Hooked | The Wife | Colors | The Cry | Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life...
For this week's culture fix we check out a new exhibition on addiction, Glenn Close's critically acclaimed new movie, a revolutionary music channel on YouTube, a pulsating new BBC drama series, and an eye-opening book on how social media is affecting us.
VISIT: Hooked. Everybody has a vice. Whether you can’t function in the morning without a coffee, are prone to the occasional cigarette, or can’t go for 10 minutes without checking you smartphone, there is a science behind humans being wired in this way. Last week a fascinating new exhibition entitled Hooked opened at the spanking new Science Gallery, which delves into the complex world of addiction and recovery, examining what makes us as humans so vulnerable to addiction while exploring the complex factors at play in the brain and the many routes to recovery. Hooked features talented artists and photographers from all over the world, such as Olivia Locher, Joachim Koester and Melanie Manchot, and has been developed by those who have lived through addiction in a variety of different forms. The exhibition asks important questions such as: how and why do we become addicted? And how does our consumerist society have a hand in feeding addiction? It also includes a programme of events and talks from leading addiction experts in partnership with Kings College London.
HOOKED is free to enter and it runs until 6 January 2019. For more information visit https://london.sciencegallery.com/news/hooked and follow @SciGalleryLon on Twitter.
SEE: The Wife. Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce star in this riveting and psychologically complex portrait of public acclaim and private turmoil. Eminent author, Joseph Castleman, receives a phone call in the middle of the night. He’s won the Nobel Prize for Literature! Great! Or is it? This gilded accolade for his lifetime achievements and the flood of public praise and adoration that follows opens up some gaping flaws in his character and his relationship with wife, Joan. Told partly in flashbacks to their time at college, we learn more about the history of their relationship and why Joan’s reaction to her husband’s new-found stardom uncomfortably mingles joy, pride, resentment and injustice. “Don’t paint me as a victim” she tells the lurking biographer who is keen to dig the dirt on her marriage “I am much more interesting than that”. And she is. Glenn Close’s remarkable performance shows that human emotions can be paradoxical and full of complexity – with a fine line between love and hate.
The Wife is now on general release in cinemas across the UK.
LISTEN: to Colors. For generations the music industry has been focusing on selling out stunning shows at mega venues and producing high budget, glamourous music videos. But one Berlin-based media company is reversing this trend, stripping music back to the bare minimum and enjoying a great deal of success in the process. With over 400m views and close to 2m loyal subscribers on YouTube, Colors invites fresh musical talent from all over the globe to showcase their music alone, in an intimate monochrome studio with no visual distractions - just the artist, or artists, and a microphone. The format is a simple yet brilliantly effective way of bringing fans closer to their favourite musicians and enabling them to discover new acts they might not be aware of. There are now over 200 artists featured on the channel, including: Jorja Smith, Giggs, Tom Misch and Little Simz from the UK; Odissee, Jay Rock, Joyce Wrice and GoldLink representing the US; and some great European talent including Belgian rapper Romeo Elvis, Frenchman Lomepal and German artist Trettmann.
Check out the Colors YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Qw1dzXDBAZPwS7zm37g8g and follow live updates on Twitter at @Colorsxstudios.
WATCH: The Cry. This four-part series, staring Jenna Coleman which started this week, is based around a couple who are travel to Australia to win custody over the husband’s (Ewen Leslie) daughter, until the plot takes a surprising twist when their newborn son, Noah, is kidnapped. Based on Helen Fitzgerald’s 2013 novel of the same name, the first episode offers a powerful performance from Coleman as her character switches back and forth between timelines from a love-sick schoolteacher to a struggling mother suffering with post-natal depression, and a defendant in a present day court case. Gripping and emotionally charged, this thrilling new drama is set to intensify as we all get hooked on the complex journey into the psychology of a young woman, who exposes the myths and truths of motherhood. Bring on episode two!
The Cry airs on Sunday on BBC One at 9pm. Episode one is currently available on BBC iPlayer.
READ: Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life. A timely recommendation following a BBC experiment, which reveals young people feel lonelier than older people because they are wired to their phones, this book not only investigates our unhealthy obsession with social media but offers some useful advice on how to stop the endless scrolling and reconnect with the real world. How do you forget the filters and drop the pressures of the picture perfect lifestyle? Author Katherine Ormerod, together with experts including clinical psychologists, plastic surgeons, professors and influencers investigates the impact that being constantly connected has on our lives, relationships, body-image and attitudes and behaviours. Despite the dramatic title, the good news is that it confirms social media isn’t inherently bad for your mental health – it’s the age old barriers of addiction and self comparison that are ruining your life. A must-read, this book will make you think twice the next you ‘do it for the gram!’
Why Social Media is ruining your life by journalist Katherine Ormerod is out now and is published by Octopus Books. Follow @Katherine_orm on Twitter for updates.
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