Why is it that nothing feels real any more?

On Saturday I was one of the speakers at the Adam Curtis Party Conference in Bournemouth. I was invited because John Higgs – surely as skilled a joiner-of-dots as Curtis – couldn’t make it, and he was generous enough to suggest me. No pressure, then. 

The day was, as you might imagine, something of a mind-mangler. A raft of speakers and topics that spanned Russia and Communism, contemporary art, the irrelevance of political parties, mental health and World War III. 

I was asked to give a talk on ‘the future of social activism’ – a subject I’ve had plenty of time to think about (and spent endless hours pondering over with the rest of the Absurd crew). 

The following goes through some of the thinking that went into that talk — because as Adam Curtis understands, it’s important to dig through the archives to remind us why we got here… and how we might change course. 

A World in Retreat

I don’t know how many of you have (re)watched it lately, but revisiting Hypernormalisation after 10 years was VERY strange. From the off. Here’s how Curtis’s voiceover begins the film:

“We live in a strange time.  Extraordinary events keep happening that undermine the stability of our world.  Suicide bombs, waves of refugees, Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin. Even Brexit. Yet those in control seem unable to deal with them. No one has any vision of a different, or a better kind of future.”

“Politicians, financiers, and technological utopians, rather than face-up to the real complexities of the world, retreated. Instead, they constructed a simpler version of the world, in order to hang on to power. And as this fake world grew, all of us went along with it, because the simplicity was reassuring.  Even those who thought they were attacking the system.  The radicals, the artists, the musicians, and our whole counter culture actually became part of the trickery. Because they too had retreated into the make-believe world. Which is why their opposition has no effect... and nothing ever changes.”

It’s literally Groundhog Day, right? Squint, and is as if nothing has changed at all in the intervening ten years. From a resistance perspective that’s pretty fucking miserable, right?

But I guess as with all Curtis’s work, the truth is in weird relation to the story he weaves.

But his fundamental assertion: that “no one has any vision of a different, or a better kind of future.” is EXACTLY why Extinction Rebellion was started – and is what is fuelling the work we’re attempting to do at Absurd Intelligence now.

For those who don’t know, in October 2016 I was part of a collective that had just founded a country, Brixtopia. We called it a Nation State of Mind. A place where anyone was welcome to be a citizen, based not on where they lived, but where their head was at. We organised events with clothes upcycling, printing, poetry and music; lectures on the financial system. It was a response to Brexit, inequality and the enduring theme of “nothing ever changes”. 

But it was an art project – part of the trickery. And it was frustrating, because the make-believe world that we were describing felt like the future we’d like to inhabit.

Make it different

You are all I’m sure familiar with those twin David Graeber and Mark Fisher quotes that sort of hold us in weird suspension:

Graeber’s “The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently,” somehow balanced by Fisher’s “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”.

Twin glimpses of astounding insight, that hinder as much as help.

Which is where XR comes in.

Because Extinction Rebellion was never, really, a climate protest, it was a change movement. Its key demand was for a fundamental re-wiring of how we make decisions in the face of environmental (and, therefore societal) collapse.

The unavoidable truth of the climate and nature emergency was for us the wake-up call from the retreat into the make-believe world. If XR was starting today, it would almost certainly also be centring Artificial Intelligence.

Much like Hypernormalisation’s story of global geo-politics, XR’s actions deliver a big fuck you-shaped TOLD YOU SO with the benefit of a few years hindsight. The climate emergency IS REAL. Scant comfort though if we remain stuck in a world where “nothing ever changes”.

There are many criticisms of Curtis’s work – he weaves a narrative that is always incomplete – often seemingly driven by his enormous archive of footage. And Hypernormalisation for example manages just one fleeting reference to environmental contexts. But that’s not the point. It isn’t a documentary, it’s a story. A story about the consequences of NOT having a better story.

This is not a drill

And those consequences are real. How long before balaclava’d vigilantes turn up on the beaches of Bournemouth?

What will a still-building El Niño mean for flooding this winter and fires next summer? How much more of the heathland around Bournemouth will burn?

When will the occasionally empty shelves we’ve probably all already seen in supermarkets turn into persistent food shortages?

This is a report that the government doesn’t want us to see. It was forced to publish a redacted version, and even that toned-down version is chilling. 

One of its key judgements – which it rates the likelihood of happening as HIGH is this: “Ecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse” by which it means “(irreversible loss of function beyond repair).”

EVERY CRITICAL ECOSYSTEM IS ON A PATHWAY TO COLLAPSE. And that’s the bit they are prepared to let us see. What the fuck is the REST??

What make-believe world are we expected to retreat into, when even the government admits that “The UK relies on imports for a proportion of both food and fertiliser and cannot currently produce enough food to feed its population based on current diets.”?

So what IS the better story? What IS the future of social activism in a world facing fascism, climate and AI that might kill us ALL more quickly than the other two?

We’ve seen how the last two governments have dealt with protest. XR, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil activists have been jailed. Five years for zoom calls. Legal defences have been removed, all mention of the climate crisis forbidden in trials. 

Palestine Action has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation. 

The make-believe power-holders can’t see (let alone enact) a better future, but they’ll do ALL they can to make sure an alternative can’t even be glimpsed.

But protest alone has never been a silver bullet. Even in Erica Chenoweth’s famous research (which said 3.5% of a population would need to come out on the streets for social movements to be successful) also required 80% of the population to be broadly supportive. 

And that’s where other factors need to come in. Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan sets this out very simply. Protest raises awareness – but that must be followed by public opposition to powerholders’ policies and then public support for movement alternatives.

In short, there has to be a better story for that story to be able to be enacted. And it has to be ENACTED, because otherwise that story remains just words.

But it’s a Catch 22 of sorts. How can we build a better world, when the world we’re in seems so set? Well, by channeling Graeber (who was in the XR Art Group). By making a DIFFERENT world, one based not on production and consumption, but CARE, and FREEDOM. 

We Can, We Will, We Are

We’ve started referring to that world as World 2 in the office. 

David’s definition of direct action illuminates the approach. 

A town’s water supply is controlled and made unaffordable by a private company, with the protection of the mayor.

Protesting this by holding a demo outside the Mayor’s house is simply begging power to act.

Blocking the mayor’s driveway – civil disobedience – while maybe more challenging, is still focusing on the power dynamic.

Both acts might have the benefit of raising awareness, they can certainly help move things along, speed the path through that diagram of Moyer’s. But Graeber argued that we should ignore the authorities entirely, and go dig OUR OWN well. Not ask power to help us: DARE power to stop us. That, for Graeber, is direct action. 

ACT AS IF WE HAD ALREADY WON. 

Look how often that actually happens in World 1. It’s what Farage is doing. Barely half a dozen MPs and a few failing councils, yet we’re all prepared to believe he could be the next Prime Minister. 

And that kind of Direct Action is what the crew I work with are attempting to make real.

A better story, made real. Without waiting for make-believe power.

It sounds RIDICULOUS, doesn’t it? But if the path of doing nothing ends here:

I think we should ALL give ridiculous a go.

As the situationists of Paris in May 1968 said: BE REASONABLE: DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE.

But what does that actually look like? Well, for us, it starts with a simple declaration of faith:

We can – and WILL – together make a better way to live.

First: “WE CAN” – an acknowledgement that contrary to the neoliberal mantra there is NO alternative, there are MANY other ways of living, MANY alternative realities. But thinking that, or saying that is not enough. 

For too long too many of us HAVE retreated into the make-believe world of ‘being right’ without ever being in the driving seat. We ‘know’ what to do, but rarely actually get to – or even attempt to do it. 

But that’s where the next bit comes in: not only CAN we make a better world, we’re DECIDING to make it. WE WILL. And we will TOGETHER – as a collaborative, collective effort.

And there’s a crucial, third element to the CAN and WILL – and it’s that we already ARE building the new world.

In villages, towns and cities the length of the country. In communities around the world, people are already making new worlds, creating alternative realities, inventing or implementing different outcomes. Work that could change the world in a heartbeat. 

But work that is usually done in isolation, with little resource – work so hard it’s impossible to lift your head up and realise that you are not alone in your endeavour.

Brian Eno often talks of Alexei Yurchak’s description of the two stages of revolution: the first realising that everything is broken, but the second (far more important) stage realising that EVERYONE ELSE realises it too. We’re getting to that stage with capitalism.

And like Yurchak’s Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More (the collapse of the Soviet Union was simultaneously unexpected AND unsurprising), or Fisher’s end of capitalism / end of the world dilemma, it is in the embodied experience of BUILDING THE NEW that the UNIMAGINABLE starts to become the INEVITABLE.

This is what Hard Art, The Fête of Britain and Humanity Project are doing — convening people who already ARE doing things. 

The Fête is a recognition that we change not because of what we think, but what we feel. And we feel things when we experience them – TOGETHER. 

The magic of a Fête is in the mix. Each features a brilliantly diverse programme where THE ARTS MEETS ACTIVISM. Music, poetry, art, film and comedy rub shoulders with grassroots organising and advocacy of all kinds.

Ultimately, we’re attempting to build a grassroots change movement driven by arts and culture – a bigger door to a better party than the far right can offer. And a democratic upskilling to help us cope with what’s coming down the line in terms of climate. 

We’re starting to think of it all as a dress rehearsal for a massive play starring 70 million of us here in the UK.

What Part Will You Play?

It’s Graeber’s direct action. Not protest, or civil disobedience, but very much evolved from that. Back through to XR, obviously, but further too, to Occupy.

The Occupy movement got short shrift in Hypernormalisation. Here’s what Curtis had to say:

There’s an element of truth here of course – and anyone who’s ever had to endure an interminable activist meeting will identify I’m sure – but fifteen years on, I think Curtis’s dismissal of a lack of an idea is cast in a different light. 

Graeber’s WE ARE THE 99% resonates even more in 2026 than it did in 2011. 

Occupy might not have been able to ACT on the idea, but perhaps the point was to INTRODUCE it – the RAISE AWARENESS part of the progress – like XR’s exhortations to TELL THE TRUTH and ACT NOW over climate.

And just as the intervening years since Hypernormalisation have seen the quaint-sounding ‘cyberspace’ turn into the increasing likelihood that AI will prove an extinction event for humanity, the better society demanded by Occupy will increasingly see the 99% realise that power isn’t going to save us, so we’d better pull our fingers out and do something ourselves.

There is no make-believe any more. Reality has come home to roost. There are no new Emperor’s Clothes to be seen, unless you want to pretend that Gaza isn’t real, or Jeffrey Epstein is made up. I wonder if there’s even another Hypernormalisation in Adam Curtis, because reality is as fucking weird as his films, and we don’t need to know why these things happened, we need to URGENTLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

I want to end with a short clip many of you might’ve seen on Novara Media featuring Cory Doctorow — a Hardist — which I think sums up a lot of what I’m trying to say here. 

He makes a great case for why the conference at the weekend took place, where the left needs to head, and what we all need to do now. 

Hypernormalisation has been on iPlayer for nearly ten years, and is about to expire.

You can also watch it on youtube.

iPlayer’s Adam Curtis collection is here.

Elsewhere in Absurdity...

Diya only blagged one of the Lambrini Girls freebies! 🧷💥

Clare was on XR’s Love & Rage podcast, and went to her mate Carly’s fashion show THE NEON MUSCLE GYM – “amazing”. 💪🩷

Alex went to the Whistler exhibition at Tate Britain and was inspired by the artist's mantra for positive creative productivity: "No day without a line." ✍️📅

Most of us (including Alanna and Stella) went to the launch of Nothing But Love! Their first gig is at The Jazz Café, (put together by Skin!) on October 3. 🎸🥁

And tonight Clive and Charlie are off to help celebrate The Nerve’s first birthday. What an amazing thing Carole and her crew have built! 🍸👏