Peter Greenaway And SaveMe OH Had A Chat

SaveMe OH: Mister Greenaway, don’t you have something better to do then interfere in virtual disputes?

Peter Greenaway: I believe my statement already in essence answers your questions. I have little to add but endorsement of a fascinating new medium that potentially can open the envelope to new visual literacies.  It’s early days. There is a great deal to explore. It took cinema 30 years to find true confidence and produce its first master-work that we could use as a bench-mark of what can be done. I believe we should not squash this fledgling medium by imposing “no-free-speech allowed”  blanket sanctions – every event and project must be examined with intelligence and sensibility for its own worth, without loop-holes to be shunted off for special case consideration, which has to be a hypocritical position.

SaveMe OH: Do you smell some double standards?

Peter Greenaway: Look closely and not superficially at what is on offer. Check out with your eyes the evidence for what you really think and feel. Take a good look before you make pronouncements of disapproval. Examine your disapproval. Is the evidence of what you fear, or probably what someone fears on your behalf, really there? Check out carefully what you truly think might be a problem. Don’t pick up opinions that are drop-of-the-hat and automatic responses to what is currently hot. Don’t let vested interests, which in the end are so often financial, put filters and blinkers over your eyes and your mind and your intelligence.

SaveMe OH: (deep sigh….)

SaveMe Oh: But mister Greenaway. I am very happy with your commitment for our world but you are not gonna tell me you take this and our fight for freedom really serious??

Peter Greenaway: It is a well-established fact that every single new visual medium from portable mid 16th century oil painting to 17th century print-making, to photography in the 1840s, to cinema in the 1900s, to the internet in the 1980s, has had an association with the freedoms offered to deal with new licenses – political, social, moral and physical.  Censorship never exists at the birth of a new medium only after the medium has flexed its wings, only when old ways of thinking have caught up, checked in and checked out their prejudices, cross-checked what they learnt last week and found that what may be offered this week is not the same. Most censorship is ill-informed.  If innocence is to be protected and you are going to take the moral high ground – be responsible, get informed, and make sure you protect it in the correct way.   Be completely assured of your censorship responsibilities – if you don’t, you will be the losers; you will end up with egg on your face, virtual or otherwise.

SaveMe Oh: Thank you very much for this interview and would it be possible for me to get your autograph…..?

Peter walked away unfortunately. Maybe next time…