet

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for most human beings will change.

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I think it's a good thing for those people 
who do have access to computers,

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who are certainly a minority of people on the planet

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and those people who choose to take

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access to older work, 
archives

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that's also a very small minority.

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And by the way, with copyright,
which we haven't really gotten around to

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at the same time that 
there's the proliferation of

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platforms for media production, 
exhibition and distribution

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really, in terms of the law

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it's clearly, there's no doubt about it,
I challenge you...

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to come up with any evidence to the contrary

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that the restrictions around

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what's proprietary material

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has become much more narrow,

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there's no doubt about it

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I can name three,
there's the Sonny Bono Act,

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this is of course in the United States,

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the Digital Millenium Copyright Act

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all of these have really acted to

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to restrict people to less and less material

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which was part of our cultural legacy.

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Of course there can be people who use it

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despite the copyright legislation

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which is precisely the people
I keep talking about

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the outlaws and the margins

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who do things regardless of the wider trends.

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This march towards the web

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as some possible way out

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in the guise again of this utopian...

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exercise of free speech so...

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I remain unconvinced of that.

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There's exceptions, and by the way, 
they're all subcultural

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they're all minorities,

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there's not going to be some magic pill

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BitTorrent or Youtube
that's going to stop the problems

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it has to do with human imagination

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and critical will,
that will do it.

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it could be argued that those things 
make possible and enhance

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critical agency

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And I'm willing to give that a chance.

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I haven't really seen any proof of it yet.

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There's plenty of people out there 
who are watching 

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the worst kind of soap opera right now

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all over the planet

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and i can't save them you know

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hard as I've tried!
I can't save them!

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But the thing is,
it's not me versus them,

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that's not the model anymore,
those people will always be there,

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Bu the ideas will be carried on
by a smaller group of people,

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be they activists,
or be they anarchists

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or be they artists

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it's gotta start with an 'A', whatever!

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So I'm looking for more of a...

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I embrace the democracy but

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really it has to with will,

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it has to do with consciousness,
it has to with a critical point of view

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and the critical skills

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aren't necessarily there
just because we have platforms,

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wider bandwidth or whatever,

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that's what's going 
to make the difference for me.