The Knowledge
The Knowledge (preview) 1 minuteThe Knowledge appears to be a traditional TV game-show, perhaps from the 1980s. Its highlight though, is a race across London between a traditional black cab, and a smart-phone equipped uber cab. The enthusiastic host, Robert O’Reilly, describes this as ‘an epic, existential battle; a battle for survival and for the future of mankind…’ The work’s familiar game-show conventions and unchallenging narrative and pace urge us to watch it as pulp TV, and to side with the ‘Hackney Carriage Team’, but the show is curiously hollow, with neither theme music nor applause. In the setting of The Knowledge Ian Wolter emphasises the strangely unconcerning, popular belief that rapidly advancing technologies will sweep aside the Knowledge and both cab and uber drivers as well as any number of other jobs. This work also probes our sentimental desire to preserve ways of doing things through wanting others not to change, or to revert to how they used to buy a book or hail a cab. But being unwilling to change ourselves: enjoying progress, yet yearning for it not to change anything. Director – Jonathan Howard Lead Actor – Robert Jezek Director of Photography – Neil Oseman Production/Production Design – Amanda Stekly Film: 15 minutes, 2017
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