Shifty

Curtis weaves his trademark tapestry of image, sound and logic to portray a story of power in the UK, proposing a explanation of our recent political history. We explore how an “underlying pessimism about human motives”, along with a mistaken belief in the possibility of control, led Thatcher’s government and its descendants to gradually give away their power. We see this happen through often ludicrous spin and deception, the financialisation of capitalism, and the privatisation of public goods and services (a process we learn was invented, or at least expanded by the Nazis). Major events are set against a backdrop of how the population was feeling, to provide an unsettling, revealing, infuriating and always entertaining perspective on the making of this moment, and a stark observation about the nature of power today. The ending provides an honest reflection on the role of work like this in these times.