'The Bling Ring' (15) is director's Sofia Coppola's new film and the production credits reads like a family tree of the Coppola family. But I state that neutrally... Make your own mind up about the film. It's a film based on 'true events' as documented by a 'Vanity Fair' article. The fact that these two facts are emphasised adds an ironic touch to this film. The film documents the activities of a group of young people dubbed 'The Bling Ring' owing to their propensity for the superficial accoutrements and accessories of a morally bankrupt generation. Essentially, in order to obtain the celebrity lifestyle that helps them to be the 'in crowd', they steal from celebrities. But tellingly, they steal only those items which they feel will help forward their status. Money is stolen when it can be found but this serves to fund their escalating drug habits.
A couple of the characters including Emma Watson's character are brought up by a mother who espouses new age philosophy with her daughters. Most notably, as they get up the mother gives them a life affirming statement to chew on, prior to sending them out into the outside world. Amusingly, later in the film, the mother clearly obsessed with 'The Secret' by Rhonda Byrne, offers a 'vision board', which is covered with images of Angelina Jolie and the girls are asked to identify the actresses' key qualities. They choose the superficial; Angelina Jolie's 'hot husband' and her 'hot body'.
My enduring memories of the film are the scenes of larceny and the ironic fact that the celebrity generation with its endless need to feed the public with every detail of day to day life on social media sites has left them vulnerable to attack. Indeed, the group pretty much just slide a glass door to get into certain properties. Also Paris Hilton apparently used to keep her key under the door mat. You may as well just wave a sign saying 'Rob me'. Additionally, there is one young man who is part of the group who in many respects serves as the counterpoint to the others. He initially questions the unlawful entries and robberies then it becomes clear that the beauty of high heel shoes and clothes are as much of a lure to him as to his friends. His repressed homosexuality is apparent for all to see but never acted on as he explores his boundaries and becomes more and more addicted to cocaine.
This is a highly successful film, tearing through the superficialities of a consumer society, so obsessed with image that it fails to perceive the damage it is causing to the touchscreen, Prada kids with their vastly reduced capacity to feel. The music soundtrack adding to the hedonistic ride. You leave the cinema with one extended finger raised towards the fashion industry and another finger raised in the direction of the media. 'The Bling Ring' is like totally sick...
Barry Watt - 6th July 2013
Afterword
'The Bling Ring' (15) is currently showing in most cinemas.
A link to the 'Vanity Fair' article, 'The Suspects Wore Louboutins' by Nancy Jo Sales is included below and the article is copyright to the author and to Conde Nast.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/03/billionaire-girls-201003
Prada is copyright to Prada.
Saturday, 6 July 2013
Sunday, 30 June 2013
'Immersive Theatre' or who were you when the lights went out?
This blog entry has been waiting in the back of my mind for ages, so to provide me with a little relief, it's time to write it. Now, that has to be the worst opening I have ever written but all will be explained.
As an introductory digression, from memory I recall an absolutely wonderful quote from the film theorist Andre Bazin in his essay, 'What Is Cinema?':
Every new development added to the cinema must, paradoxically, take it nearer and nearer to its origins. In short, cinema has not yet been invented!
(Andre Bazin - 'What Is Cinema?')
As a statement, this may seem paradoxical but if you consider that as a cultural form, the film experience has altered since it began. For example, the introduction of sound in 1927 and the addition of 3D. Soon, Huxley's vision of the 'Feelies' from 'Brave New World' could come into being. Imagine feeling sensations through your chair in the cinema or at home. So how can you offer definitive interpretations and conclusions of something that is in a perennial state of change?
Now the theatre is a similarly transient cultural form of expression. The safe world of the audience member sitting in the auditorium watching actors performing within the proscenium arch punctured by an interval (or more or none) then off home has always been an inaccurate distillation of what is a two way interaction between the theatre group and the audience. Admittedly, some performances involve less in the way of direct audience engagement with the cast. So long as we cough, sigh, laugh or sigh at the appropriate moment, we have satisfied that production's needs. Brecht, Artaud and the many other theatre practitioners who effectively came in and began to break down these preconceived notions of distance between the theatre group and audience were only perceived as 'different' and or 'extreme' because people fail to recall that Shakespeare's original audiences were far more rowdy and upfront than many later audiences. There is a written etiquette of theatre attendance but this varies according to the venue and to be fair, given the chance I feel that the audience would prefer the chance to express how they feel about the production that they have paid to see or to become more involved in some way.
'Immersive theatre' just takes that very natural childish need to engage and to understand the world around us in a more proactive way. But let's immediately discard the notion that 'immersive theatre' requires us to act. Normally, just like any form of theatre, it is about observation. I have seen and been part of productions that have broken down the perceived distance between the audience and performers but these have been in the minority. Indeed, as a form I have objections with 'immersive theatre' precisely because the audience are not as involved as much as they could be. As such, the productions have left me with this sense that something was missing. Normally, I feel that the special something that is missing is a sense of plot or even structure. Most 'immersive theatre' productions seem to be fairly free flowing and although, they do lead to an end point of types. It is not always satisfying or fulfilling. I go to the theatre to be stimulated on some level and if the performers are going through the clockwork motions of a wind up toy, how can I empathise with the performers and the production as a whole?
Now over the years, I have seen a variety of performances that could be defined as 'immersive theatre'. I won't list them all here but I will list the ones that I can remember and offer my memories of them. Trendy words that now appear on many tickets and websites associated with 'immersive theatre' are 'promenade performances' and 'site specific'. Now, I will look at how the productions I have seen or experienced have matched those criteria and what the terms mean to me. Also whether I felt satiated by the performances.
Office Party - Pleasance Theatre, London
This production ran for quite some time and was both a 'promenade performance' and 'site specific'. I went with a group of people and significantly, the production used two buildings, one was the theatre and the other building was next door. Effectively, the production was set around an office Christmas Party. When we arrived, we were handed badges effectively dividing us into different groups including Cleaners, Accounts and Managers. Some badges had stars on them. I guessed what the star meant (star bearers were those members of staff who were being made redundant). Initially, we were taken off in groups and given a little talk about the company and how it had not been that successful this year (well, that's the talk I got). The news that I had been made redundant in the production horribly tied in with a restructuring at work, which resulted in me at risk of losing my job. But for some reason, this did not bother me unduly within the context of this production, so I can't recall whether I had my new job at that point. Then we played a really rubbish game of hide and seek before being led to the main theatre for the proper party. This involved party games such as passing a balloon between your legs, short cabaret performances and moments of potential dramatic tension such as when the Manager came down thanking everyone for their services that year and those of us who had been made redundant felt inclined to retort with a well justified jeer. Overall, my memory of the night is primarily associated with a beautiful moment towards the end of the evening when I had a dance with the fictitious Manager of the company, who had a drink problem and who stated that I had always been his favourite, I retorted, 'But you made me redundant?'
Personally, the production could have done with a little more in the way of character development. As it was, it simply did what it said on the tin. It was a party. In fact, I have seen more dramatic tension at work Christmas dos than this production wished to portray. It was fun but not essential.
The New World Order - Shoreditch Town Hall, London
From one extreme to another, whereas 'Office Party' was fun yet insubstantial, this was very well constructed. Scarily so. One of the few productions that has disturbed me. It was based on a handful of Harold Pinter's short plays, the overtly political ones such as 'Mountain Language', 'One For The Road' and 'Press Conference'. This was possibly one of the most satisfying 'site specific promenade' performances I have seen.
We entered the venue at a specific time and were groped by security. Then divided into groups. Bits of the plays were played out in different sections of the venue. 'Press Conference' took place in a conference room with members of the audience joined by photographers etc. Then an interrogation took place in an official council room and members of the audience were invited to sit around the table where the authoritarian figure tore apart the poor guy sitting next to me. As the evening progressed, we were taken all around the venue. One play took place on a staircase between two cast members. The nasty stuff occurred downstairs around the basement with its cold concrete walls and the audience were literally pushed around by scary police figures and various people were interrogated. At the end of the evening, the door is opened and we are firmly directed out.
I ended up outside the back of the venue unsure where I was and feeling very drained. Owing to the nature of the performance, Amnesty International leaflets were handed to us before the performance started. If Pinter had still been alive, I am sure that he would have approved of this production of his works. Human rights violations being one of his key concerns during his life. As an 'immersive experience', bar being tortured, it succeeded in engaging me.
Hotel Medea - Hayward Gallery, London
The single most successful 'immersive performance' I have yet taken part in. It started at 11.30 pm and ended at 6.40 am on the rooftop eating a breakfast with the cast members etc as the sun rose on a huge table. I could write an essay on this production and the people who know me tire of my constant references to this. It's structured around the Greek tragedy of Medea which you didn't and don't need to understand to appreciate this production. Effectively, the evening broke down into three sections. The audience were more actively involved during the first section for obvious reasons. As the night went on, the audience involvement was less physically active. You truly haven't lived until you have prepared a man and woman for their wedding by washing down their bodies and applying jewellery, seen another scene from three unique perspectives. The most radical one being from a bunk bed wearing pyjamas, whilst a woman strokes your hair and reads you the story of Medea and Jason from a fairy tale. Oh, you were also offered cocoa at this point. Another memory involves dressing as a woman to infiltrate a special female cult and passing secret messages to other men dressed as women. By the end of the evening, when the bodies of two dead young men are laid
out and we are invited to put teddy bears and flowers on and around the bodies and to offer our condolences to the grieving mother, Medea whilst Radiohead's 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' played in the background was one of the most emotional moments I have experienced. This was simply brilliant and does continue to be put on in various venues internationally.
Bush Bazaar - The Bush Theatre, London
Basically, just a lot of fun... You paid one amount to get in then paid small amounts for each of the performances you chose to watch. Sometimes, the fees were fixed but mainly not. The event was extremely 'site specific', in the sense that the theatre had just moved into its new location and every area was used for the production. One event involved a woman who hoarded in one of the toilets and the audience members were spoken to as though members of the council team responsible for helping her to get rid of her possessions. Having suffered from OCDs in the past and also aware of the emotional significance of objects, this was fascinating as she proceeded to explain the relevance of each random item. There were many other small performance pieces too. A group of fictional refugees performed a show about their lives in the garden area out the back and a friend and I still talk about the performance in the water tank room, which I really can't describe using the written word but it involved purifying by nymphs.
The variety of performances on offer made this feel a truly satisfying experience, slightly tarnished by the realisation that you couldn't see everything on one visit.
The Drowned Man - A Hollywood Fable - 'Temple Studios' - Paddington, London
I attended this 'site specific promenade' performance with a friend last Sunday. Basically, it's a converted fire station. As the production is still running, I don't want to spoilt it too much for anyone who wants to see it. It's alright. Not life-changing. It did demonstrate to me the possible flaws with 'immersive theatre' though. Essentially, it felt like a cross between a series of Lynch films and 'Berbarian Sound Studios'. The audience upon arrival were instructed to wear masks and to remain silent throughout the performance. It last three hours and had staggered start times. The cast performed several elaborate dance sequences and somewhere, there was a series of related plots that could loosely be seen as interpretations of films. The sets were amazing. A trailer park, Lynchian rooms with chequered floors and a woodland scene. Outside of the performances, you could walk around. Now my most satisfying moments came about when I simply wandered around the sets after the cast had gone. The attention to detail was something else. Sorry, Punchdrunk, your performance was more about style and less about content. It was good but it good have been so much better. I would love to have the basic concept of the performance explained to me as the climax was so anti-climatic that I left feeling, 'Is that it?'
To conclude, the enduring popularity of 'immersive theatre' seems to be connected to a childish need to play, which remains as we enter into adult life, although do not believe that 'immersive theatre' is always by its nature participatory. Quite often, the audience is simply led by the cast through well constructed performances. I long to see a performance where the audience determines the progression of the action. The element of choice seems to be limited to where you want to walk around various buildings. I guess I want to be the director of the dreams that someone else wishes me to experience.
Afterword
Andre Bazin quote is half remembered from 'The Myth Of Total Cinema' which appears in 'What Is Cinema? (Volume 1) (Page 21) (University of Calfornia Press, 2005).
'Brave New World'- Aldous Huxley (Vintage Press).
The plays are copyright to their respective companies and playwrights. Pinter's plays can be read in various editions published by Methuen.
'Motion Picture Soundtrack' is a Radiohead song and appears on their album, 'Kid A' (Parlophone).
Barry Watt - Sunday 30th June 2013
As an introductory digression, from memory I recall an absolutely wonderful quote from the film theorist Andre Bazin in his essay, 'What Is Cinema?':
Every new development added to the cinema must, paradoxically, take it nearer and nearer to its origins. In short, cinema has not yet been invented!
(Andre Bazin - 'What Is Cinema?')
As a statement, this may seem paradoxical but if you consider that as a cultural form, the film experience has altered since it began. For example, the introduction of sound in 1927 and the addition of 3D. Soon, Huxley's vision of the 'Feelies' from 'Brave New World' could come into being. Imagine feeling sensations through your chair in the cinema or at home. So how can you offer definitive interpretations and conclusions of something that is in a perennial state of change?
Now the theatre is a similarly transient cultural form of expression. The safe world of the audience member sitting in the auditorium watching actors performing within the proscenium arch punctured by an interval (or more or none) then off home has always been an inaccurate distillation of what is a two way interaction between the theatre group and the audience. Admittedly, some performances involve less in the way of direct audience engagement with the cast. So long as we cough, sigh, laugh or sigh at the appropriate moment, we have satisfied that production's needs. Brecht, Artaud and the many other theatre practitioners who effectively came in and began to break down these preconceived notions of distance between the theatre group and audience were only perceived as 'different' and or 'extreme' because people fail to recall that Shakespeare's original audiences were far more rowdy and upfront than many later audiences. There is a written etiquette of theatre attendance but this varies according to the venue and to be fair, given the chance I feel that the audience would prefer the chance to express how they feel about the production that they have paid to see or to become more involved in some way.
'Immersive theatre' just takes that very natural childish need to engage and to understand the world around us in a more proactive way. But let's immediately discard the notion that 'immersive theatre' requires us to act. Normally, just like any form of theatre, it is about observation. I have seen and been part of productions that have broken down the perceived distance between the audience and performers but these have been in the minority. Indeed, as a form I have objections with 'immersive theatre' precisely because the audience are not as involved as much as they could be. As such, the productions have left me with this sense that something was missing. Normally, I feel that the special something that is missing is a sense of plot or even structure. Most 'immersive theatre' productions seem to be fairly free flowing and although, they do lead to an end point of types. It is not always satisfying or fulfilling. I go to the theatre to be stimulated on some level and if the performers are going through the clockwork motions of a wind up toy, how can I empathise with the performers and the production as a whole?
Now over the years, I have seen a variety of performances that could be defined as 'immersive theatre'. I won't list them all here but I will list the ones that I can remember and offer my memories of them. Trendy words that now appear on many tickets and websites associated with 'immersive theatre' are 'promenade performances' and 'site specific'. Now, I will look at how the productions I have seen or experienced have matched those criteria and what the terms mean to me. Also whether I felt satiated by the performances.
Office Party - Pleasance Theatre, London
This production ran for quite some time and was both a 'promenade performance' and 'site specific'. I went with a group of people and significantly, the production used two buildings, one was the theatre and the other building was next door. Effectively, the production was set around an office Christmas Party. When we arrived, we were handed badges effectively dividing us into different groups including Cleaners, Accounts and Managers. Some badges had stars on them. I guessed what the star meant (star bearers were those members of staff who were being made redundant). Initially, we were taken off in groups and given a little talk about the company and how it had not been that successful this year (well, that's the talk I got). The news that I had been made redundant in the production horribly tied in with a restructuring at work, which resulted in me at risk of losing my job. But for some reason, this did not bother me unduly within the context of this production, so I can't recall whether I had my new job at that point. Then we played a really rubbish game of hide and seek before being led to the main theatre for the proper party. This involved party games such as passing a balloon between your legs, short cabaret performances and moments of potential dramatic tension such as when the Manager came down thanking everyone for their services that year and those of us who had been made redundant felt inclined to retort with a well justified jeer. Overall, my memory of the night is primarily associated with a beautiful moment towards the end of the evening when I had a dance with the fictitious Manager of the company, who had a drink problem and who stated that I had always been his favourite, I retorted, 'But you made me redundant?'
Personally, the production could have done with a little more in the way of character development. As it was, it simply did what it said on the tin. It was a party. In fact, I have seen more dramatic tension at work Christmas dos than this production wished to portray. It was fun but not essential.
The New World Order - Shoreditch Town Hall, London
From one extreme to another, whereas 'Office Party' was fun yet insubstantial, this was very well constructed. Scarily so. One of the few productions that has disturbed me. It was based on a handful of Harold Pinter's short plays, the overtly political ones such as 'Mountain Language', 'One For The Road' and 'Press Conference'. This was possibly one of the most satisfying 'site specific promenade' performances I have seen.
We entered the venue at a specific time and were groped by security. Then divided into groups. Bits of the plays were played out in different sections of the venue. 'Press Conference' took place in a conference room with members of the audience joined by photographers etc. Then an interrogation took place in an official council room and members of the audience were invited to sit around the table where the authoritarian figure tore apart the poor guy sitting next to me. As the evening progressed, we were taken all around the venue. One play took place on a staircase between two cast members. The nasty stuff occurred downstairs around the basement with its cold concrete walls and the audience were literally pushed around by scary police figures and various people were interrogated. At the end of the evening, the door is opened and we are firmly directed out.
I ended up outside the back of the venue unsure where I was and feeling very drained. Owing to the nature of the performance, Amnesty International leaflets were handed to us before the performance started. If Pinter had still been alive, I am sure that he would have approved of this production of his works. Human rights violations being one of his key concerns during his life. As an 'immersive experience', bar being tortured, it succeeded in engaging me.
Hotel Medea - Hayward Gallery, London
The single most successful 'immersive performance' I have yet taken part in. It started at 11.30 pm and ended at 6.40 am on the rooftop eating a breakfast with the cast members etc as the sun rose on a huge table. I could write an essay on this production and the people who know me tire of my constant references to this. It's structured around the Greek tragedy of Medea which you didn't and don't need to understand to appreciate this production. Effectively, the evening broke down into three sections. The audience were more actively involved during the first section for obvious reasons. As the night went on, the audience involvement was less physically active. You truly haven't lived until you have prepared a man and woman for their wedding by washing down their bodies and applying jewellery, seen another scene from three unique perspectives. The most radical one being from a bunk bed wearing pyjamas, whilst a woman strokes your hair and reads you the story of Medea and Jason from a fairy tale. Oh, you were also offered cocoa at this point. Another memory involves dressing as a woman to infiltrate a special female cult and passing secret messages to other men dressed as women. By the end of the evening, when the bodies of two dead young men are laid
out and we are invited to put teddy bears and flowers on and around the bodies and to offer our condolences to the grieving mother, Medea whilst Radiohead's 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' played in the background was one of the most emotional moments I have experienced. This was simply brilliant and does continue to be put on in various venues internationally.
Bush Bazaar - The Bush Theatre, London
Basically, just a lot of fun... You paid one amount to get in then paid small amounts for each of the performances you chose to watch. Sometimes, the fees were fixed but mainly not. The event was extremely 'site specific', in the sense that the theatre had just moved into its new location and every area was used for the production. One event involved a woman who hoarded in one of the toilets and the audience members were spoken to as though members of the council team responsible for helping her to get rid of her possessions. Having suffered from OCDs in the past and also aware of the emotional significance of objects, this was fascinating as she proceeded to explain the relevance of each random item. There were many other small performance pieces too. A group of fictional refugees performed a show about their lives in the garden area out the back and a friend and I still talk about the performance in the water tank room, which I really can't describe using the written word but it involved purifying by nymphs.
The variety of performances on offer made this feel a truly satisfying experience, slightly tarnished by the realisation that you couldn't see everything on one visit.
The Drowned Man - A Hollywood Fable - 'Temple Studios' - Paddington, London
I attended this 'site specific promenade' performance with a friend last Sunday. Basically, it's a converted fire station. As the production is still running, I don't want to spoilt it too much for anyone who wants to see it. It's alright. Not life-changing. It did demonstrate to me the possible flaws with 'immersive theatre' though. Essentially, it felt like a cross between a series of Lynch films and 'Berbarian Sound Studios'. The audience upon arrival were instructed to wear masks and to remain silent throughout the performance. It last three hours and had staggered start times. The cast performed several elaborate dance sequences and somewhere, there was a series of related plots that could loosely be seen as interpretations of films. The sets were amazing. A trailer park, Lynchian rooms with chequered floors and a woodland scene. Outside of the performances, you could walk around. Now my most satisfying moments came about when I simply wandered around the sets after the cast had gone. The attention to detail was something else. Sorry, Punchdrunk, your performance was more about style and less about content. It was good but it good have been so much better. I would love to have the basic concept of the performance explained to me as the climax was so anti-climatic that I left feeling, 'Is that it?'
To conclude, the enduring popularity of 'immersive theatre' seems to be connected to a childish need to play, which remains as we enter into adult life, although do not believe that 'immersive theatre' is always by its nature participatory. Quite often, the audience is simply led by the cast through well constructed performances. I long to see a performance where the audience determines the progression of the action. The element of choice seems to be limited to where you want to walk around various buildings. I guess I want to be the director of the dreams that someone else wishes me to experience.
Afterword
Andre Bazin quote is half remembered from 'The Myth Of Total Cinema' which appears in 'What Is Cinema? (Volume 1) (Page 21) (University of Calfornia Press, 2005).
'Brave New World'- Aldous Huxley (Vintage Press).
The plays are copyright to their respective companies and playwrights. Pinter's plays can be read in various editions published by Methuen.
'Motion Picture Soundtrack' is a Radiohead song and appears on their album, 'Kid A' (Parlophone).
Barry Watt - Sunday 30th June 2013
Monday, 27 May 2013
'Something in the Air' - A product of individualism in an age of political apathy.
'Something in the Air' ('Apres Mai') is a French film written and directed by Oliver Assayas. It is set just after the turbulent events in France in May 1968 i.e. the student protests and a widespread disgust of the European Governments and their involvement in the Vietnam War. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the focus is on the young people and their activities. These activities involve the creation of pamphlets, attendance of quite radical youth activist groups espousing a form of Communism that is a million miles from the watered down rhetoric regurgitated by the drum beating Socialists today hanging onto the coattails of the unions. They also just have fun together. This fun ranges from harmless, the creation of art to the rather more risky, promiscuous sex, acts of violent protest including spraying graffiti on the school walls/windows featuring political slogans and artwork and throwing things at security. Drugs are also a prominent feature of the youth culture depicted in the film.
The film flows like a stream of vignettes. The characters travel about, joining other groups. The nature of subversive film is explored. Questions arise exploring whether revolutionary films should be created using a 'revolutionary syntax'. Traditionally, this has been the case, consider Eisenstein's films with their 'montage of collision' (stark juxtapositions of lines, shapes and images forced against each other). Revolutionary films by their nature do seem to be altered by their material. There are main characters in this film but they serve as symbols of a greater whole. Their triumphs and mistakes are the triumphs and mistakes of a generation.
One sequence which will stick with me for some time to come involves a girl telling her boyfriend that she is off to have an abortion. He asks if she needs company. When she refuses, he suggests a couple of paintings she can see at a gallery once she has left the clinic. You do not see the abortion but you do see the girl visiting the paintings of a group of men and women respectively. She literally and figuratively stuck in the middle of the two paintings, which are on adjacent walls. Her face, a canvas of suffering after her abortion.
'Something in the Air' is a subtle and delicate exploration of lost innocence. You see these characters develop and change as their politics become more subdued with age. The soundtrack also surprises with its use of songs by Nick Drake and Tangerine Dream rather than the tendency of most modern directors to use the now clichéd handful of songs to evoke the Sixties and early Seventies. The Moody Blues' 'Knights In White Satin', Procul Harem's 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' and pretty much anything by Donovan being the usual directorial choices. It is a film I wholeheartedly recommend.
To open up a dialogue with you gentle reader, is it just me who feels that the United Kingdom has never really had the political activism of other European countries? The Teenagers and youth of today are more interested in binge drinking and beginning each sentence with the word, 'Like' than exploring the subtleties of political change. The terrible riots were not about retribution for a perceived wrong or act of atrocity. They seemed to be more indicative of the actions of a group of Lemmings concerned slightly more with the latest trainers and mobile phones and appearing hard in front of your mates than metaphorically holding up a mirror to society and screaming aloud, 'society is going wrong'.
Sadly, there is nothing in the air today, bar the smell of testosterone, aftershave and the smell of Greggs' sausage rolls.
Barry Watt - 27th May 2013
The film flows like a stream of vignettes. The characters travel about, joining other groups. The nature of subversive film is explored. Questions arise exploring whether revolutionary films should be created using a 'revolutionary syntax'. Traditionally, this has been the case, consider Eisenstein's films with their 'montage of collision' (stark juxtapositions of lines, shapes and images forced against each other). Revolutionary films by their nature do seem to be altered by their material. There are main characters in this film but they serve as symbols of a greater whole. Their triumphs and mistakes are the triumphs and mistakes of a generation.
One sequence which will stick with me for some time to come involves a girl telling her boyfriend that she is off to have an abortion. He asks if she needs company. When she refuses, he suggests a couple of paintings she can see at a gallery once she has left the clinic. You do not see the abortion but you do see the girl visiting the paintings of a group of men and women respectively. She literally and figuratively stuck in the middle of the two paintings, which are on adjacent walls. Her face, a canvas of suffering after her abortion.
'Something in the Air' is a subtle and delicate exploration of lost innocence. You see these characters develop and change as their politics become more subdued with age. The soundtrack also surprises with its use of songs by Nick Drake and Tangerine Dream rather than the tendency of most modern directors to use the now clichéd handful of songs to evoke the Sixties and early Seventies. The Moody Blues' 'Knights In White Satin', Procul Harem's 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' and pretty much anything by Donovan being the usual directorial choices. It is a film I wholeheartedly recommend.
To open up a dialogue with you gentle reader, is it just me who feels that the United Kingdom has never really had the political activism of other European countries? The Teenagers and youth of today are more interested in binge drinking and beginning each sentence with the word, 'Like' than exploring the subtleties of political change. The terrible riots were not about retribution for a perceived wrong or act of atrocity. They seemed to be more indicative of the actions of a group of Lemmings concerned slightly more with the latest trainers and mobile phones and appearing hard in front of your mates than metaphorically holding up a mirror to society and screaming aloud, 'society is going wrong'.
Sadly, there is nothing in the air today, bar the smell of testosterone, aftershave and the smell of Greggs' sausage rolls.
Barry Watt - 27th May 2013
Sunday, 28 April 2013
The Marquis de Sade - Icon, Villain or Celebrity Philosopher?
The Marquis de Sade was born on 2nd June 1740 and died on 2nd December 1814. He remains a figure much revered, despised and reproduced. He has become the cultural equivalent of a Hammer horror villain or Jack the Ripper. The epitome of extremism. To some a political thinker, critical of political figures such as Robespierre. To others, a libertine who transcended concepts of morality. There would be no concept of Sadism without the Marquis de Sade.
His biography makes for fascinating reading, his continual imprisonment for subversive works, but what has always intrigued me is how he remains a vital ingredient in the more extreme and subversive aspects of cultural expressionism. A Mickey Mouse figure for a generation of degenerates and thinkers. The proverbial straw that continues to break the camel's back.
I probably first encountered the Marquis de Sade, whilst at college in 1993. His philosophical views probably fascinated me as they would most young men. No restraint and no limits. A rebel who held the Government of his time to be detrimental and wanting. I remember deciding to try to find one of his works at Foyles. I should have been prepared for the reaction I received. Upon asking a shop assistant for The One Hundred Days of Sodom, I was pointed towards the adult books in the corner. The majority of his works were there with some of the most inappropriate covers I have ever seen. The front and back covers are full of female naked bodies cavorting with no faces apparent. The Arrow Books' edition cover illustration provided by John Geary. It's quite a nice illustration but not something you would proudly display on your journey to college or work. Looking again at my copy of the book, which is essentially a novel, I can spot my underlinings. Pencil underlinings were a feature of my days in education. They also provided a way for me to anchor myself in the material in a slightly more academic way. The novel can be read as an aid to arousal, if you are of a certain proclivity. I am open to ideas and enjoy the sense of engagement that a pencil provides. I do remember not finishing the novel. Basically, a group of aristocrats take themselves off to a chateau somewhere with an assortment of men, women and children. They subsequently perform any acts that take their fancy and assert strong rules. At certain points, they control the excremental habits of the people who have no control or function other than to serve the needs of the aristocrats. The novel is broken down into days and at times is hard to read owing to the atrocities committed. I will reread the novel soon to see if it impacts upon me in the same way as it did on a nineteen year old. Believe it or not, it does have interesting insights into human nature, Nature and religion.
Two quotes that give an insight into the extremity and unpleasantness of de Sade, but also the transgressive beauty of smashing the boundaries of human codes of morality can be found below:
"By and large, offer your fronts very little to our sight; remember that this loathsome part, which only the alienation of her wits could have permitted Nature to create, is always the one we find most repugnant."
(De Sade: Page 222)
'Let them be persuaded, these stupid creatures, let them henceforth be convinced that in all the world there are not twenty persons today who cling to this mad notion of God's existence, and that the religion he invokes is nothing but a fable ludicrously invented by cheats and impostors, whose interest in deceiving us is only too clear at the present time.'
(De Sade: Page 223)
Both of these quotes are taken from a section of the text that documents a speech given by the Duc de Blangis, an eighteen year old and one of the Masters in this narrative. The first pertaining to the rather derogatory attitude towards the vagina, which I continue to find intriguing. The seeming misogyny perhaps rather indicative of a wider disgust for procreation and human beings in general. The second quote is actually quite a reasonable assertion if you believe in nothing more substantial than your own existence or uphold atheist beliefs. My objection with de Sade is the abuse that his characters inflict upon each other. I also dislike the way that women are depicted. Having said that, political analogies can be drawn. Power relations always lean towards some form of exploitation. So in this respect, he preempts Marx's views and philosophy.
Now moving slightly forward in time, the Italian film director, Pasolini made a film version of the novel in 1975 as his final film. Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom remains one of the most controversial films ever made. It is still banned in certain countries. I saw it for the first time the other day at the BFI on the Southbank and as is always the case, when I view films that are so extreme that the media coverage surrounding them render them as rather intriguing Pandora's Boxes, I look at the audience demographic. If the audience is simply comprised of men, I feel like a pervert and my view of the film changes. Fortunately, the audience had a fair mix of men and women, so I still felt like a pervert but a pervert with aspirations of wholesome moral values, occasionally achieved. The film essentially takes the ideas of the original novel and places them in Italy around July 1943 after the fall of Benito Mussolini. Four corrupt fascist libertines kidnap and take off a group of eighteen teenage girls and boys, who they subsequently use and abuse in various manners. The libertines are accompanied by their new wives (they marry each others daughters). The film is structured around four chapters that relate to Dante's Inferno. It features every possible taboo that you can mention and the final chapter, 'The Circle of Blood' is amongst the most horrible sequences I have ever seen. As each of the libertines stares through binoculars from an upstairs window, he witnesses the punishment of each of the young people who broke the ground rules. I guess the punishment matches the proclivity of the libertine and include the application of a lighter to a boy's penis, a scalping and an eye gouging. Now, I am open to all ideas and find censorship largely abhorrent but the horror of the punishments was something else. Also earlier in the film, people are forced to eat excrement based on the fact that one of the older women remembers someone enjoying the experience of consuming excrement. The film is something else and ends with a waltz. Again, I was intrigued how the audience would respond. It seems customary to applaud at the conclusion of each film shown at the BFI. One or two people were tempted to clap but then stopped themselves. The conversation generated by this film exceeds the reaction to any other film I have seen. The film's saving grace is the strength and courage of its director. It is amazingly well made and leaves an indelible mark upon you after you have seen it.
The Marquis de Sade has also been depicted in two major stage plays, which have subsequently been remade as films. The most radical of these I saw this afternoon at the Rio in Dalston, the Marat Sade, which is the shortened version of the play and film's actual title, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. The play was written by Peter Weiss and originally directed on the stage by Peter Brook who also directed the film version. Believe it or not, the title of the play/film is precisely what the play/film is about. It is a very extreme and peculiar representation of a murder and the events surrounding it. The Marquis de Sade played by Herbert Lom moves the action along, whilst various representatives of the asylum and their families look on. The action takes place of a stage, which resembled a cage as bars occupy the front of the proscenium arch where normally, the audience would have an unrestricted view of the action. The play and film serve to illustrate the views of the Marquis de Sade, the repressive mechanisms in operation in mental institutions to prevent the outbreak of anarchy (the asylum workers intervene every time the inmates/actors get a bit carried away). The play/film after closing ends with the complete breakdown of normal values and codes of morality. A sado-masochistic orgy ensues. Glenda Jackson plays the eventual murderer of Marat, she also suffers from melancholia and sleep sickness. It's not a conventional film and play. Upon its stage production back in the 60s and even more recently in 2011 at Stratford Upon Avon, members of the audience walked out. I found the film engaging yet very stagy. Having said that, the feeling of anarchy and exhaustion that pervades the film and the staging gives it a sense of claustrophobia and perhaps allows a greater sense of empathy with the characters. The other major play about the Marquis de Sade was Quills and this also became a film with the Marquis de Sade played by Geoffrey Rush. The original play was written by Doug Wright. My memories of the film involve the Marquis de Sade incarcerated writing his incendiary manuscripts and getting other people to smuggle them out for him. It reminded me a lot of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It's certainly the more accessible of the two films.
As a cultural figure, I have also bumped into the Marquis de Sade in comics (The Invisibles), in other plays (Madame de Sade - Yukio Mishima ) and in various literary criticism and novels. After all, just think where would the 'Mummy Porn' sensation, The Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James be without the Marquis de Sade. He may have been extreme but at his heart, he helped to point out an essential truth, sexuality is not one dimensional. Also pleasure and pain are not mutually exclusive and for that perhaps, we should be grateful however grudgingly?
Barry Watt - 28th April 2013
Afterword
The quotes from 'The One Hundred Days of Sodom' are taken from the Arrow Books' edition, The One Hundred Days of Sodom and other writings (Arrow Books, 1990).
Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini, 1975) (Film available on DVD).
Dante's Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's poem, The Divine Comedy.
Marat Sade (Peter Brook, 1967) (Film available on DVD. The play is by Peter Weiss).
Quills (Philip Kaufman, 2000) (Film available on DVD. The play is by Doug Wright.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (The novel is by Ken Kesey and the film was directed by Milos Forman in 1975. The film is available as a DVD).
The Invisibles (Comic written by Grant Morrison and published by DC Comics).
Madame de Sade (Play by Yukio Mishima).
The Fifty Shades Trilogy (Novels by E.L. James and published by Vintage Books).
His biography makes for fascinating reading, his continual imprisonment for subversive works, but what has always intrigued me is how he remains a vital ingredient in the more extreme and subversive aspects of cultural expressionism. A Mickey Mouse figure for a generation of degenerates and thinkers. The proverbial straw that continues to break the camel's back.
I probably first encountered the Marquis de Sade, whilst at college in 1993. His philosophical views probably fascinated me as they would most young men. No restraint and no limits. A rebel who held the Government of his time to be detrimental and wanting. I remember deciding to try to find one of his works at Foyles. I should have been prepared for the reaction I received. Upon asking a shop assistant for The One Hundred Days of Sodom, I was pointed towards the adult books in the corner. The majority of his works were there with some of the most inappropriate covers I have ever seen. The front and back covers are full of female naked bodies cavorting with no faces apparent. The Arrow Books' edition cover illustration provided by John Geary. It's quite a nice illustration but not something you would proudly display on your journey to college or work. Looking again at my copy of the book, which is essentially a novel, I can spot my underlinings. Pencil underlinings were a feature of my days in education. They also provided a way for me to anchor myself in the material in a slightly more academic way. The novel can be read as an aid to arousal, if you are of a certain proclivity. I am open to ideas and enjoy the sense of engagement that a pencil provides. I do remember not finishing the novel. Basically, a group of aristocrats take themselves off to a chateau somewhere with an assortment of men, women and children. They subsequently perform any acts that take their fancy and assert strong rules. At certain points, they control the excremental habits of the people who have no control or function other than to serve the needs of the aristocrats. The novel is broken down into days and at times is hard to read owing to the atrocities committed. I will reread the novel soon to see if it impacts upon me in the same way as it did on a nineteen year old. Believe it or not, it does have interesting insights into human nature, Nature and religion.
Two quotes that give an insight into the extremity and unpleasantness of de Sade, but also the transgressive beauty of smashing the boundaries of human codes of morality can be found below:
"By and large, offer your fronts very little to our sight; remember that this loathsome part, which only the alienation of her wits could have permitted Nature to create, is always the one we find most repugnant."
(De Sade: Page 222)
'Let them be persuaded, these stupid creatures, let them henceforth be convinced that in all the world there are not twenty persons today who cling to this mad notion of God's existence, and that the religion he invokes is nothing but a fable ludicrously invented by cheats and impostors, whose interest in deceiving us is only too clear at the present time.'
(De Sade: Page 223)
Both of these quotes are taken from a section of the text that documents a speech given by the Duc de Blangis, an eighteen year old and one of the Masters in this narrative. The first pertaining to the rather derogatory attitude towards the vagina, which I continue to find intriguing. The seeming misogyny perhaps rather indicative of a wider disgust for procreation and human beings in general. The second quote is actually quite a reasonable assertion if you believe in nothing more substantial than your own existence or uphold atheist beliefs. My objection with de Sade is the abuse that his characters inflict upon each other. I also dislike the way that women are depicted. Having said that, political analogies can be drawn. Power relations always lean towards some form of exploitation. So in this respect, he preempts Marx's views and philosophy.
Now moving slightly forward in time, the Italian film director, Pasolini made a film version of the novel in 1975 as his final film. Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom remains one of the most controversial films ever made. It is still banned in certain countries. I saw it for the first time the other day at the BFI on the Southbank and as is always the case, when I view films that are so extreme that the media coverage surrounding them render them as rather intriguing Pandora's Boxes, I look at the audience demographic. If the audience is simply comprised of men, I feel like a pervert and my view of the film changes. Fortunately, the audience had a fair mix of men and women, so I still felt like a pervert but a pervert with aspirations of wholesome moral values, occasionally achieved. The film essentially takes the ideas of the original novel and places them in Italy around July 1943 after the fall of Benito Mussolini. Four corrupt fascist libertines kidnap and take off a group of eighteen teenage girls and boys, who they subsequently use and abuse in various manners. The libertines are accompanied by their new wives (they marry each others daughters). The film is structured around four chapters that relate to Dante's Inferno. It features every possible taboo that you can mention and the final chapter, 'The Circle of Blood' is amongst the most horrible sequences I have ever seen. As each of the libertines stares through binoculars from an upstairs window, he witnesses the punishment of each of the young people who broke the ground rules. I guess the punishment matches the proclivity of the libertine and include the application of a lighter to a boy's penis, a scalping and an eye gouging. Now, I am open to all ideas and find censorship largely abhorrent but the horror of the punishments was something else. Also earlier in the film, people are forced to eat excrement based on the fact that one of the older women remembers someone enjoying the experience of consuming excrement. The film is something else and ends with a waltz. Again, I was intrigued how the audience would respond. It seems customary to applaud at the conclusion of each film shown at the BFI. One or two people were tempted to clap but then stopped themselves. The conversation generated by this film exceeds the reaction to any other film I have seen. The film's saving grace is the strength and courage of its director. It is amazingly well made and leaves an indelible mark upon you after you have seen it.
The Marquis de Sade has also been depicted in two major stage plays, which have subsequently been remade as films. The most radical of these I saw this afternoon at the Rio in Dalston, the Marat Sade, which is the shortened version of the play and film's actual title, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. The play was written by Peter Weiss and originally directed on the stage by Peter Brook who also directed the film version. Believe it or not, the title of the play/film is precisely what the play/film is about. It is a very extreme and peculiar representation of a murder and the events surrounding it. The Marquis de Sade played by Herbert Lom moves the action along, whilst various representatives of the asylum and their families look on. The action takes place of a stage, which resembled a cage as bars occupy the front of the proscenium arch where normally, the audience would have an unrestricted view of the action. The play and film serve to illustrate the views of the Marquis de Sade, the repressive mechanisms in operation in mental institutions to prevent the outbreak of anarchy (the asylum workers intervene every time the inmates/actors get a bit carried away). The play/film after closing ends with the complete breakdown of normal values and codes of morality. A sado-masochistic orgy ensues. Glenda Jackson plays the eventual murderer of Marat, she also suffers from melancholia and sleep sickness. It's not a conventional film and play. Upon its stage production back in the 60s and even more recently in 2011 at Stratford Upon Avon, members of the audience walked out. I found the film engaging yet very stagy. Having said that, the feeling of anarchy and exhaustion that pervades the film and the staging gives it a sense of claustrophobia and perhaps allows a greater sense of empathy with the characters. The other major play about the Marquis de Sade was Quills and this also became a film with the Marquis de Sade played by Geoffrey Rush. The original play was written by Doug Wright. My memories of the film involve the Marquis de Sade incarcerated writing his incendiary manuscripts and getting other people to smuggle them out for him. It reminded me a lot of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It's certainly the more accessible of the two films.
As a cultural figure, I have also bumped into the Marquis de Sade in comics (The Invisibles), in other plays (Madame de Sade - Yukio Mishima ) and in various literary criticism and novels. After all, just think where would the 'Mummy Porn' sensation, The Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James be without the Marquis de Sade. He may have been extreme but at his heart, he helped to point out an essential truth, sexuality is not one dimensional. Also pleasure and pain are not mutually exclusive and for that perhaps, we should be grateful however grudgingly?
Barry Watt - 28th April 2013
Afterword
The quotes from 'The One Hundred Days of Sodom' are taken from the Arrow Books' edition, The One Hundred Days of Sodom and other writings (Arrow Books, 1990).
Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini, 1975) (Film available on DVD).
Dante's Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's poem, The Divine Comedy.
Marat Sade (Peter Brook, 1967) (Film available on DVD. The play is by Peter Weiss).
Quills (Philip Kaufman, 2000) (Film available on DVD. The play is by Doug Wright.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (The novel is by Ken Kesey and the film was directed by Milos Forman in 1975. The film is available as a DVD).
The Invisibles (Comic written by Grant Morrison and published by DC Comics).
Madame de Sade (Play by Yukio Mishima).
The Fifty Shades Trilogy (Novels by E.L. James and published by Vintage Books).
Sunday, 21 April 2013
The Barbican - A Sentimental Journey
As I notice the grey hairs popping up all over my head, I become increasingly aware of the passage of time. I age but I am left wondering whether buildings age in the same way? I guess they fall apart, organic growth gradually working on the cracks and deficiencies in concrete constructs, changing their form. But significantly, concepts whether we like them or not, do not age in the same way.
The Barbican Centre was designed in the Brutalist style by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon. The Southbank Centre is also an example of the same style. Think lots of concrete, stark angles, walkways that eventually get you where you need to get. Now at one stage, the Brutalist style would have driven me up the wall but as I become more conversant in various art styles, I have gradually adapted to and have a grudging respect for the very heavy and essentially 'cold' aesthetics of Brutalism. In fact, I now see it as emblematic of the spaces that it occupies. Could you imagine the Barbican area or the area around the Southbank in any other way now? It has helped to define the spaces.
Anyhow, back to the point, this blog entry is an exploration of the Barbican from a personal angle. Somehow, it has become the most important area of my life in the last few years. If the Barbican Centre and the Barbican area can be defined as intrically tied up with the architecture of the building and area, so too have I become involved in an almost symbiotic relationship with the Barbican Centre. It's almost a home away from home.
My first experience of the Barbican Centre was in 1997 when I graduated from the University of Greenwich. The graduation ceremony was held in the main Barbican Hall. My memories of the day are essentially sad. It marked a break from a really stressful yet profoundly life changing period in my life. Cobblers to childhood solely defining who you become as an adult, education and knowledge are not tied to any one age. We are always learning, not always the right things but experience is vital to personal growth. The graduation ceremony was an anti-climax after all of the all nighters, both working and socialising with friends (sometimes, both at the same time). I looked like a bizarre Matador wearing the mortar board and robe. Ceremonial garb is always more relevant at the time than looked at retrospectively. As the University of Greenwich were probably adopting a minimalist style to the ceremony, not dissimilar to the Barbican Centre and its functional Brutalist architecture, the Graduates and their guests were each allowed one drink post ceremony then that was it. Three years for what? A single glass of something. Then off we all went in our separate directions with only a small number of contact details of the people that we had met. Also I am sure that I got lost finding my way back to the Tube station.
From that point onwards, I think I pretty much forgot the Barbican until 2010. 2010 was the year I joined the social networking site, Citysocialising, which is now known as Citysocializing (don't ask, I will only confuse you). Now as people who know me will tell you, everything changed when I joined this website. I attended a couple of events where I really felt uncomfortable. Then I attended my friend Rachel's event, which was the Open House Day in 2010 (we attended various Government buildings) and finally decided to host my own event. I don't know how or why but I stumbled on the fact that the Barbican was going to be showing the Pasolini film, Teorema. Now, anyone who knows the film will wonder why I chose this film to host? It stars Terence Stamp as a strange character who comes into a dysfunctional family, changes their lives then leaves. Each of the characters then suffers the repercussions of his departure. Think of the film as Mary Poppins in reverse! I met a couple of people who were intrepid enough to sign up and a friend came along. I was surprisingly a better host than I imagined I could be. After the film, we went to the Barbican Lounge, which is a Tapas style restaurant. The service was slow, the company was good and audible arguments seemed to be coming from the kitchen (I hasten to add that the Barbican Lounge is much much better now). Apparently, we were told it was a new Chef and the Barbican Lounge gave us money off the bill for the inconvenience (two of the group waited over an hour for the first of the dishes to appear).
The Barbican cinema (now cinemas) has become one of my favourite venues for CS events. I have warm memories of Black Swan, seeing the film then following it up with a hastily purchased bottle of wine (the Barbican Centre bar closes quite early owing presumably to the fact that it is in the middle of a residential area). Rachel's very funny comment about Paddy Ashdown and his resemblance to Indiana Jones, which has corrupted my image of the politician for all time.
So that this doesn't go on all day, the Barbican Centre is like my favourite pick and mix. It has everything. It enjoys seasons where it links the films and theatre productions to the exhibitions in the Art Gallery. Currently, I am enjoying the Dancing around Duchamp season, which has involved The Bride and the Bachelors ' exhibition in the Art Gallery (which on Thursdays and at the weekend involves live dance), a series of related theatrical events and films too. As such, I have had the pleasure of attending an Absolute Dada event that resulted in my friend, Susan being invited on stage with another lady to entertain the audience for five minutes at the beginning of the performance followed by equally memorable sections including a professional musician playing one of John Cage's performances on a red toy piano and a guy playing meaningless folk songs in front of a back projection of a male penis erecting.
If anything this blog entry is as much a celebration of the great friends I have met and enticed to come along to see various productions at the Barbican. Susan, Rachel, Ros, Pernille, Zahira and everyone else I salute you all for your attendance. The Barbican is the arts centre for people who like to be challenged, entertained and stimulated. The Barbican is better than sex and chocolate. Discuss...
Barry Watt - 21st April 2013
The Barbican Centre was designed in the Brutalist style by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon. The Southbank Centre is also an example of the same style. Think lots of concrete, stark angles, walkways that eventually get you where you need to get. Now at one stage, the Brutalist style would have driven me up the wall but as I become more conversant in various art styles, I have gradually adapted to and have a grudging respect for the very heavy and essentially 'cold' aesthetics of Brutalism. In fact, I now see it as emblematic of the spaces that it occupies. Could you imagine the Barbican area or the area around the Southbank in any other way now? It has helped to define the spaces.
Anyhow, back to the point, this blog entry is an exploration of the Barbican from a personal angle. Somehow, it has become the most important area of my life in the last few years. If the Barbican Centre and the Barbican area can be defined as intrically tied up with the architecture of the building and area, so too have I become involved in an almost symbiotic relationship with the Barbican Centre. It's almost a home away from home.
My first experience of the Barbican Centre was in 1997 when I graduated from the University of Greenwich. The graduation ceremony was held in the main Barbican Hall. My memories of the day are essentially sad. It marked a break from a really stressful yet profoundly life changing period in my life. Cobblers to childhood solely defining who you become as an adult, education and knowledge are not tied to any one age. We are always learning, not always the right things but experience is vital to personal growth. The graduation ceremony was an anti-climax after all of the all nighters, both working and socialising with friends (sometimes, both at the same time). I looked like a bizarre Matador wearing the mortar board and robe. Ceremonial garb is always more relevant at the time than looked at retrospectively. As the University of Greenwich were probably adopting a minimalist style to the ceremony, not dissimilar to the Barbican Centre and its functional Brutalist architecture, the Graduates and their guests were each allowed one drink post ceremony then that was it. Three years for what? A single glass of something. Then off we all went in our separate directions with only a small number of contact details of the people that we had met. Also I am sure that I got lost finding my way back to the Tube station.
From that point onwards, I think I pretty much forgot the Barbican until 2010. 2010 was the year I joined the social networking site, Citysocialising, which is now known as Citysocializing (don't ask, I will only confuse you). Now as people who know me will tell you, everything changed when I joined this website. I attended a couple of events where I really felt uncomfortable. Then I attended my friend Rachel's event, which was the Open House Day in 2010 (we attended various Government buildings) and finally decided to host my own event. I don't know how or why but I stumbled on the fact that the Barbican was going to be showing the Pasolini film, Teorema. Now, anyone who knows the film will wonder why I chose this film to host? It stars Terence Stamp as a strange character who comes into a dysfunctional family, changes their lives then leaves. Each of the characters then suffers the repercussions of his departure. Think of the film as Mary Poppins in reverse! I met a couple of people who were intrepid enough to sign up and a friend came along. I was surprisingly a better host than I imagined I could be. After the film, we went to the Barbican Lounge, which is a Tapas style restaurant. The service was slow, the company was good and audible arguments seemed to be coming from the kitchen (I hasten to add that the Barbican Lounge is much much better now). Apparently, we were told it was a new Chef and the Barbican Lounge gave us money off the bill for the inconvenience (two of the group waited over an hour for the first of the dishes to appear).
The Barbican cinema (now cinemas) has become one of my favourite venues for CS events. I have warm memories of Black Swan, seeing the film then following it up with a hastily purchased bottle of wine (the Barbican Centre bar closes quite early owing presumably to the fact that it is in the middle of a residential area). Rachel's very funny comment about Paddy Ashdown and his resemblance to Indiana Jones, which has corrupted my image of the politician for all time.
So that this doesn't go on all day, the Barbican Centre is like my favourite pick and mix. It has everything. It enjoys seasons where it links the films and theatre productions to the exhibitions in the Art Gallery. Currently, I am enjoying the Dancing around Duchamp season, which has involved The Bride and the Bachelors ' exhibition in the Art Gallery (which on Thursdays and at the weekend involves live dance), a series of related theatrical events and films too. As such, I have had the pleasure of attending an Absolute Dada event that resulted in my friend, Susan being invited on stage with another lady to entertain the audience for five minutes at the beginning of the performance followed by equally memorable sections including a professional musician playing one of John Cage's performances on a red toy piano and a guy playing meaningless folk songs in front of a back projection of a male penis erecting.
If anything this blog entry is as much a celebration of the great friends I have met and enticed to come along to see various productions at the Barbican. Susan, Rachel, Ros, Pernille, Zahira and everyone else I salute you all for your attendance. The Barbican is the arts centre for people who like to be challenged, entertained and stimulated. The Barbican is better than sex and chocolate. Discuss...
Barry Watt - 21st April 2013
Sunday, 7 April 2013
Okay, where did I leave my concrete flower? An appreciation of modern art.
On my travels, I seem to go to a number of very interesting art exhibitions. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed and inspired to do something creative, which is rarely realised immediately but lies like a seed, waiting for the requisite succulence to grow.
Anyway, since the beginning of the year, I have finally and belatedly realised that I have a predilection for modern art in its myriad forms. I do not mind seeing other art styles but somehow, I have always considered artists who attempt to capture 'reality in its true form' to be rather missing the point. A flower in a vase on a table can be painted in a variety of styles but essentially, the artist's feelings and interests must imbue and/or taint the representation of the object(s).
The three most recent modern art exhibitions I have attended, the A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance exhibition at the Tate Modern, the Schwitters In Britain exhibition at the Tate Britain and the Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years at the ICA are all manifestations of different forms of modern art. Out of the three exhibitions, the Schwitters in Britain exhibition is perhaps, the most 'conventional'. Kurt Schwitters' work takes the form of collages of found objects, sculptures, installations and recordings of staged performances of his poetry, which is essentially phonetic. Repeated words and sounds captured for eternity on scratchy recording devices. Vinyl mementos transferred to digital technology, so they can be shared forever. In many respects, Schwitters' work embodies the life of an exile, a man who chose to leave Germany in 1937 after his work was condemned by the Nazi Government, it resonates with a sense of nostalgia and occasionally sadness. Railway tickets and bits of adverts and wood punctuate many of his collages. They trace his life and travels. He created a word to describe his work, 'Merz'.
As Schwitters described in 1919:
'The word Merz denotes essentially the combination of all conceivable materials
for artistic purposes, and technically the principle of equal evaluation of the
individual materials... A perambulator wheel, wire-netting, string and cotton wool
are factors having equal rights with paint.'
(Kurt Schwitters 1919 - Reprinted in Tate Britain Exhibition Booklet)
One of his works which he sadly never finished was a Merz Barn in the Lake District, which now consists of just a single wall, which is at the Hatton Gallery. There is a time line at the exhibition explaining the oddly involved world of art acquisition with its deals and messy incomplete transactions. The exhibition has stills of the wall as it was created. It truly is an intriguing combination of elements. Curves and lines, strange profusions. Please see the following link for an image of the wall and more information.
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/hatton-gallery/collections/kurt-schwitters-and-the-merzbarn-wall.html
The exhibition was surprisingly moving and collage as an art form is very versatile and engaging. It also has a tactile quality. Of course, touching the works is not encouraged, but the possibility of creating works for people to touch appeals to me.
The A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance exhibition at the Tate Britain which I attended on the same day as the above exhibition demonstrated the more visceral and confrontational nature of modern art. The exhibition was about artists who are interested in the processes of creation as opposed to focusing too intently on the finished product. As such, a film in the first room is projected above a piece by Jackson Pollock revealing how he created works. Essentially, splashing paint onto a canvas. Lines and drips cascading across a blank canvas. Squiggles of differing colours representing the artist's aesthetic dance. The finished work like a captured memory of a dance with a creative muse. The other works in the exhibition ranged from the oddly beautiful, one work involved different people shooting sacks of paint which were suspended over a canvas and then punctured by gun shots causing the paint to splatter the canvas (Niki de Saint Phalle) to truly bizarre works involving ritual, performance and bodily fluids such as blood (the Vienna Actionists). Many of the works are films, which are documents of a form of creativity that grabs you by the throat. I left the exhibition feeling exhilarated and changed. It made me want to get a group of people together and do something in that moment. This leads to an interesting question does modern art age that well? It's a rhetorical question but worth thinking about as certain inter textual references become oblique or forgotten. Having said that, other forms of art can also be seen as ageing and are kept in the public eye by academics and curators putting on exhibitions to remind or impose their meanings upon the works of art.
The last art exhibition I am going to talk about in this blog entry is the Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years at the ICA. The Bernadette Corporation seem to be an organisation that creates works through the exploitation of various mediums. They are ironic, postmodern in their references, political and above all, hard to define. Their BC logo rendering them as meaningful as any other corporation. They have put on fashion shows in deserted warehouses, created narratives by multiple authors. Most amusingly to me, they have created 'versions' of popular books such as 'Moby Dick', which are simply academic break downs of the narratives, subjective reactions to the texts. A comment on a generation more intent on reading study guides than the original texts? I loved the exhibition for the sheer craziness of the material on offer. How do you describe a constantly changing organisation that is inspired by everything? The ICA has done as good a job as you can and it's fascinating to me the number of negative reviews that the exhibition has received. I think that the reviewers are missing the point and it could be that living artists are harder to represent than dead ones. Careers are harder to categorise and represent when the creative team remains fluid.
To close, I recommend all three of the exhibitions (although, sadly, the A Bigger Splash exhibition has finished, although I guess it may move somewhere else). Each of these exhibitions has illustrated to me the importance of modern art. I like to be challenged and stimulated. Modern art is the stimuli for the occasional mundanity and heroic stoicism of everyday life.
Barry Watt - Sunday 7th April 2013.
Afterword
The Schwitters quote was extracted from the Schwitters In Britain exhibition guide (Tate Britain, 2013)
For more information on the Bernadette Corporation, please see their website:
http://www.bernadettecorporation.com/
Anyway, since the beginning of the year, I have finally and belatedly realised that I have a predilection for modern art in its myriad forms. I do not mind seeing other art styles but somehow, I have always considered artists who attempt to capture 'reality in its true form' to be rather missing the point. A flower in a vase on a table can be painted in a variety of styles but essentially, the artist's feelings and interests must imbue and/or taint the representation of the object(s).
The three most recent modern art exhibitions I have attended, the A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance exhibition at the Tate Modern, the Schwitters In Britain exhibition at the Tate Britain and the Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years at the ICA are all manifestations of different forms of modern art. Out of the three exhibitions, the Schwitters in Britain exhibition is perhaps, the most 'conventional'. Kurt Schwitters' work takes the form of collages of found objects, sculptures, installations and recordings of staged performances of his poetry, which is essentially phonetic. Repeated words and sounds captured for eternity on scratchy recording devices. Vinyl mementos transferred to digital technology, so they can be shared forever. In many respects, Schwitters' work embodies the life of an exile, a man who chose to leave Germany in 1937 after his work was condemned by the Nazi Government, it resonates with a sense of nostalgia and occasionally sadness. Railway tickets and bits of adverts and wood punctuate many of his collages. They trace his life and travels. He created a word to describe his work, 'Merz'.
As Schwitters described in 1919:
'The word Merz denotes essentially the combination of all conceivable materials
for artistic purposes, and technically the principle of equal evaluation of the
individual materials... A perambulator wheel, wire-netting, string and cotton wool
are factors having equal rights with paint.'
(Kurt Schwitters 1919 - Reprinted in Tate Britain Exhibition Booklet)
One of his works which he sadly never finished was a Merz Barn in the Lake District, which now consists of just a single wall, which is at the Hatton Gallery. There is a time line at the exhibition explaining the oddly involved world of art acquisition with its deals and messy incomplete transactions. The exhibition has stills of the wall as it was created. It truly is an intriguing combination of elements. Curves and lines, strange profusions. Please see the following link for an image of the wall and more information.
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/hatton-gallery/collections/kurt-schwitters-and-the-merzbarn-wall.html
The exhibition was surprisingly moving and collage as an art form is very versatile and engaging. It also has a tactile quality. Of course, touching the works is not encouraged, but the possibility of creating works for people to touch appeals to me.
The A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance exhibition at the Tate Britain which I attended on the same day as the above exhibition demonstrated the more visceral and confrontational nature of modern art. The exhibition was about artists who are interested in the processes of creation as opposed to focusing too intently on the finished product. As such, a film in the first room is projected above a piece by Jackson Pollock revealing how he created works. Essentially, splashing paint onto a canvas. Lines and drips cascading across a blank canvas. Squiggles of differing colours representing the artist's aesthetic dance. The finished work like a captured memory of a dance with a creative muse. The other works in the exhibition ranged from the oddly beautiful, one work involved different people shooting sacks of paint which were suspended over a canvas and then punctured by gun shots causing the paint to splatter the canvas (Niki de Saint Phalle) to truly bizarre works involving ritual, performance and bodily fluids such as blood (the Vienna Actionists). Many of the works are films, which are documents of a form of creativity that grabs you by the throat. I left the exhibition feeling exhilarated and changed. It made me want to get a group of people together and do something in that moment. This leads to an interesting question does modern art age that well? It's a rhetorical question but worth thinking about as certain inter textual references become oblique or forgotten. Having said that, other forms of art can also be seen as ageing and are kept in the public eye by academics and curators putting on exhibitions to remind or impose their meanings upon the works of art.
The last art exhibition I am going to talk about in this blog entry is the Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years at the ICA. The Bernadette Corporation seem to be an organisation that creates works through the exploitation of various mediums. They are ironic, postmodern in their references, political and above all, hard to define. Their BC logo rendering them as meaningful as any other corporation. They have put on fashion shows in deserted warehouses, created narratives by multiple authors. Most amusingly to me, they have created 'versions' of popular books such as 'Moby Dick', which are simply academic break downs of the narratives, subjective reactions to the texts. A comment on a generation more intent on reading study guides than the original texts? I loved the exhibition for the sheer craziness of the material on offer. How do you describe a constantly changing organisation that is inspired by everything? The ICA has done as good a job as you can and it's fascinating to me the number of negative reviews that the exhibition has received. I think that the reviewers are missing the point and it could be that living artists are harder to represent than dead ones. Careers are harder to categorise and represent when the creative team remains fluid.
To close, I recommend all three of the exhibitions (although, sadly, the A Bigger Splash exhibition has finished, although I guess it may move somewhere else). Each of these exhibitions has illustrated to me the importance of modern art. I like to be challenged and stimulated. Modern art is the stimuli for the occasional mundanity and heroic stoicism of everyday life.
Barry Watt - Sunday 7th April 2013.
Afterword
The Schwitters quote was extracted from the Schwitters In Britain exhibition guide (Tate Britain, 2013)
For more information on the Bernadette Corporation, please see their website:
http://www.bernadettecorporation.com/
Sunday, 24 February 2013
What makes you laugh or why did the Chicken cross the road wearing a banana skin with a Hedgehog?
It's an obvious point but occasionally, people, things and ideas make us laugh but why? Why did the Chicken cross the road? Was it lost?
Laughter can be viewed in many different ways. It can be a response to something that we find funny or it can be indicative of mental illness. It is an extreme response to external and internal stimuli. However, it is viewed, it is a release. It can make us feel better or it can cause us to tire. For example, I remember being at school and whilst attending a 'Life Skills' class (these are a funny conceit too but not a subject for discussion now), one of my class who consistently made people laugh decided to hide in a cupboard at the back of the room. Bear in mind that I am referring to a floor level cupboard, not a full size one. Someone prevented his escape from the cupboard by placing a table in front of the cupboard. The teacher came in and when he called the register, a banging could be heard from the cupboard. We all laughed as the table was removed and he came out. Even the teacher laughed. The punchline being that laughter is tiring and I think this is the point that I realised this essential truth. I like laughing and humour but you try being in the company of someone who cracks jokes every thirty seconds and see how you feel by the end of the day. Maybe, that reveals more about me?
Anyway, I slightly digress... I think that most people would agree that different types of comedy like everything in life appeals to different people. What has interested me is how types of comedy are very much of their time. I am thinking of various situation comedies that are now deemed 'politically incorrect' and even stand-up comedians whose material remains sexist and racist. I generally do not condone censorship. Indeed, if you look at the cultural trends over the years, the comedy that is created is of the moment and watching certain programmes thirty years on is more revealing of the times in which the programmes were made. Personally, I do not like 'Rising Damp'. Something about the programme always got under my skin but that was essentially the point. Rigsby is an awful character. A seedy, self-regarding unpleasant landlord with racist views. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to be repeated that often. The same is true of 'In Sickness and In Health', although Alf Garnett is a recognisable archetype in most public houses.
Another programme (and comedian) that wound me up as a kid and still does as an adult was 'The Benny Hill Show'. Benny Hill essentially took the fun out of slapstick and lacked the originality of 'The Goodies' and the likes of Norman Wisdom plus he chucked in a dose of sexist humour in the form of 'The Hill's Angels'. Yet, posthumously, he remains popular in America and in various European countries. His show is also televised in India.
So what does make me laugh? Well, I do like some situation comedies. 'Open All Hours' set in a corner shop and starring Ronnie Barker as Arkwright, the shopkeeper and Granville, his young assistant played by David Jason still generates a warm feeling inside. Something about the setting and an understanding of the time in which it was set. 'Porridge' also still features high on my list of situation comedies that have stood the test of time. I guess 'Only Fools and Horses' also features somewhere on the list. Thinking about it, most situation comedies whether they are set in the future, 'Red Dwarf' or in the weird nightmarish setting of Royston Vasey, 'The League of Gentlemen' stand the test of time much more successfully than some stand up routines. Stand up comedy is at its best representative of the moods, foibles and errors of the moment. Seeing Seventies' stand-up comedy programmes with their proliferation of patriarchal jokes involving Mother-In-Laws and 'ugly wives' leaves me cold and grim faced.
Comedy can age very badly as perhaps, it should. If you get the chance, please read or see the play 'Comedians' by Trevor Griffiths, which is set in a classroom for aspiring working-class comedians and effectively offers an overview of the comedy scene in the Seventies and where it was heading. One of the aspiring comedians preempts the alternative comedy scene that became popular in the Eighties.
So where is comedy going now? The answer seems to be nowhere in particular. Everything seems derivative, retrograde and even stand-ups are losing their connection with the audience by playing ever bigger venues. This situation should not be seen as terrible as there will always be something to make people laugh but personally, I need to be challenged, so I will continue to seek out new comedians or comedians that believe in the material they deliver.
I conclude this blog entry with a joke, why did the Chicken cross the road wearing a banana skin with a Hedgehog? The Chicken needed someone to help him change the light bulb and the banana skin ensured that there would be no unfortunate accidents.
Barry Watt - 24th February 2013
Laughter can be viewed in many different ways. It can be a response to something that we find funny or it can be indicative of mental illness. It is an extreme response to external and internal stimuli. However, it is viewed, it is a release. It can make us feel better or it can cause us to tire. For example, I remember being at school and whilst attending a 'Life Skills' class (these are a funny conceit too but not a subject for discussion now), one of my class who consistently made people laugh decided to hide in a cupboard at the back of the room. Bear in mind that I am referring to a floor level cupboard, not a full size one. Someone prevented his escape from the cupboard by placing a table in front of the cupboard. The teacher came in and when he called the register, a banging could be heard from the cupboard. We all laughed as the table was removed and he came out. Even the teacher laughed. The punchline being that laughter is tiring and I think this is the point that I realised this essential truth. I like laughing and humour but you try being in the company of someone who cracks jokes every thirty seconds and see how you feel by the end of the day. Maybe, that reveals more about me?
Anyway, I slightly digress... I think that most people would agree that different types of comedy like everything in life appeals to different people. What has interested me is how types of comedy are very much of their time. I am thinking of various situation comedies that are now deemed 'politically incorrect' and even stand-up comedians whose material remains sexist and racist. I generally do not condone censorship. Indeed, if you look at the cultural trends over the years, the comedy that is created is of the moment and watching certain programmes thirty years on is more revealing of the times in which the programmes were made. Personally, I do not like 'Rising Damp'. Something about the programme always got under my skin but that was essentially the point. Rigsby is an awful character. A seedy, self-regarding unpleasant landlord with racist views. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to be repeated that often. The same is true of 'In Sickness and In Health', although Alf Garnett is a recognisable archetype in most public houses.
Another programme (and comedian) that wound me up as a kid and still does as an adult was 'The Benny Hill Show'. Benny Hill essentially took the fun out of slapstick and lacked the originality of 'The Goodies' and the likes of Norman Wisdom plus he chucked in a dose of sexist humour in the form of 'The Hill's Angels'. Yet, posthumously, he remains popular in America and in various European countries. His show is also televised in India.
So what does make me laugh? Well, I do like some situation comedies. 'Open All Hours' set in a corner shop and starring Ronnie Barker as Arkwright, the shopkeeper and Granville, his young assistant played by David Jason still generates a warm feeling inside. Something about the setting and an understanding of the time in which it was set. 'Porridge' also still features high on my list of situation comedies that have stood the test of time. I guess 'Only Fools and Horses' also features somewhere on the list. Thinking about it, most situation comedies whether they are set in the future, 'Red Dwarf' or in the weird nightmarish setting of Royston Vasey, 'The League of Gentlemen' stand the test of time much more successfully than some stand up routines. Stand up comedy is at its best representative of the moods, foibles and errors of the moment. Seeing Seventies' stand-up comedy programmes with their proliferation of patriarchal jokes involving Mother-In-Laws and 'ugly wives' leaves me cold and grim faced.
Comedy can age very badly as perhaps, it should. If you get the chance, please read or see the play 'Comedians' by Trevor Griffiths, which is set in a classroom for aspiring working-class comedians and effectively offers an overview of the comedy scene in the Seventies and where it was heading. One of the aspiring comedians preempts the alternative comedy scene that became popular in the Eighties.
So where is comedy going now? The answer seems to be nowhere in particular. Everything seems derivative, retrograde and even stand-ups are losing their connection with the audience by playing ever bigger venues. This situation should not be seen as terrible as there will always be something to make people laugh but personally, I need to be challenged, so I will continue to seek out new comedians or comedians that believe in the material they deliver.
I conclude this blog entry with a joke, why did the Chicken cross the road wearing a banana skin with a Hedgehog? The Chicken needed someone to help him change the light bulb and the banana skin ensured that there would be no unfortunate accidents.
Barry Watt - 24th February 2013
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