The Rise of the Machines

"It's not that we could or should judge images on moral grounds," says Assayas, who has a more specific target in mind: the corporate world's takeover of the imagination. "Images are such a powerful way of controlling human reactions, or consumer reactions," he says. "They circulate like money—they becomemoney. The Internet creates the tool to control sexual fantasies, which until recently was the last private area. Now it's been absorbed by major industry. Before the Internet you had specialist magazines, or sex shops, but it's a specific type of person who would walk into a sex shop. Now it's anybody, anywhere, any age, any remote area. I'm really against corporations controlling pornography because it's a way of controlling the last area where people could use their own imaginations in autonomous ways. It's a political point, not a moral one. People should be able to create their own pornography."

photo: Robert Hale

Demonlover director Assayas: "People should be able to create their own pornography."

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• Olivier Assayas
• Connie Nielsen
• Paris (France)
• Lara Croftand
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

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