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July 18, 2022 - Conspirituality
04:09
Bonus Sample: Swan Song Series 2 | Teal Swan: Art and Artifice (w/Paola Marino)

In this episode of the Swan Song Series, Matthew interviews Paola Marino about why she found Teal Swan a fascinating subject to film for 2018’s “Open Shadow.” They discuss aesthetics, the mystery of personality, why Swan’s parents agreed to sit down with her. Matthew also surprised her with the newly-revealed translations of Swan’s coded journal pages.Prefacing the interview is a discussion between Julian and Matthew about art, artifice, the risks of doing and not doing hard journalism on the subjects we cover. They discuss James Joyce’s proverb about  noble art, in which he describes “aesthetic arrest” as the middle way between propaganda and pornography. Marino’s work attempts to find that path, while Jon Kasbe’s The Deep End falters to both sides. On one hand Kasbe’s film titillates viewers with high drama. On the other hand it tells viewers what they should think. And in both cases it creates a story where the truth would suffice. The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. These are kinetic emotions. The arts which excite them, pornographical or didactic, are therefore improper arts. The esthetic emotion (I use the general term) is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing. — James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManShow NotesOpen Shadow—Paola MarinoGizmodo Launches 'The Gateway,' an Investigative Podcast About a Controversial Internet Spiritual Guru -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to an episode of a Conspiratuality Podcast bonus collection, the Swan Song series, a tour through the paradoxes of Teal Swan, an influencer who embodies the tangled history and whiplash contradictions of our beat.
This collection will be accessible first through our Patreon feed, but we will release each episode to the public over time in our regular feed in addition to our Thursday episodes.
Topics will revolve around the method, the myth, the impacts and implications of one of the most unsettling conspirituality figures alive.
Content warnings always apply for this material.
Themes include suicide and child sexual abuse.
To our Patreon subscribers, thank you for helping keep our platform ad-free and editorially independent.
And to everyone else, thanks for listening, including followers of Teal Swan.
We hope this is all useful to you as you consider your relationship to Teal's story and influence.
Now, what did you think of The Deep End?
Oh boy.
Well, I was shocked.
First of all, I was shocked at the way they manipulated the footage.
Because this is to fit their narrative.
Was it very obvious to you?
It was very obvious.
Absolutely.
Because you're a filmmaker and you edit your own work?
Yes.
Yes, I do.
I do, you know, together with others sometimes, but I do anything a lot and I can't recognize it right away.
And not only that, like, um, it really, there is like a, when you document, you make a documentary about somebody.
I mean, at least that's not the document.
That's like a fictional story, but we're real people in it.
Right.
Uh, so they build it like that, but they forgot that these people are actually existing.
These are not actors who shed the role and then they are somebody else who goes home and they have their families and that's it.
You know, the movies in the theaters and maybe they forgot about that, but I found that I found a very unethical of them to play with real humans in order to make this movie.
So I wouldn't consider that a documentary.
Of course, there are certain things that are not manipulated, they're there, and certain moments where, like, there are certain instances that, you know, they show Teal saying things, being maybe mean, or
Uh, expressing thoughts that, uh, expressing her anger and stuff like that.
And, uh, there are moments where I, uh, when I didn't feel very comfortable with those, with those, you know, with the way she was dealing with certain things in a certain way.
So, and those are there.
But when you have, so I recognize that this is not cool to me, that she's doing this.
It's not cool.
It's not cool.
Okay.
But when you have, but this is not all, Till is not only that.
Till is more than that.
And they didn't show who else Till is.
They just depicted this, this image of a villain.
As opposed to Blake and Juliana as the heroes.
And that's it.
It's very restricted and very limited.
It's like a movie.
Very entertaining, absolutely, for the people who know these characters.
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