{"id":1290,"date":"2016-07-01T20:58:29","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T18:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=1290"},"modified":"2016-07-01T20:58:29","modified_gmt":"2016-07-01T18:58:29","slug":"not-the-futurists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=1290","title":{"rendered":"Not The Futurists: A Rocking Riot"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Not<\/a>
Not The Futurists in performance. Photo by Anna van Kooij.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wowzerz. Not The Futurists<\/em> is a wild ride; as wild a ride as modern life. The bombardment of noise\/sound\/activity\/music\/intensity at 100k\/h still has me shaky as I\u00a0type here. And of course the irony doesn\u2019t escape me that without a break I rush home to write about it. Because I like to get a review out before the next show \u2013 at 9pm tonight by the way \u2013 it\u2019s the\u00a0way of arts industry business.<\/p>\n

Irony, because that\u2019s their message, isn\u2019t it? The rat race has got us all. Hard. As hard as listening to incessant drilling and grinding machinery and shouting and discordant and dissonant noise choirs.<\/p>\n

But the message is clear. It\u2019s told to us. At least it\u2019s told in a stylistically interesting way. Albeit a bit of the same for too long. We\u2019re drowning in noise. Those of you who live in the city, literally. Those of us who don\u2019t city-dwell, live vicariously through social media, drowning in that noise instead.<\/p>\n

I found Not The Futurists<\/em>\u00a0overstated towards\u00a0the end \u2013 a cynical nihilist sort of \u2018gets it\u2019 in the first 20 minutes. Machines and technological reliance are sucking out whatever soul people might have left. At the very least, causing the last bit of disconnect between \u2018normal\u2019 people living in a fractured society. It does presume we have a standard of \u2018humanity\u2019 to start off with\u2026<\/p>\n

Especially important was the image created of lined up zombified people, dull-eyed, mouths agape, espousing their opinions \u2013 truly theirs, or those learnt and recited? They are grotesquely smiling machines, making a lot of noise. Politicians spring to mind \u2013 gas bags with charming laughs. But in a darker way, Facebook springs to mind: the alternative life that everyone lives online, different to their real one, similar to the Bruce Willis movie Surrogates<\/em>; plug in guys, be whoever you want to be. Be someone else again when we meet in person.<\/p>\n

And even more telling than all the text\u00a0is\u00a0when a cellphone is brought out and a news feed is scrolled though, whilst others deliver their speeches. The disgustingly iconic symbol of 21st century modern life, the accepted\u00a0use of and staring at\u00a0a\u00a0cellphone whilst conversing with another human being. But more so, the dulling of emotions under the feign of care, thanks to mass media.\u00a0Shocking headlines are read out in monotonous disinterest. The state of the world is matter of fact. If we were truly emotionally disrupted by every tragic news story, we\u2019d never purposefully contribute to economies, as declared in the show.<\/p>\n

We are the machines. \u201cIt is in us already.\u201d The repetitive noise of life going on<\/em> and shrugging away the way of the world<\/em> is how we\u2019re taught to cope in our western, capitalist society.<\/p>\n

Yeah, overall I thought Not The Futurists<\/em>\u00a0endless and tricksy \u2013 too many \u2018novelty\u2019 ideas used to wow the\u00a0audience \u2013 but I like what they were saying \u2018cos I think it too. We\u2019re all fucked. The world is fucked.<\/p>\n

– Sarah Roberson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not The Futurists is on at the Kingswood Music School for 2 more show. For bookings & info click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Production Credits:<\/span>
\nDirector: Laura Jakschas
\nWriter: Jerzy Bielski
\nMusic Composition: Jerzy Bielski
\nFeatured Artists: Akim Moiseenkov (NL), Felix Bousies (UK\/BE), Panos Iliopoulos (GR), Tristan Renfrow (USA), Laura Jakschas (DE), Marko Ivic (HR\/YV), Kirstine Lindemann (DK) & Jerzy Bielski (PL).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wowzerz. Not The Futurists is a wild ride; as wild a ride as modern life. The bombardment of noise\/sound\/activity\/music\/intensity at 100k\/h still has me shaky as I\u00a0type here. And of … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[19,44,249,379,425,451,513,577,580,611,631,871],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}