Shifty

Shifty is a series of films that traverse the past 40 years in Britain, showing how the shift of political power to finance and hyper-individualism came together in powerful ways, to undermine one of the fundamental structures of mass democracy–the shared idea of what is real. As that fell apart, with it went the language and the ideas that people had turned to for the last 150 years to make sense of the world they lived in. As a result, life in Britain and the current and former colonies of its empire, has become strange–a hazy dream-like flux, where distrust in politicians keeps growing, and the political class seems to have lost control. Through archive footage, news reels, and on-screen-text in video essay format, Shifty documents the shapes of how this happened, using the vast ranges of footage to evoke what if felt like to live through an epic transformation during the 1980s. A shift in consciousness among people in how they saw and felt about the world. Hundreds of moments captured on film and video that give a true sense of the crazy complexity and variety of peoples actual lives. Moments of intimacy and strangeness and absurdity. From nuns playing Cluedo and fat-shaming ventriloquists, to dark moments of racist attacks, suspicion of others, and modern paranoia about conspiracies in Britain’s past. The politicians from Mrs Thatcher onwards unleashed the power of finance to try and manage and deal with this new complexity, but they lost control and the money inevitably broke free. While at the same time the growing chaotic force of hyper-individualism created an ever more fragmented and atomised society that ate away at the idea that was at the heart of democracy: that people could come together in groups. There is a now a mismatch between the world we experience day-to-day, and the world that the politicians, journalists and experts describe to us. The map no longer describes the territory.

Series

Part one opens the dream world that Mrs Thatcher promised, and the ghosts that came back to disrupt it. When power begins to shift in society, everything becomes unstable, exciting and frightening. It wasn’t just the decline of political power, it was also a seismic shift in consciousness in Britain at the end of the 20th century, driven by individualism. Gay Scottish Disco. Intersex dog. Mrs Thatcher. Encounter group. Ghosts of the Empire. Jimmy Savile. The Cheese and Onion computer. Video dating. Ian Curtis. Monetarism. Dead pilot. Stephen Hawking and Black Holes. National Front. Fat-shaming ventriloquist. Dub clash sound system. Party elephant. Wanker on the line. Racist attacks. Bucks Fizz.

On your own in a world of individual freedom. It’s wonderful. But can you trust the old institutions? Suspicion begins to grow. Taxidermist and owl. Rupert Murdoch and the Royal Family. Mrs Thatcher and the Yorkshire Ripper. Avant-garde hair. Video vigilantes. Inflatable giraffe. Fairlight sampler. Square-dance in Worthing. Paedophile spy. Skinhead poem. The corrupt British establishment. Relax. Dame Edna and the Freemasons. Shoot to Kill. Two policeman interrogating a rape victim. Penguins. How to manipulate interviewees on TV. Remixes. The past becomes untrustworthy.

Money replaces ideology as a way of ordering Britain. It was supposed to make things rational. But the money got mixed with old forces from the past. And wasn’t as predictable as it seemed. Shoes from Russell & Bromley. Mrs Thatcher’s luminous earrings. Dolly the horse. Liberal intellectuals who know their power is over. Leeks by moonlight. The Duke of Westminster. The Bitch. Modern art. Morrissey’s nostalgia. Make-up by Rimmel. Dodi Fayed. Ken Dodd’s suitcase. Data extraction. The first Islamist group. The covenants of old English power. MDMA. Mrs Thatcher reads a poem. White rasta.

Those in power begin to distrust you. Once you were a heroic individual. Now you are a creature of HR. And the prime minister is just a man in blue underpants. UFO over Surrey. Water is contaminated. Pigs walking into walls. Traitors in Downing Street. Night sweats. Ram-raiding Currys. ERM underwear. Dreaming of Sutton Coldfield. Nuns play ping pong. Sod Off. HR comes to the Zoo. The official report insists it’s anxiety, not water. Jane Hawking hates her husband’s rational smile. Cleaning up dragon shit. Privatised companies play mathematical games. The rabbits are not anxious. But there may be alternative dimensions where they are. The politicians lose control of the economy.

Who needs politicians in a magical world of free individuals? So they give away their power. But Alexander McQueen sees what is really happening. The monstrous rise of the handbag. The Prince of Wales and his hidden smutty word. Christian Heavy Metal. Sleazy politicians. Imaginary Time. Mohamed al Fayed. King Rat. Censorship in Bollywood. The disappeared from the mental hospital. Highland Rape. Labour gives the last real power away. Sugababes. The pool, the sauna and the lifestyle. Artists become agents for property developers. There are Black Holes in your head. Factories close in the North East. A scanner from Maplin. The empty zones in the Dome. Toad in the Hole. Margaret Thatcher’s handbag. The hidden backbeat. Subprime. The fake show at the end of the century. And the real one.