Visionary status, material culture and Youtubers

Excerpts from an interview originally printed in MÜ Magazine n.1, January 2021, conducted by David Erdos. You can read it online HERE.

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DAVID ERDOS: [...] While there are many artists whose Work embodies a visionary status, very makers are as equal or as mythic as the work itself, at least in the minds of others. There’s you, Ballard, Heathcote Williams… How do you define a visionary in the full cultural meaning of that word?

ALAN MOORE:  Well, I’d say that with a visionary it’s always got to be personal. It’s got to be a personal vision. I think if you look under visionary in the dictionary you’ll see a picture of William Blake. He’s pretty much the archetypal visionary. As I’ve said elsewhere, human beings don’t come a lot better than Billy Blake. I suppose what this is connected to is finding a way of seeing. There was a performer called Nicholas Curry who worked under the name of Momus. Well, I remember one of his songs; there was a snatch of lyric that stayed with me: ‘I’m in love with everyone who knows its hard to find a way of seeing. Who knows that nevertheless that is the only way to flame into being.’ And I think that this is the important thing: to identify the way in which we see the world. And to then communicate that; to develop the skills that we will need to communicate that: Sing your particular song. Give your particular view of the world. And as far as I can see it, one subjective view of the world is not privileged over another. Everyone’s subjective reality is the entire universe. And they are constructing it entirely within the confines of their mind.

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DAVID ERDOS:  [...] Its a common argument in theatre for instance that all you have to do is entertain. I’ve never believed that. I think the theatre has to include that of course but is actually  about something else: ideas, exploration, challenge, transformation. And that a play is a list of ever changing or uncharted decisions. It’s why I’m a great Pinterist. In his plays everything is both true and untrue at any given moment and you have to navigate each silence, and each mystification.

ALAN MOORE:  Of course I have great respect for Pinter as a dramatist. I am more of a Bertolt Brecht geezer. In that I – I mean, I’ve always liked Brecht, but I’ve only recently  realised in fact, how much my own methods were an unconscious approximation. I’d never heard about Brechtian alienation, until I realised it’s what I’ve been doing all my life. The thing about Brecht is that he took hugely difficult moral and political concerns, and he mashed them up with the most appalling and vulgar popular media; sing songs and cabaret..

DAVID ERDOS:  Shows about murderers, reprobates, prostitutes, tyrants, capitalists!

ALAN MOORE:  There are ways in which almost anything can be communicated, and I think the onus on us is that we can’t continually complain about the public, because they’re only responding to what they’ve been fed, and what they’ve been conditioned to like. We should be able to offer more tempting dishes with our culinary skills, and if we can’t make them irresistible enough, then that really is on us. Certainly, it would help and be encouraging to get more response from the audience out there, but I think its our fault, rather than theirs. Or, rather, that is the best way for us to regard it. That we should buck our ideas up and try a bit harder to captivate people.

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DAVID ERDOS: [...] Do you think then, that it’s about reaching large groups of people anymore, or is that future more about finding widespread and more selective groups? As a way of starting that culture again. Do you think that we need to start that culture again?

ALAN MOORE:  Hmmn. Well, I myself would like to see a material culture. This might be because of my own prejudices. But I think you’ve got to have material culture before you can have material counter-culture. I think the idea of magazines is a great one. Maybe this is never coming back, but it struck me recently that the way that I and many of the people I knew managed to find ourselves in our current positions, or got to the point that we wanted to get to in life; a lot of the ways we used, are simply not there anymore. I was asked to do an intro for a very very good biography of Malcolm Mclaren that came out recently, and it occurred to me while I was reading it, that there was a particular scaffolding that enabled us to climb into those positions. It was Art Schools, Arts Labs, in my own case, to start with; the underground press, which then vanished, or at least the national underground press did. By which time there were poetry magazines, and they endured while there was the brilliant poetry boom of the sixties and seventies. Then there were regional alternative papers… then there were regional newspapers, whether they were alternative or not..there  was the music press, which was one the ways I got into being an artist and writer. But all of the ways, all of the steps, all of the handholds that got me to where I am don’t exist anymore. And I am suspicious of the fact that the modern handhold are all owned by some tech company or other. I mean, I was talking to my grandson, one of my grandchildren, and he was talking about how at the moment he’s looking forward to becoming a Youtuber! I mean, he’s ten, you know..but then my daughter Amber who was in the background chipped in and said that maybe having your own Youtube channel was like having your own fanzine! And when I was talking to Jarett Kobek the other night he was talking about how he had started a book about Youtubers, and the tragic stories of a number of them, as he was saying that for a lot of these kids, unless they become one of the successful Youtubers, all they’re going to be or have are all of the disadvantages of being well known and none of the advantages. I mean, a lot of them  – and I wasn’t talking about this to my grandson – but a lot of them have suicided. And Jared said, and this is very unlike him, that he gave up writing the book because it was just too depressing. He couldn’t actually face doing it anymore as it was making him feel terrible about humanity. So, yes, I’ve got my reservations about all the modern media. I would probably greatly prefer a return to material media, because I think when you’ve not got that physical artefact the atmosphere behind a counter-culture suffers. It’s an intangible and ephemeral feeling that needs something physical to actually coalesce around. There’s a number  of problems that I have with virtual online culture. I can’t really comment on it much because I’m not part of it. But I’m not part of it for a reason. So, I really applaud any attempt to do print media, because I think people want them. It’s like vinyl albums…

DAVID ERDOS:  The future is still in the past!

ALAN MOORE:  Yes, I think it is. And we should also not assume that every new thing is progress. It might just be a new thing! It doesn’t mean that it’s better than what came before.

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The complete interview is available HERE.