Perhaps we should look to art for guidance.

John Berger, whose 1972 series Ways of Seeing uncovered the political and social systems that shape art. So how do we begin to understand a world in which the most powerful technologies of our time are so hard to see that most of us aren’t even aware of them?

This is how a difference in visibility translates into a difference in power: those who can see, can understand – and thus shape the world to their advantage. For a rent of a few thousand pounds a year, the machinery of private finance perches on the crumbling infrastructure of the welfare state: all that money, flowing invisibly just a few metres above the patients inside. Near Heathrow airport, I looked up to see the microwaves passing through two huge dishes atop Hillingdon hospital, a pioneering 1960s centre now suffering – like much of the NHS – from a shortfall in funding. These beams of data carry millions of high-frequency financial transactions – and thus billions of pounds – through the air, above our heads, completely invisibly. To find them, I followed the line of microwave dishes that connect them – some perched on pylons, others on water towers or tall buildings. I was looking for two important but hidden locations: a data centre belonging to the London Stock Exchange, and another belonging to the New York Stock Exchange. “We learned from him to see that basic assumptions about everything-work, play, art, commerce-are hidden in the surrounding culture of images.A couple of years ago, I took a bike ride from Slough, heading east – right through London and out the other side to Basildon. “In contemporary English letters he seems to me peerless.” - Susan Sontag 'Over the past sixty years, the great John Berger - art critic, essayist, screenwriter, novelist, poet, and artist - has made immeasurable contributions to our understanding of culture and politics, never more potently than in Ways of Seeing.' - The Village Voice He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation.' -Peter Fuller, Arts Review

'Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics. '.perhaps the most bold, clear, and widely renowned explanation of art’s entanglement with capitalism.' - The Paris Review It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace.' -Geoff Dyer

'The influence of the series and the book. 'Berger fulfils the roles of a philosopher, listener, and somewhat of a magician as he makes tantalising worlds appear, and illusions vanish.' - Pratibha Rai, Oxford Culture Review 'It’s a book about art history and the media, but it’s also a magic trick.' - The New Republic

John berger ways of seeing bbc