Jack Brennan

Photo: Ellis Scott

Matthew Stone and friends interview Jack Brennan.

• Matthew Stone : What do you have faith in?

Jack Brennan: Not much. Maths. Some Science. I like Darwinism.

• MS : How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

JB: Here I’m slightly fatalistic. We are changing the world, by heating it up for instance. In this area we need to achieve controlled nuclear fusion power production, because no one is going to change.
If the question means “how can we young leftists change the world for the better?”, then I think that we have to chuck out the notion of slipping through the cracks of our crappy society whilst enjoying an interstitial bohemian lifestyle. I’m against this slogan from 1968: “Be realistic: demand the impossible”; it’s a recipe for impotence, because it’s easy to refuse the impossible. When you make a just demand for a freedom, it should be impossible to refuse! Then you highlight something negative in a government. I think what needs to be done is more action, maybe violence, and certainly a willingness to take leadership. So, strange as the idea of revolution in the UK is, maybe we should all start doing push-ups in case things get rough.

• Kate Moross : If you had the choice between either being able to manipulate space or time which one would you choose, and what would you do?

JB: I think that there is a way to show that these two powers are fairly equivalent in Special Relativity, but I’m just going to go for TIME. I’d use all of the extra TIME I had to learn languages and then fly to other countries in seconds. If I got bored, I’d speed up my bodyclock and die of old age, tomorrow.

• Nicola Lane : What does success mean to you?

JB: I’m really stumped by this one. I think I’d rather not succeed, just have a good reason for not doing so.

• Terence Koh : NOTHING MORE NEED BEE SAID?

JB: I like this question. That’s kind of the state I am aiming for…

• MS: What question should be added to this list?

JB: What film fits your vision of the future best and why? (The film needn’t be set in the future)

Norman Rosenthal

Matthew Stone and friends interview Sir Norman Rosenthal.

• Matthew Stone: What do you have faith in?

Sir Norman Rosenthal: Love, art, music and letters.

• MS: How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

NR: By converting everyone in the world to love, art and music.

• MS: Do you hope to be remembered and what for?

NR: I believe in the ephemeral, which is why I like making exhibitions. They disappear as everything will sooner or later.

• Todd Hart : What’s the best example of Art really changing the world for the better?

NR: I don’t really believe in the concept of best, except at the subjective moment of confrontation with a work of art when maybe there is an illusion of “best”. My tastes in art happen to be very eclectic as they also are in music.

So one minute before doing this little blog for you I was listening to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and if everybody would listen to that simultaneously it would change the world for the better, but equally it might be a drawing or a social sculpture of Joseph Beuys.

• Boo Saville : What do you think happens when we die?

NR: Almost certainly nothing but maybe it could be everything that would be a beautiful surprise.

• Kate Moross : If you had the choice between either being able to manipulate space or time which one would you choose, and what would you do?

NR: I suppose I would like to be able to go back into history at will and even fast forward into the future.

• MS: What question should be added to this list?

NR: Why are we alive at all? It is after all a very strange state to find ourselves in.