TIM ARNOLD’S ‘SUPER CONNECTED’ – IRONWORKS STUDIO, BRIGHTON 21.5.24
It’s incredible to take a step back and reflect on the massive societal changes that have occurred during the last year; of course, the pandemic was the de facto spanner in the globe-shaped works, but technology has, not so much been evolved, but mutated into something that trespasses various degrees of humanity’s faults and ill-timed judgements. For better or for worse, the time-bomb world of social media and all of its vertices have threaded together to form a vast connection of juxtaposing viewpoints, aggressive keyboard-warrior feuds and bombardments of brain-washing adverts that become increasingly difficult to avoid. All this and then some is tackled in the latest artistic vision of London-based Tim Arnold’s latest record-cum-film-theatre piece ‘Super Connected’.
Creating music for nearly thirty years, Tim is one of the most prolific and artistic musical icons of the 21st century, with an extensive solo career following the disbandment of his group Jocasta and the foundation of Save Soho, an extensive collection of artists, musicians and performers advocating the concern of the depleting world of performing arts in Soho. The ‘Super Connected’ project has been a long time coming for Tim, with tracks and concepts circulating for the past eight years until this theatre tour. The album itself is a remarkable entity in and of itself, with all the songs detailing several vignettes of desolation and socio-futuristic dystopia. But, if the album wasn’t enough of a feat of songwriting and conceptual prowess, then the film certainly amplifies the ‘Super Connected’ message tenfold, with Brighton’s Ironworks Studio hosting the titular performance/film screening.
I settle down with my partner for what promises to be a remarkable event, having sealed my phone in a blue pouch as per the ‘Super Connected’ experience, instead being given the chance to make my notes for the evening on the old-fashioned notepad-and-pen procedure. Tim’s partner Kate Alderton, who adapted the film and performance to stage, welcomes us with a message regarding the show’s rundown, including a heartfelt statement on the album needing to be experienced in its entirety, without distillation into playlists or interruptions of adverts. A reformation of the art of album-crafting, Tim’s twelve-song cycle was unfolding in front of our eyes.
The film opens with a fragmenting family that acts as the cornerstone of its subject, atop the opening ‘Super Connected’ titular track, awash with glam-infused Peter Gabriel-isms that Tim interweaves his own touch into. The family’s older daughter Bella resides in her bedroom, finding solace in the dark holes of social media, while the marriage between the two central characters of Tim and Kathleen (portrayed by Tim and Kate Alderton) finds itself built upon Facebook engagements with each other rather than a crave for poems and genuine heartfelt communications on the track ‘You Like My Pictures’. Wider cracks are caused in the relationship as Tim’s character appears to have found comfort in the plastic arms of another woman (presumably encountered online), in a betrayal against Kathleen. This scene is complemented beautifully with its overlaid song ‘The Touch of a Screen’, which makes use of gorgeous piano and electric piano arrangements that reminds one of The Postal Service.
The ‘Start a Conversation’ sequence sees Tim attend a step-meeting for social media addiction, while Kathleen and daughter Bella find struggles in attempting to talk to each other, with the former lamenting wasted time in front of her loved one’s bedroom door. As Tim finds solitude atop a hillside during ‘Make Me All Right’, he is suddenly interrupted with a good old-fashioned album-interrupting advert, voiced by none other than Stephen Fry. The advert for the iHead, a puzzling and disturbing project of indulgent immersion, persuades Tim to sign up for a procedure he will come to regret on ‘Start with the Sound’, the film’s centrepiece track and the album’s opener. The iHead is the ultimate in social media corruption, taking Arnold’s self-titled character into a virtual reality, where he is depicted via white paint and blue hair (as seen on the album cover), diving deeper into faux-happiness while his soul suspends in limbo. The family are later thrust forward into the limelight on a talk show not unlike The Jeremy Kyle Show, being poked fun at for their demeanours and turbulent family experiences on the track ‘Everything Entertains’. As Tim and Kathleen reconcile, it becomes apparent that the driving force for this rekindling is their daughter, now lost in disillusion created by her hibernation on social media. That hibernation is broken in the sequence for the song ‘Send More Light’, where beacons of both hope and despair are lit: the hope in the form of Bella finally leaving her screens to the glistening sunlight and warm comfort of her parents, and the despair due to the sad passing of Kathleen’s mother.
As iHead continues to pull people into its web of fear on the track ‘The Complete Solution’, the film begins to enter its final leg of modern-day dystopia as while Bella has now escaped her nightmare, the rest of the world enter theirs, receiving their complimentary iHeads. Tim, now acclimated to a reduced state of social digitization, returns to his step meeting, where he ends up finding the head of the meeting, collapsed and entangled with the iHead. Watching Tim’s character depart from one polar end of the social media engagement spectrum to the other is intriguing, having now realised the dangers that the powers that be had in store for him are now corrupting the world around him as the film bows out on the closing ‘Finally Everybody’s Talking’ sequence.
Once Tim, Kathleen and piano accompanist Sarah Kershaw bow for the audience and give their love and thanks to the crowd, myself and my partner engaged in several conversations with the ‘Super Connected’ team, both frontlines and behind-the-scenes, surrounding all things technology, music and the future. Something that was quite a nice touch for me was a positioned microphone on a tripod for any of the attendees to stand in front of and give their thoughts and opinions on the film – naturally, I stepped forward to say some words on my experience of ‘Super Connected’ as a young adult automatically thrown into the realms of social media. There have always been constant dangers lurking on the Internet, with primary perils now emanating in the form of mindless adverts, hypnotic video-scrolling and bodiless manipulations of seconds-long snippets of songs incorrectly perceived as art. ‘Super Connected’ is a mammoth triumph, a project that Tim and his cohorts have dedicated many years of their life to, through his immaculate songwriting and Kate Alderton’s superlative artistic stage direction.
‘Super Connected’ film setlist:
‘Super Connected’
‘You Like My Pictures’
‘The Touch of a Screen’
‘Start a Conversation’
‘Make Me All Right’ (excerpt)
‘Picture Sounds Commercial’
‘Start with the Sound’
‘Everything Entertains’
‘Send More Light’
‘The Complete Solution’
‘Where Am I In All of This?’
‘Finally Everybody’s Talking’
Live piano accompaniment and additional vocals by Sarah Kershaw
All songs written, recorded, produced and performed by Tim Arnold
Film directed by Tim Arnold
Produced by Nim Arnold
Story Supervisor – Nic Alderton
‘Dream Dance’ sequence – Daniela Maccari
Stage adaption – Kate Alderton
Film cast:
Tim Arnold – Tim Arnold
Kathleen Curtis – Kate Alderton
Bella Curtis – Dixie McDevitt
Carole Curtis – Valerie Charlton
Carole’s Carer – Jessie Doyle
Roxy Curtis – Roxy Easton Doyle
Oswald Wear – Simon Reeves
Ferdinand Wear – Bryanne Mackintosh-Melville
Gregory Hawkins – Jeremy Stockwell
Graham Kyle – Steve Furst
General Chutterbuck – Jud Charlton
Candy – Cyrilla Whyte
The Voice of Picture Sounds – Stephen Fry
Tim Arnold’s ‘Super Connected’ is available to purchase HERE in various release formats including digital, CD, and vinyl.
For the full list of cast and production credits, please visit www.superconnected.technology.
