Earlier this year, the Swedish documentary Press Pause Play was debuted at major film festivals and creative conferences around the world. From their website, they describe PPP as follows:
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities. But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.
The documentary examines the breakdown of IP and the uprising of cheap and ubiquitous technology resulting in an explosion in the ability of people to be creative and to share that creativity with other people. The flip side to this is the question, all too briefly explored, of whether or not this is taking us to a creative nirvana or down into the depths of a noisy, homogenous hell.
The documentary covers ground that has been well trodden on blogs and SNS groups that devote time to the topic. It does drag in parts, but there are moments of enlightenment and hope that spring from the mouths of some of the most creative people past and present. Particularly provoking was the notion put forward by Bill Drummond (the man that burned a million quid when he was the brains behind the KLF) that technology always comes before creativity.
There are some stirring moments too, such as the live montage at the end of the film. An artist we work closely with in Asia, Olafur Arnalds, is heavily featured, and there are vignettes that round off the whole experience and make the film recommendable.
The main reason that we are featuring Press Pause Play here is because it seems to encapsulate in extremis what is happening here in China at the moment. Not only do we now have cheap tools and distribution methods, but in China we are also unrestricted by convention or precedent while there are very few trusted filters to help us wade through the morass. This results in a completely unique period of unbridled creativity allied to a needle in a haystack phenomenon that is finding those diamonds in the rough. It is happening though, and we are now seeing Chinese bands and artists that have been around for a decent amount of time getting real attention both at home and abroad. Reading the Beijinger today, we were touched by a photo in their 10 year anniversary feature “Now and Then” of a band that we have worked with for the last 4 years. PK14 are standing outside of Beijing’s Scream Club in 2001 looking young and ever so slightly awkward. This contrast with the huge contribution this band have made over the last decade, both on the stage and off it, a reminder of how far we have come in a relatively short space of time.
You can download a high res version of the full length documentary HERE under the creative commons license