Beautiful World is a film about a feeling that prevails in the world at present. This feeling is one of joy, inspiration and refreshing innovation, but also one of being oppressed and manipulated through technology and economization. I call it a feeling because we cannot concretely define the situation: we cannot speak of left or right, black or white, text or image. It is a gray area, in which a mix of different cultures and countries, tradition and innovation, commercialism and idealism is searching for legitimacy. A world in which fusion and blending are forming an image of the future.
The feeling about the world that this film represents cannot be labeled as good or bad. We cannot say that our world was better in the past. Our position in life is different now; the affluent West has built as much as it possibly can build and has entered an age in which innovation and entertainment are what keeps the world turning economically. The popularization of art, science and media demands that culture find a new position for itself and set new goals. People continually want something new; our economic system is based on this. Products are not developed for durability; technological developments ensure innovation remains necessary. And it is not only products that do not last forever: organizations, too, are changing more rapidly.
The creative industry ensures that a small group of popular artists,
creative heroes and superstars is reproduced everywhere, even in the
supermarket, and presented as new product lines all around the world. Is
speed making life more superficial? Do change and innovation mean that
what is old no longer has value or meaning? If art is a reflection of society,
the artist`s subject matter will, for the time being, originate in the
consumer industry and consist of media, products and identities. Beautiful
World cites, refers to and makes use of this material with great enthusiasm.
Beautiful World is a typographical film which employs many quotes, statements and slogans by well-known and less well-known thinkers, artists and advertisers, from book titles, film texts and spam e-mail messages, and so on. The film also contains original texts. Typography has a broad meaning in this production: any image that has become iconic through fame, repetition and recognizability may be regarded and used as typography.