Flux to Form |

Florence and the machinations of performative feminism

November 5, 2020

A few months ago, you couldn’t scroll through any feminist hashtag on Instagram for more than about ten seconds without seeing either the cover of, or one of the illustrated pages from, Florence Given’s Women Don’t Owe You Pretty. Off Instagram, every magazine and blog that acknowledged the book’s existence had nothing but glowing praise for it, declaring it “life-changing” among other similarly hyperbolic accolades. Naturally, I was curious as to what all the brouhaha was about, so I decided to check it out.

After reading the whole thing in barely over an hour (it might be a 200+ page book, but a good percentage of the pages are Given’s illustrations, and/or an “empowering” aphorism in 60s-style typography), I was…thoroughly unimpressed. Were it not for the instantly recognisable summer sorbet-coloured cover, I would have felt compelled to double-check that I had indeed picked up the same book all these people were raving about. I was genuinely baffled by the thought that anybody, let alone scores of people, could view Given’s rambling tome as some sort of life-changing feminist bible.

There is little actually wrong with much of the content of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty — even though the tone is oftentimes preachy, condescending or self-congratulatory. But it also doesn’t say anything new or revolutionary whatsoever; instead regurgitating basic feminist theory, combined with topics already addressed far more eloquently, and with much more depth, by other feminists on social media in recent years. Given’s own narratorial voice has all the eloquence of a nightclub toilet pep talk, except the reader doesn’t necessarily have the benefit of being under the influence to make her words sound more profound than they really are.

Considerable portions of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty deals with the concept of privilege in its various forms, and Given is all too ready to “check” her own privilege before the reader can mentally call her out on it. She’s white, thin, cisgender, able-bodied, conventionally attractive and middle class — and she’ll remind you of all those things every opportunity she gets, to the point where it begins to come across as borderline boastful, repeatedly referencing her own “prettiness” and coming out with cringe-worthy self-reflections such as “I had to acknowledge the objective fact that I sit high on society’s scale of desirability”. But simply acknowledging one’s own privilege, even in a more humble manner, and acknowledging that life is more difficult for minority groups who aren’t afforded those privileges, doesn’t make a person more capable of understanding the lived experiences of minorities. As a 21 year old with all the aforementioned privileges, and with no academic background in gender studies or sociology, what experience or authority does Florence Given actually have to address the issue of privilege as it relates to an entire gender?

It’s partly this lack of understanding of the female experience outside of Given’s own privileged existence that makes Women Don’t Owe You Pretty such an underwhelming, shallow read. But it’s also partly due to what I can only describe as Given’s sheer arrogance and self-absorption. Despite name-dropping a number of fellow feminists who represent various minority groups — women of colour, fat positivity feminists, trans activists — she never once actually seeks their input when (attempting to) cover topics such as race, fatphobia or transgender issues, nor even deigns to quote them beyond the very occasional single sentence that’s clearly placed within the text in an attempt to heighten its credibility. (The Dalai Lama and Maya Angelou are others whose words have been quoted in the same manner, though arguably even more unnecessarily.) The entirety of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty is devoted to Given’s own thoughts and advice, no matter how unqualified she is to address certain issues, lending the book’s tone a rather grating cockiness. Florence Given clearly already understands everything there is to understand about the entire spectrum of female experience, because she’s a thin, white 21 year old.

Given’s naivety when it comes to truly understanding the concept of privilege is at its most blatant when it comes to her extensive “privilege checklists” in one of the final chapters of the book. Again, the items on the checklists are basically just a collection of points raised by other feminist writers earlier, but some sections are particularly tone-deaf, where it becomes obvious that Given either hasn’t had much material to fall back on from others, or else hasn’t applied any degree of critical thinking to what she’s regurgitating. The section on male/male passing privilege is particularly rife with generalisations that completely gloss over the fact that men can also be victims of sexual violence, or objectified by women, particularly men who “sit high on society’s scale of desirability”, to use Given’s own phrasing. The disability checklist completely neglects to address either invisible disabilities or mental illness, and despite rightly accusing our society of being fatphobic in previous chapters (while of course repeatedly reminding us that she’s not a victim of that because she’s thin), there is no checklist for thin privilege at all. Unfortunately, for all the book’s emphasis on privilege and how it benefits some while harming others, Given’s sole advice for addressing this deep, systemic imbalance in society is to “consume more diverse media!”. The irony of this coming from the pages of a book written by a woman whose own privilege checklist is practically a full bingo card, while neglecting to use her platform to promote any feminists from minority groups, is not lost on me.

The occasional small nuggets of Given’s own opinions that peek through between paraphrasing the ideas of others are similarly lacking in profundity, and sometimes even alarmingly illogical or misguided. Given has a tendency to assure her readers that any “negative energy” from other people — be it somebody criticising you, or somebody simply disliking you — is without a doubt entirely due to the other person’s shortcomings. “Do you ever find yourself talking about other people to your friends and create this whole narrative in your head that they “have it in for you”, or that they hate you?” Given asks in chapter 5. “Even though you’ve had little to no communication at all? Well, they don’t hate you! You just hate yourself!”, she declares, words dripping with self-satisfaction. A comforting thought, undoubtedly, but also total poppycock. In real life, sometimes people actually will take a dislike to you for reasons completely unrelated to how much self-loathing you engage in, whether deservedly or not. To insist that any perceived dislike is a symptom of one’s own insecurity is essentially gaslighting — a topic Given addresses later on in the book, with as little depth or genuine insight as you’d expect from her by now. Continuing in this same self-soothing, accountability-shirking vein, the next chapter opens with the declaration that “the way people treat you is absolutely no reflection of you, your worth or your value”. Again, not necessarily true. While I concede that Given was presumably referring more to the “your worth or value” part of that statement, it’s again the sort of sweeping generalisation that feeds into the idea that if other people react negatively to you, it’s because of their own shortcomings, never because it might be an understandable and appropriate response to your own negative behaviours. The repeated insistence that other people only respond to you in negative ways because they’re jealous or insecure is foolish, illogical and downright harmful, because it prohibits any self-examination and acknowledgement of one’s own personality flaws — and therefore the opportunity to change.

This ego-soothing attitude in general, I suspect, is a major part of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty’s appeal. Even when it patronisingly berates you for not checking your privilege, or for your internalised misogyny, Given’s tone and choice of language always makes it feel very clear that nothing is really your fault. You’ve been brainwashed by a patriarchal society, capitalism and the male gaze — but don’t worry, Florence is here to save the day and remind you that you are a goddess, a total icon, you deserve the whole damn cake, and really, you are just incredibly amazing and special by merit of simply existing! There is nothing wrong with a bit of self-love, of course, and everybody deserves basic respect and dignity, but Given has a penchant for taking these concepts to cringe-worthy extremes. Her public persona on Instagram — although I’m sure she’d deny it was a persona of any kind, and rather her “authentic self” — is so vain that it almost makes Kanye West seem humble in comparison. Her attention-seeking narcissism is prettily repackaged as “confidence” and “self-love”, but that doesn’t change what it actually is. I have to wonder, if Florence Given isn’t putting herself on display for the male gaze, then who or what is she putting herself on display for? The female gaze? Any gaze in general? Nobody puts anything online without it being for an audience of some kind — that’s the very principle behind posting something on the internet in the first place. Nobody posts “just for themselves”, because if the content truly is just for their own self-pleasure, there’s no need for it to enter the public sphere. So if Florence Given isn’t posting her attention-seeking content for the male gaze, and by merit of it actually being online at all, it’s not just for herself, is her content possibly…gasp…capitalist marketing? But Florence hates capitalism! She’s said so repeatedly!

And yet, at the end of the day, Women Don’t Owe You Pretty is little more than the monetisation of a trending social justice issue, and the vanity project of a privileged young woman who used the groundwork of other feminist writers to launch herself into a world of wealth and fame. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty exists at the expense of giving a platform to more experienced, more articulate feminist writers, including women from minority groups. As an introductory guide to feminism, a similar — but infinitely better — volume could have been curated, utilising the voices of multiple feminist writers, from a variety of backgrounds, to give a much more genuine, well-rounded perspective on such a complex issue. But instead, publishers chose to give that sole voice to the personality they thought would be most marketable: a white, conventionally attractive young woman whose ego and self-importance compelled her to embrace the opportunity with open arms, instead of proposing, for the greater good of an entire gender, a collaborative project that would have made for a much more satisfying end product.

That, my friends, is capitalism at its finest. And feminism at its most fraudulent.

Posted in Literature
Tagged: feminism

Medusa strikes back! ….unnecessarily, and at the wrong person

October 20, 2020

Last week, a seven foot tall bronze sculpture by Luciano Garbati, entitled Medusa With The Head of Perseus, was unveiled at a park in Lower Manhattan, to be on display for the next six months. The inverted depiction of the 16th century Florentine masterpiece, Perseus With The Head Of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini, is claimed to portray Medusa in “a moment of somberly empowered self-defense”. It is, without doubt, intended to be a feminist statement.

At first glance, it’s easy to see why an audience might be so impressed by this work. “Hell yeah feminism, down with the patriarchy, #nastywoman, etc.” But if you’re going to use classical mythology to try to make a point about contemporary feminism and the #MeToo movement, you need to do a bit more research and a bit more critical thinking than Luciano Garbati seems to have in the process of creating this piece.

To begin with, it would seem the artist’s understanding of Medusa as a mythological character, and of Greek mythology in general, is somewhat rudimentary. Like many of the most enduring myths of Ancient Greece, there are numerous versions of Medusa’s story, and the variations begin literally from the very start. Arguably, the most commonly known version of Medusa’s origin myth is that she was originally a beautiful mortal women and only acquired her monstrous form after being cursed by Athena — but there are also versions of her story in which she was said to have always been a gorgon, thus negating the entire premise upon which Garbati’s art is based. Even following the same general branch of the Medusa myth as the artist did (ie. that she was originally a beautiful mortal woman), her being raped by Poseidon is again only one variation of the story. In some versions, Medusa and Poseidon were having a consensual affair; in others, Poseidon wasn’t even involved at all, and the reason for Medusa’s curse was her claiming to be more beautiful than Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. (Hubris was generally the main reason for mortals being cursed by the gods in Greek mythology, as it was considered the highest of offences to proclaim oneself superior to the gods in any way.) Furthermore, the particular translations of key phrases in early mythological literature have a very strong impact on how the myth is interpreted by modern (and even not-so-modern) readers. For example, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which the artist cites as their reference, the word “defiled” in relation to Poseidon’s actions towards Medusa is often used instead of “rape”, despite the latter word regularly being used elsewhere in the same text, eg. The Rape of Europa. Logically, this could lend to the conclusion that Ovid wasn’t literally describing the interaction as a rape, but rather perhaps a loss of virginity, or even simply a sex act that for one reason or another might have been deemed indecent

Regardless of how the rape or not-rape of Medusa is depicted though, the crux of the story is that Medusa wasn’t punished simply for being a rape victim; she was punished for desecrating Athena’s temple, which is not necessarily the same thing.

As for poor, newly beheaded Perseus: as far as Greek heroes go, Perseus was most definitely “one of the good guys”. The synopsis of (Garbati’s chosen interpretation of) the Medusa myth on the MWTH Project’s website conveniently neglects to mention that Perseus’ quest to behead Medusa was in fact a necessary part of a quest to save another woman, and to protect his own mother. Yet in this work, Medusa — who killed many innocent people herself as a gorgon, let us not forget — is elevated to the position of heroine, and the wrongful death of an actual hero celebrated as an act of female empowerment. Punishing an innocent man for the alleged wrongdoings of another is an act of wrath, not justice.

“Logically”, it would make more sense for Medusa to be holding the head of either Poseidon or Athena, since in several versions of the myth they’re the ones who actually wronged her. But even then, what message would that be that sending? Not only would it be sending the harmful message that violent revenge is an acceptable — nay, celebrated — response to being hurt, but given the myth’s varied narratives, it could also be argued that it sends the message that it’s okay to pick and choose whichever particular narrative suits your agenda, and use it to justify your actions, without taking into account other interpretations and possibilities.

Whether or not Medusa was actually a victim differs between versions of her myth, but as an artist, Garbati consciously makes the choice to definitively state that she is one, and that her hypothetical revenge on an innocent party — rather than on the people who victimised her — is an act of empowerment.

It’s not. Violent revenge on an entire gender is certainly not what the #MeToo movement is supposed to be about. Women are empowered by, and are actively seeking, true justice, not arbitrary punishment of men in general. Simply inverting the roles in a myth like Perseus and Medusa’s feels like a cheap attempt to cash in on the female empowerment “trend”, without putting any effort into considering the deeper meaning of choosing to work within the context of a well-known but complex myth. It feels worse than hollow: it feels exploitative. (It’s also worth noting, if you haven’t already, the presence of the male gaze in the lines of Medusa’s body. Medusa’s body was supposed to be monstrous and snake-covered too, not just her hair. So why has she been depicted here with an athletic, conventionally attractive, human female body?)

Perhaps the most tragic thing of all in this situation is that there are so many strong, powerful women in Greek mythology who could be the subject of artworks celebrating female strength and empowerment. Cyrene, Atalanta, Otrera, Antigone, Messene. Artists who want to call upon the Greek myths as a source of inspiration would do better to give a platform to the heroines that already exist in mythology, rather than trying to create a new one by butchering other myths that don’t really fit the intended message anyway.

Posted in Art
Tagged: art, feminism, mythology

From Paris with love

August 24, 2019

A few shots from my trusty old film camera when I was in Paris last month for work, on Lomography Earl Grey 100 film.

Posted in Travel
Tagged: france, Paris, photography, travel

Interview: Hitting the heart of Johnny Marr

November 29, 2018

Interview originally published in the June 2018 issue of Dynamic.
Photos © A. Stevenson, Berlin, May 2018.

It was Susan Sontag who once said, ‘The greatest effort is to be really where you are, contemporary with yourself, in your life, giving full attention to the world.’ This is an effort, I feel, that Johnny Marr has certainly made, and more so than ever in the five years since first striking out as a solo artist.

Though understandably admired for decades as a guitarist alone, it’s been Johnny’s nascent career as a frontman that has cemented his reputation as one of the most-loved figures in the music industry. Beyond the fealty of his ever-growing fanbase, both the media and his contemporaries are routinely eager to sing his praises. To the press, he’s a man of great warmth and candour; to fellow musicians, an exemplar of enthusiasm and a consummate professional who’s never lost his passion for his art. To all of the above, he’s lauded as, to quote countless admirers, “one of the nicest guys in the universe”. Ebullient as such praise may be, there’s not a hint of puffery about it: these commendations are as sincere as Johnny himself is.

Johnny’s third studio solo album, Call The Comet, hasn’t even hit the shelves at the time of writing, but has already started to receive unequivocally glowing reviews from the press. Having launched into its production straight after writing and promoting his award-winning autobiography, Set The Boy Free, the anamnesis such a project required gave impetus to Johnny’s desire to return the focus of his work to the present – and beyond.

‘Writing Set The Boy Free was obviously all about looking back, the story so far,’ Johnny explains. ‘When it was done and I went out on the book promotion tour, that too was all about looking back. So when the time came to make Call The Comet, I was pretty eager to think about the present, or the future. I was ready to leave the past in the past.’

The Messenger and Playland drew on the present for inspiration as well, with songs inspired by Johnny’s observations of society. The media, politics, technology, escapism, hedonism and urban life were recurrent themes. ‘I like to make the lyrics more observational than introspective,’ Johnny told me in an earlier interview a few years ago. Many of the lyrics on Call The Comet are in fact a creative fusion of both; an optimistic imagining of an alternative future to that which seems to realistically await us. In The Messenger and Playland, the characters in Johnny’s songs sought escape through technology, play and urban exploration. This time, they’re seeking another world entirely. I wonder how much of this is also a reflection of a change in Johnny’s attitude, and the atmosphere of his working environment, since the start of his solo career.

‘There is a difference,’ he admits. ‘I probably feel a little bit different, and the world definitely feels different. Being in my new working space [The Crazy Face Factory] has some influence too, which I like. It’s a very interesting place and quite atmospheric. My environment has always effected me, and I think the record has the sound of the place – plus I always want to do something different from the last thing, change the attitude of the music a bit. The only time haven’t done that was when I wanted Playland to feel like an extension of The Messenger. Call The Comet is different.’

Call The Comet’s two opening tracks, ‘Rise’, and ‘The Tracers’, both tackle the theme of escaping to a new reality head-on. Both convey a sense of urgency combined with optimism and empowerment, both sonically and lyrically. ‘Get ready to run’, the former warns us, while in the latter the protagonist urges their companion to ‘Come with me, evaporate’.

‘The story is that the earth wants to ‘re-set’,’ Johnny says, adding to his explanation that ‘Rise’ is the story of two people living in a futuristic society that popped up after a comet hit. ‘I had the idea about us calling out to some intelligence somewhere, which is where Call The Comet comes from – and isn’t actually that far-fetched when you think about it, as humankind has been doing that forever in the form of religion. The idea of “The Tracers” was of an intelligence more evolved than us, smarter, and probably kinder, certainly wiser…evolved.’

Such an apocalyptic concept as wiping clean the slate of humanity could easily be misconstrued as bleak and fatalist, but there’s far too much optimism in Johnny’s lyrics to feel that that’s the case. ‘Time won’t change us / It ain’t so easy / Rise to forever / New flames got lit’, ‘Rise’ asserts with its soaring vocal, while in ‘The Tracers’, the admission that ‘they know we’ve lost the way’, combined with the belief that ‘Tracers have come for all here’, implies faith in being rescued by the source of intelligence being reached out to. These are the sentiments of a man who knows the world is in trouble, but still believes it’s not too late to save it. What would it take to “fix” our troubled society, I ask?

‘One way would be to fix the ecology, change the sea levels, climate, carbon, oxygen levels…that’s just for a start,’ Johnny begins. ‘How about they banish all political figures to some remote place somewhere? We could do with being taught a lot of things to survive. The characters in “Rise” are facing up to the prospect and about to take on the new world.’ The sense of urgency in Johnny’s words is palpable.

‘The Tracers should hurry, actually. We need them.’

The alternative society envisioned throughout Call The Comet is undoubtedly an improvement on our current one, though it’s telling that Johnny steers clear of describing it as Utopian. Johnny is, after all, a realist. By its very nature, a genuinely Utopian society is downright impossible, owing to the infinite variety of definitions of Utopia humankind can contemplate. One man’s heaven is another man’s hell, and besides – wouldn’t a perfect world be awfully boring? Surely some degree of hardship or discomfort can be beneficial – even necessary – in life? Johnny seems to agree.

‘The human condition is probably meant to be challenging and have conflict and all of that in order for us to eventually evolve mentally and philosophically. We’ll get there in the end, I guess,’ he concedes, then adds wryly: ‘…some, anyway.’

There may be no point striving for Utopia then, but striving for a better world is the point entirely, and the key theme to Call The Comet’s lyrical narratives. What then, I ask Johnny, would his idea of a positive alternative society actually entail?

‘Tolerance for a start; the idea that everyone is allowed to follow their own belief system without being pilloried or killed for it,’ he begins. ‘Unfortunately some beliefs have intolerance built into them, so there’s a problem right there. Religion is very flawed, isn’t it?’ He pauses for a moment to contemplate further, before continuing: ‘Decent clothes shops. Free art galleries, nutrition, and a home for everyone who needs it…spaces where kids can skate in cities without getting hassled…decent food on trains, lots of jobs for people in public places, decent wages…the list goes on and on…no reality shows involving people singing, or music being murdered of any kind…’

Certainly nobody could accuse Johnny of the latter, especially after hearing Call The Comet. It’s arguably his most accomplished solo album to date, and if the critical reception so far is anything to judge by, will likely sit alongside The Queen Is Dead, The The’s Mind Bomb and Modest Mouse’s We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank in the near future as one of the definitive highlights of his career. While still employing his trademark style, Johnny’s appetence for innovation has ultimately resulted in a number of tracks that are a departure from those found on Playland and The Messenger: most noticeably ‘Walk Into The Sea’, and ‘New Dominions’. The former is a sweeping, dramatic and deeply emotional piece clearly inspired by his cinematic work with Hans Zimmer, while the latter is, by contrast, a relatively sparse arrangement with a pulsing, industrial sound and spoken word elements. ‘Walk Into The Sea’ is as Apollonian as ‘New Dominions’ is Dionysian. The former is the Yin to the latter’s Yang. Yet there’s a unifying lyrical theme, one of death and rebirth. ‘Let the slamming waves decide my fate, because hope is all I need’, Johnny insists on ‘Walk Into The Sea’, while in ‘New Dominions’, he seemed unperturbed acknowledging that he ‘won’t go to no paradise after’. Asked if he feels comfortable with his own mortality, his calm, laconic reply of ‘Oh yeah,’ says it all.

‘I don’t believe in heaven and hell in the traditional sense, but I don’t think this is all there is by any means…nah. Humankind is just not that smart, and even with that, we only use a very small part of our brain’s capacity,’ Johnny asserts. ‘To think that our senses and our awareness are the sum total of the achievement of the universe is ridiculous to me. There’s a lot more going on that we don’t know about, and aren’t meant to know about. It would overwhelm us to get an inkling of it – but that’s okay, I like mystery, and as I say, I think we’re probably supposed to be up against ourselves to evolve into something at some point. “New Dominions” touches on that in places,’ he adds.

Though there are clearly recurring themes, Call The Comet isn’t really a concept album. The sensual otherworldliness of ‘Hey Angel’, the frantic escapism of ‘My Eternal’ and the starry-eyed soaring beauty of ‘Spiral Cities’ all possess something of the same atmosphere as ‘Rise’, ‘The Tracers’, ‘New Dominions’, and ‘Walk Into The Sea’, but the remaining songs could be more accurately described as either political or personal. The gorgeously catchy, semi-acoustic ‘Day In Day Out’ is the track Johnny confesses to being the most autobiographical on the album.

‘Some songs demand that you put your emotions in, even if it’s not that apparent. “Day In Day Out” is about the predicament of a questing and relentless mind, which can be a blessing, and is often fun, but can sometimes be difficult. I think some people will know what I’m taking about.’

Sonically, a number of tracks on Call The Comet seem to draw on the atmosphere of the early 80s post-punk and new wave genres. There’s a hint of early Cure about ‘My Eternal’, and ‘Actor Attractor’ sounds like a stunning hybrid of The Sisters of Mercy, Asylum Party and late 80s Depeche Mode. I suggest that such tracks could best be described as “darkwave”, and Johnny agrees – although he never set out to intentionally compose in that style. ‘The truth is that I just followed an atmosphere that I felt around me, and my emotions when I was writing,’ he says. ‘Call The Comet is very much the result of me following my feelings and mining my imagination. Beyond that I don’t know why the music came out the way it did. I followed something.’

The influence of ambient music is also subtly apparent in the album’s overall mood, but most noticeably on ‘Walk Into The Sea’, with its lengthy instrumental intro and gently throbbing drum line, resembling the rhythmic pulsation of a heartbeat. ‘I like a lot of ambient music,’ Johnny discloses. ‘Early Brian Eno of course, and plenty of obscure things. David Sylvian has done some very good things that have stood the test of time.’

Perhaps unsurprisingly though, considering what a voracious reader Johnny is, Call The Comet’s biggest influences are literary rather than strictly musical. While Johnny has described the album as his own magic realism, he considers the genre itself “too fanciful”, and instead turned to science fiction, poetry and counter-culture classics for inspiration.

‘I’m always delving into all sorts of stuff,’ he explains, then begins to rattle off a list of influential titles: ‘The Ticket That Exploded by William Burroughs…I Etcetera by Susan Sontag, Autobiography Of Red by Anne Carson…there’s a lot of things I get into. “Spiral Cities” was inspired by a book called The Crystal Chain Letters,’ he adds, referring to the correspondence of a group of expressionist architects led by Bruno Taut in the early 20th century, in which Taut and his contemporaries shared their fantasies of an ideal future through a series of chain letters.

‘I love Joan Didion,’ he continues, ‘and the sixties poet Spike Hawkins. Dave Wallis’ Only Lovers Left Alive, I remembered from a while back and that inspired “New Dominions” a little bit. Not everything goes into my songs though,’ he clarifies. ‘I have a lot of different things going on.’

Science fiction and dystopian fiction in particular have also featured heavily in Johnny’s recent reading lists. ‘I like The Machine Stops by EM Forster. Good story telling and very much ahead of its time. HG Wells is also interesting. Aside from the fact that his imagination was astounding, there’s a psychedelic aspect to the writing. Not in a sixties “trippy-hippy” way; more otherworldly and disconcerting – a bit gothic sometimes, and extremely prescient. It works well in these times. It’s very interesting. I like Burroughs style, although a lot of the concepts haven’t dated well in the post internet age. Ballard’s ideas were quite brilliant though; completely unique.’

With all this talk of utopias, dystopias, and alternative societies, I must ask Johnny to settle a debate. Does he think Huxley’s (Brave New World) or Orwell’s (1984) vision of the future is the most accurate in our current times?

‘Easy. Brave New World,’ he answers, without hesitation. ‘I think Orwell was on the right track, obviously, but Brave New World is beyond that, and Huxley was tapped into a more universal aspect of the Human Condition. It wasn’t all political.’

For Johnny, his Brave New World is the one he’s forged for himself since the dissolution of a certain seminal 80s band that journalists simply won’t stop asking him about. It’s not that Johnny isn’t proud of his past, nor that he has any serious regrets about it: it’s just that he’s far more interested in what he’s doing right now. ‘I probably would have missed out on a lot of things,’ he admits, when asked what he thinks would have happened if he’d started out as a solo artist, or launched his solo career much earlier. ‘I see my time playing on different records during the 90s as learning a ton of things I needed to know about making records and writing songs. I also avoided a lot of things I didn’t want to do, such as press attention and all of that. I can’t imagine dealing with any more of that stuff than I already have. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out playing in The The or Modest Mouse, movies, or the Cribs shows. I like the way things have gone. It feels right to me.’

He continues, pondering what fans’ reactions would have been if Johnny had gone solo after The Smiths, as his quondam songwriting partner swiftly did. ‘The music would’ve been about the fifth thing people talked and thought about,’ he hypothesises. ‘That isn’t the reason I didn’t form a band though. I just wanted to do things in a different way. So that’s what I did.’

What the fans at least are talking and thinking about first and foremost right now is Call The Comet – almost to the point of obsession. On social media, the buzz has been unwavering for months, and has only intensified in recent weeks, following a string of exclusive launch shows in the US and Europe, leading up to the album’s release.

‘My audience tend to be really nice people,’ Johnny says, as we’re discussing his engagement with fans on social media. ‘They have a certain shared mentality that makes me quite proud. The fans know what I’m about and social media has made that more obvious and given us a nice dialogue.’ He concedes that there is a dark side to social media, but ‘I don’t engage with or tolerate that stuff’. Fortunately, perhaps as a result of the audience echoing back Johnny’s own kindness and positivity, ‘so far it’s not turned up too much in my own arena.’

‘There’s a really good feeling with the fans,’ he continues, back to focusing on the positives. ‘As you say, they can be very enthusiastic and often very funny. They’re also quite protective of me, and that is really lovely sometimes. The fans like guitars, and they like melody, and are usually above a lot of the nonsense that the press try to drag us all into about The Smiths this and The Smiths that…blah blah blah. The fans are above all that and are very cool.’

‘If you’re lucky you get near the end of recording a song and think “this is going to be a good one to play live”. Sometimes you think a song will sound good on the radio…someone says “that’s a single”…that kind of thing. When things like that happen, and you hope they do, your mind turns to the audience. It’s when a record is done that I wonder how fans will react to it. That’s always been a thing for me.’

If the overwhelmingly positive reaction from fans so far about Call The Comet is anything to judge by, it’s safe to say Johnny doesn’t have to wonder anymore.

Posted in Music
Tagged: interview, Johnny Marr

Adventures in Modernist Melbourne

November 28, 2018

Originally published as a chapter of the book ‘Adventures in the Land of Modernism’.

Chances are, Melbourne is not going to be the first place one associates with an abundance of Modernist architecture. Yet, despite being better known for its Victorian era buildings, Melbourne contains a number of noteworthy landmarks for the Modern architecture enthusiast heading Down Under.

Melbourne’s renowned cosmopolitan nature has logically influenced the architectural trends of the past century, resulting in a cityscape comprising elements of numerous Modern architectural styles, including the International Style, Mid-century Modern, and of course Brutalism, which has recently been enjoying a resurgence in popular interest.

While home to fewer Brutalist buildings than rival capital Sydney, Melbourne nevertheless has a number of outstanding examples. Arguably, the most well-known of these is Total Carpark on Russell Street in the city centre, which for a number of years recently was under threat of demolition to make way for a garish, 70-storey skyscraper. (Fortunately, in part thanks to the relentless paladins of activist group Melbourne Heritage Action, the site is now protected by the city’s heritage register.) Designed by Bogle Banfield and Associates and completed in 1965, Total Carpark is an early expression of Japanese-style Brutalism, notable for its ‘floating’ office block on cantilevered supports above the seven storeys of the carpark itself, giving it a boxy appearance vaguely resembling an old-fashioned television set. Total Carpark also holds the historical honour of housing Melbourne’s very first nightclub in its basement, upon its opening in 1965: The Lido, a Parisian-inspired cabaret joint replete with scanty, feather-adorned costumes. Nowadays, that basement spot is occupied by popular live music venue Billboard, while the currently closed-off upper carpark levels are a favourite of skateboarders on weekends.

A little further from the city centre in the inner-west suburb of Footscray lies another prominent example of Melbournian Brutalism. The now-disused Footscray Psychiatric Hospital is a visually commanding and physically imposing structure, its dramatic appeal no doubt heightened by the emotive power of its history. Commissioned by the Department of Mental Hygiene in 1968 and eventually opened for use in 1977, the building’s designer remains unknown, further adding to its aura of intrigue. Externally, the building is almost entirely constructed from off-form concrete, with tall, narrow windows that are barely visible from the outside, giving the impression of a bleak and tenebrific interior. (In hindsight, Brutalism is probably not the best choice of architectural style for a mental health facility.) Although the hospital has been permanently closed since 1996, the building and its surrounds remain well cared for, while awaiting funding for refurbishment and reuse.

In stark contrast to the above, and in general to the imposing monoliths often associated with Brutalism, a considerable number of Melbourne’s Brutalist buildings actually tend to be on the diminutive side. Some examples, such as the Blackwood Street Bunker – a trichotomic office building just north of the city centre – are barely bigger than a large suburban house.

The Plumbers and Gasfitters’ Employees’ Union Building (PGEUB) in the inner-north suburb of Carlton is another such example of Melbourne’s smaller-scale Brutalism. Completed in 1971 and designed by well-renowned local architect Graeme Gunn, the building features an off-form concrete exterior with recessed side windows to reduce sun exposure, and has been structurally designed to allow for vertical expansion if required. Both PGEUB and the Blackwood Street Bunker have been praised for not only their striking, expressionistic forms, but for their emphasis on functionalism and circulation in their interior layouts, reinforcing Brutalism’s humanistic philosophy.

Reflecting the diverse and sometimes contradictory nature of Melbourne’s overarching architectural style, elements of Brutalism are sometimes incorporated within or alongside other Modernist sub-styles. Performing arts venue Hamer Hall (formerly Melbourne Concert Hall), situated on the promenade along the Yarra River at the junction of Southbank and the central business district, is one such amalgam. Originally designed by Australian Modernist architect Roy Grounds in the 1970s, with interior work completed by John Truscott following Grounds’ death in 1981, Hamer Hall features geometric, raw concrete forms at riverbank level, topped by a cylindrical rampart with large horizontal, recessed windows that create a striking glow by night. The unembellished sturdiness of its exterior, however, belies a thoroughly opulent interior that echoes Melbourne’s more classical architectural styles, recently refurbished by Ashton Raggatt McDougal (ARM Architecture): think plush vermilion carpets, illuminated sculptures made entirely from Swarovski crystals, and extensive use of gold leaf detailing.

A short stroll from Hamer Hall is Eureka Tower, a (mostly) residential skyscraper famed for being the tallest building in Melbourne, as well as one the tallest residential buildings in the world. Completed in 2006, the tower was designed by Fender Katsalidis, who described it as “a symbol of the transcendence of high density living over what has traditionally been the low suburban density mindset of Melbourne”. Named after and inspired by the Eureka Stockade, a rebellion instigated by gold miners during the Victorian Gold Rush in 1854, numerous elements of the building’s design directly reference its namesake’s history, such as the dark blue and white striped facade (reminiscent of the Eureka Stockade flag), and the gold cladding at the top of the tower, with a red stripe to represent the blood spilled during the revolt. For many visitors to the building though, history is of little interest: the appeal lies in the tower’s awe-inspiring stature, and the views from its 88th floor public observation deck.

Despite the city’s commitment to preserving its Victorian architecture, Melbourne has the tallest skyline in the country, with a vast number of high-rise buildings, mostly concentrated in the city centre. After a very short-lived initial “skyscraper boom” in the late 1880s that produced Melbourne’s first Victorian-style high-rise (the 12-storey APA Building, eventually demolished in 1980), there would be little interest in these types of structures until after the second world war. In 1958, Orica House (formerly ICI House), designed by Osborn McCutcheon, was unveiled as Melbourne’s first modern skyscraper, and is widely regarded as a significant catalyst of the high- rise boom that would drastically change the city’s skyline in the second half of the 20th century.

Designed in the International style and inspired by then-recently built glass skyscrapers in New York City, such as the United Nations Secretariat building, Orica House stood at more than double the previously imposed height limit, and with its uncompromising geometry and coruscant glass facade, was both visually arresting and an exciting symbol of progress and modernity. To all but a handful of conservative misoneists, Orica House signified the start of Melbourne’s transition into a thriving cosmopolis.

Less than a ten minute walk down Spring Street from Orica House lies Shell House, designed by Harry Seidler in 1989. Widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading Modernist architects since the late 1940s, by 1989 Seidler already boasted an impressive oeuvre of landmark buildings; however, Shell House marked the arrival of the first Seidler-designed skyscraper in Melbourne (the others all having been built in and around Sydney). Like his earlier commercial buildings in Sydney, such as Australia Square and the MLC Centre, Shell House features elegant curvilinear forms and neutral- toned granite cladding, with flexible interiors. Considered an outstanding example of later era Australian Modernism, Shell House remains the only Seidler-designed building in Melbourne’s city centre.

An early building that hinted at the penchant for curved forms that would later become an iconic element of Seidler’s style was Mitchell House, widely considered Melbourne’s finest example of Streamline Moderne. Designed by prolific Melbournian architect Harry Norris in 1937, six-storey Mitchell House is recognised for its strong horizontal lines, Art Deco lettering, and curved corner facade reminiscent of Eric Mendelsohn’s Mossehaus in Berlin. Now home to the likes of a record shop and collaborative space for creative freelancers (in addition to more traditional office spaces), Mitchell House’s sleek off-white exterior gives the building a timelessly modern feel despite now being 80 years old.

Since the start of the 21st century, architecture in Melbourne has increasingly prized creativity and the reinvention of older Modernist styles. A particularly excellent example of this can be found in Upper House, a 17-storey apartment block a few minutes north of the city centre, designed by Jackson Clement Burrows and completed in 2014. A striking fusion of influences from the International Style to Japanese Metabolism, the structure bears more than a fleeting resemblance to the Nakagin Capsule Tower – if it had been designed by Richard Meier. The varying depths at which the cubbyhole-style balconies protrude from their accompanying apartments gives the building a dynamic, three-dimensional appearance, and the brightness of the upper levels’ shiny, white curtain wall facade against the blue sky on a sunny day makes for a dazzling vision.

Environmental consciousness is another factor demanding increasing consideration when it comes to new building designs. In Melbourne, no building better exemplifies the current trend for combining environmental sustainability with a readiness to incorporate future enviro-technological advances than the RMIT Design Hub, designed by Sean Godsell and completed in 2012.

A multi-purpose research, studio and exhibition space of nearby university RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), the Design Hub is notable for its facade comprised of over 17,000 rotatable, sandblasted glass discs: a climatically responsive “smart skin” which adjusts the discs’ rotation to shade the building’s interior. As of 2017, many of the discs are being replaced with updated versions that incorporate photovoltaic solar cells, in the hope of eventually being able to harvest enough solar energy to power the building entirely. In the meanwhile, the Design Hub’s sheer size, and the dizzying repetition of its circular patterned facade, at least make for an arresting visual presence.

The combination of striking appearance and emphasised functionality is a unifying feature of many of Melbourne’s Modernist buildings from the past half-century, however varied their individual styles. From late 1950s International Style skyscrapers to state of the art, high-tech design, the city’s architectural eclecticism has contributed to a growing appreciation of Melbourne as a progressive and vibrant metropolis, of considerable interest to Modern architecture enthusiasts.

Posted in Architecture
Tagged: melbourne, modernism, published works

The Pure Genius of David Sylvian: 10 life lessons from The Greatest Living Englishman

February 23, 2018

1. Evolve and experiment, always.

David Sylvian’s protean career of forty years has encompassed an extensive variety of genres, from his cornerstones of art-pop/rock, downtempo, ambient and experimental electronica, to dabblings in prog-rock, avant-jazz and world music. The resulting mélange of styles that comprise his impressive oeuvre are indicative of a creative yet restless spirit; an admirable yearning to keep pushing his own boundaries, and to continue evolving as an artist. Each new album or project seems to entail a subtle reinvention of the self. To get too comfortable would be creative suicide.

Over the years, David’s evolution in style has brought him continuously closer to the periphery of mainstream music. While some fans – particularly those whose fondest memories of David are with his former band, Japan – see this as an unwelcome transmogrification, it’s undeniable that his desire to experiment is brave. Fortunately, satisfying the Vox populi has never seemed to be much of a concern to David. For more sapient fans, his most recent albums are rich in nuanced beauty; expressive and atmospheric.

Would it be easier for David if he continued to produce albums in the style of his much-loved late 80s masterworks, such as Gone to Earth and Secrets of the Beehive? Possibly, but that’s not the point. David’s art is an authentic expression of his inscapes, and as those inscapes change, so does the manner in which they are reflected in his work. To intentionally recreate the atmosphere of works that presumably no longer resonate with his inner self would be a compromise of his artistic integrity. Whatever might come next for David will undoubtedly reflect whatever he’s driven to express in that moment in time.

2. Less is More.

Minimalist music often poses a challenge to listeners because it commands one’s full attention and intense focus to be fully appreciated. Done well though, the results can be striking and delicately beautiful. Manafon, David’s most recent studio album, achieves these results.

David presumably is well aware that his greatest strength musically lies in his singing, and on Manafon, that preternaturally stunning voice takes centre stage, with little adornment. There’s an element of existential nudity imbued in such a stripped back delivery, and it’s that very starkness that gives songs such as ‘Small Metal Gods’, ‘Random acts of senseless violence’ and ‘The Greatest Living Englishman’ their power. Bravery through vulnerability.

No song from Manafon better encapsulates the “Less is more” mentality better than ‘125 Spheres’, though: clocking in at a mere 29 seconds and with lyrics consisting of only 20 words, it’s an exercise in brevity that nonetheless packs one hell of a punch, leaving the listener wondering exactly what it was they just listened to. That such a song, as well as Manafon’s much longer tracks, have such an impact on the listener despite their relative lack of instrumentation, is proof that if the foundation of your art is strong enough, it doesn’t need excessive ornamentation.

3. Embrace and explore your spirituality.

David’s syncretistic spiritual beliefs have been an influence on his art since the mid-80s. Though not explicitly religious in a traditional sense, David’s personal search for meaning has most notably led him to the Buddhist and Hindu faiths (particularly Zen Buddhism, and the Vedanta school of thought in Hinduism), with explorations in Shintoism, Sufism, Shamanism, Gnostic Christianity, the Kabbalah, esotericism, and the teachings of George Gurdjieff along the way. These explorations not only speak to David’s intellectual and philosophical curiosity, but are indicative of a receptive mind and spirit unencumbered by solipsism.

Though there was evidence of David’s philosophical inclinations in many of his earlier works, the late 90s and early 00s marked an epoch in his spiritual quest, drawing on his immersion in Vedanta, the teachings of the Hindu mystic Mother Meera, and devotion to his guru, Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma). Numerous songs from 1999’s Dead Bees on a Cake were inspired by this turning point in his life: most obviously ‘Praise (Pratah Smarami)’, sung in Sanskrit by his former guru Shree Maa, as well as ‘Krishna Blue’, ‘I Surrender’ and ‘Thalheim’ (the latter referring to the German village where David received a darshan from Mother Meera in the early 90s). Several additional non-album or live-only tracks also reflect this spiritual milieu, and arguably even more pronouncedly: the hymn-like ‘Bhajan’, written in response to David’s first meeting with Shree Maa; the lyrically self-explanatory ‘Blue Skinned Gods’; and ‘The Song Which Gives the Key to Perfection’, taken from a Hindu text, the Devi Mahatmya, and sung by David himself in its original Sanskrit.

You’d be forgiven for assuming from this significant body of work that David must be a devout and practicing Hindu, but by his own admission his beliefs are more a hybrid of both Hinduism and Buddhism. “I like the clarity of Buddhism and I also like the devotional aspect of Hinduism. And my own practice somehow embraces both of those disciplines,” he explained to a Canadian newspaper in 1999, adding in another interview the next year that his guru, Amma, had taught him that “it is possible to embrace the godless beliefs of Buddhism as well as the world populated by numerous gods.” Such a teaching is immeasurably comforting for those who find that no single school of faith resonates with them wholly. In David’s work, elements of numerous religions and spiritual styles not only coexist, but amalgamate into a fusion of faiths that is uniquely his: a testament to the esemplastic power of David’s creative and perspicacious mind.

4. Know how to pick the right collaborators.

Since the onset of his solo career, David has always had a keen understanding of the type of musician whose talents best compliment his own. Contrary to the public persona of an aloof and introverted lone wolf, David has in fact regularly collaborated with other artists, in addition to employing a large number of collaborators for his own albums. His work with Robert Fripp (The First Day, and live album Damage) and Holger Czukay (Plight & Premonition and Flux + Mutability) are two drastically different – but equally brilliant – collaborative efforts that allowed David to experiment with and showcase his aptitude for prog-rock and ambient styles, respectively. Personality and an emotional connection are clearly important factors too, especially when it comes to repeated collaborations. Life-long friend Ryuichi Sakamoto, whom David has regularly worked with from the early 80s right up until just last year, is an obvious example.

When it comes to the personnel David recruits for his own albums, one gets the impression that part of the secret to their successful work together lies in David’s trust in and respect for those he works with. While he remains a sagacious overseer, he gives his collaborators the opportunity to put their own unique spin on the material, and this open-mindedness not only gives strength to the artists’ personal connections, but stimulates the creativity of all involved.

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp.

**5. Embrace life wholly – the good and the bad.**

“I’m not a negative person; I’m a very optimistic person. I highlighted the darker side of life in my work because I think that’s the way to get people to reflect on the lighter side.”

– David Sylvian

For me personally, one of the most inspiring things about David is his insightfulness, and his ability to reconcile both the positive and negative aspects of life. He’s not naive, or oblivious to life’s struggles, but nor is he completely nihilistic. For many years, a recurring theme in David’s personal philosophy has been to embrace all experiences wholly and indiscriminately: acceptance of whatever life brings, even if what it brings is unpleasant. “The greatest kind of happiness is a kind of peace with yourself, coming to terms with yourself whatever the condition is,” David once said in a magazine interview. “Not a neutral calm, or a mindless calm, no. I think that true peace can only come through understanding.” It’s a philosophy that sounds reasonable and “simple” enough on the surface, but that necessitates tremendous mental and emotional strength to genuinely uphold. No doubt this belief has been enforced by David’s spiritual explorations, but the concept itself is secular, and we could all benefit from embracing it.

From Time Spent, a short film made in the late 90s with his then-wife Ingrid Chavez, comes what is perhaps the most astute and inspiring explanation of David’s philosophy:

“I view the experiences I encounter in life as opportunities from which to learn and to grow. There is a view, which is not easily grasped on a moment to moment basis, that whatever you are doing, whatever your predicament, however much you are suffering, it is all entirely perfect: it is as it should be. Obviously this is hard to acknowledge, particularly at certain periods in life. But just the remembrance of this fact could be immeasurably invigorating and allow for perspective to be glimpsed or perceived, which might not otherwise have been possible, so immersed in our personal experiences as we tend to be. I take this notion to mean we are given the lessons most pertinent to our growth: we are not given more than we can handle, and that if we recognise this fact in the midst of the experience, we can learn from the most difficult of our circumstances and move on.”

6. Never compromise your integrity.

“I’m stubborn, idealistic, uncompromising. There’s an underlying aesthetic at work that’s been my guiding principle for many a decade but it evolves, matures, it becomes more refined as time goes by.”

– David Sylvian

Since as far back as the early 80s, as frontman of Japan, David has stringently upheld the moral values governing his art. Like any artist, reaching an audience has always been important, but commercial success, especially at the cost of his integrity, has not: his creative goals have never been fame, money, or elevation of the ego. Self-expression, above all else, has been David’s raison d’être from the onset of his career, even if it means limiting his audience or his commercial viability. To David, success attained by compromising one’s value’s is not success worth having.

Such integrity is also evident in David’s personal conduct towards others, and dates back to the very first hours of his musical career, at the tender age of seventeen. After impressing Japan’s soon-to-be manager Simon Napier-Bell so much with his audition that Napier-Bell offered to sign him on the spot, David agreed only on the condition that his bandmates be included as well, despite Napier-Bell wanting to sign him as a solo artist. What degree of moral fortitude must one possess to take such a bold risk, out of loyalty to one’s friends? Mick [Karn], Steve [Jansen], Richard [Barbieri] and Rob [Dean] must undoubtedly have been grateful for this audacious move, though unfortunately less so when it came to reforming Japan in 1990 under the name Rain Tree Crow: a further testament to David’s integrity in the artistic sense, in not wishing for the new material to ride on Japan’s quondam success.

There’s always been an element of sacrifice in David’s desire to stick to his principles. Arguably, Rain Tree Crow would have been more successful both commercially and financially – and the project may even have continued – if David had been as willing to recant, at the last minute, their earlier agreement to disown the name “Japan” as his bandmates were. However, such acquiescence would have been in direct conflict with not only David’s overarching moral code, but the sentiment behind the project’s very existence.

It would be easy to get sidetracked by the thought of what opportunities and successes such highly upheld principles may have quashed, but to the man possessing them, such sacrifices are worthwhile. David’s integrity may have prevented him from achieving as much mainstream success as his work deserves, but it’s also the reason why he’s one of the most admirable musicians of the past forty years.

7. Pay attention to the aesthetic of the art, not the self.

While Japan was a visually striking group and much attention in particular was paid to David’s sartorial style and personal appearance, by the band’s final days David was becoming increasingly disillusioned with his own aesthetic. The visage that had initially been an escape from his dreary working class roots now needed to be escaped from, especially as the motivations for his art became clearer to himself. Being questioned about his make-up routine for teen magazines bordered on insult, and being lauded by the British tabloids as “The Most Beautiful Man in the World” was not conducive to being taken seriously as a musician and songwriter.

So, the work of art became the artist himself: the energy once channeled into his personal style was redirected towards his photography, and just as importantly, into the visual presentation of his records and books.

David has not appeared on the cover of one of his own studio albums since his 1984 debut, Brilliant Trees, instead working with a range of talented visual artists whose work clearly resonates with David on an emotional level. There’s always something incredibly striking about the artwork David chooses to accompany his music, and it is often imbued with an ethereal quality, whether in the abstract paintings and drawings of Russell Mills (Gone to Earth) and Shinya Fujiwara (Dead Bees on a Cake), or the delicate, somewhat heartrending illustrations of Atsushi Fukui (Blemish) and George Bolster (Died in the Wool). Though the artworks themselves are obtained from or commissioned by third parties, David still always remains in control of the overall aesthetic, acting as his own art director.

David’s interest in the visual aspect of his work is most evident in his book of writings, Hypergraphia. Working with friend and designer Chris Bigg, the lavishly illustrated 600+ page volume is an amalgam of a poetry book and a coffee table art tome. David’s own image is used very sparingly, with the bulk of the imagery being a combination of his photography and curated artworks from others. The result is a stunning collectible that perfectly compliments the beauty of David’s music and lyrics, and proof that a striking aesthetic can enhance a work without overpowering it.

Hypergraphia.

8. Value your own privacy.

David has always been an intensely private person. While one could easily theorise that his desire for privacy reflects of fear of vulnerability, it’s also entirely probable that David’s tight leash on his personal life is a means of ensuring that his creative work speaks for itself, without unnecessary added context. What David does share of his private life in interviews is often shared for the purpose of clarifying his art, or to express ideas that his work already does, in more detail. His respect for the privacy of others as well takes salacious gossip off the table, and a lack of ego negates the need to broadcast irrelevant details of his life for the sake of public interest or for attention. Such restraint is an increasing rarity in our current Age of Oversharing, and for that reason, David’s eschewing of such indulgences is all the more admirable.

9. Live in the present.

“I don’t have any personal desire or need to look back. I carry within me what I need to move forward.”

– David Sylvian

Far from the nostalgia he professed to be drowning in on 1984’s Brilliant Trees, David’s personal philosophy has long been to embrace the present, rather than either the future or the past. Recent interviews paint a portrait of a man becoming increasingly more self-assured and accepting of his circumstances, even if still not entirely comfortable in his own skin. “I didn’t feel at ease when young, but then I don’t feel at ease now for entirely different reasons. I am surer of myself. I know what I’ve got to offer,” David professed in a 2010 Q&A. It’s an uneasy form of acceptance, one that almost hints at resignation, but that nonetheless can also be seen as empowering. Focusing all of one’s energy on the present is a means of taking control, as the present is the only temporal mode which one can control: the past can’t be controlled because it’s already happened, and the future can’t be controlled because it’s not yet arrived.

It’s important to note that David’s rejection of both the past and future in this sense is not a reflection of a negative attitude towards either, but born of a desire to make the most of the present, untainted by either regret or expectation. David talks of living without hope, but more importantly, without a loss of love for life. That’s a great starting place it seems to me, too.

10. Stay humble.

If David Sylvian were conceited, it’s fair to say he’d have a lot of reasons to be. Fortunately though, that’s far from the case: David’s humility is in fact one of his most defining traits, as well as one of his most endearing. It’s born of a combination of quiet self-assurance and a genuine lack of ego, and manifests itself in both his personal demeanour and his approach to marketing his work. Attention-seeking is a foreign concept. David is well aware that his work speaks for itself: we can easily recognise its brilliance without him having to point it out.

To further attempt to elaborate on the origins of David’s humility would be fruitless: it simply is. It’s an ingrained aspect of his personality, even if he does also take conscious measures to remain grounded.

David Sylvian really is one of the few truly enlightened artists of our time: a man of tremendous integrity, humility, bravery and insight. Here’s to him, on his 60th birthday – and may there be many more to come.

Posted in Music
Tagged: david sylvian, inspiring people

The dream of the child inside the child

February 22, 2018

If you asked me to explain what Philippe Garrel’s Le Révélateur is about, I probably couldn’t tell you. It’s not so much a film with a clear narrative as it is a dynamic, surrealist art piece: an assemblage of fragmented, oneiric images.

The complete absence of sound and dialogue (this is an entirely silent film), and its minimalist, three person cast, evokes the feeling of Le Révélateur having been filmed in a vacuum. There is a profound sense of isolation between the characters, and in particular between the parents and the child, who for many scenes is ignored almost completely by the former. Yet, tellingly, it is most often through the child’s eyes that the scenes are shown.

While the parents are often shown in emotional states ranging from indifference to near-catatonia, the child – the titular révélateur – conveys an array of emotions: playfulness, curiosity, distress. The child is an observer, but not an apathetic observer.

Interactions between the parents are often hostile; frequently aggressive. During one memorable scene, the child watches an argument between the parents unfold on a theatre stage, culminating in the father shaking and hitting the mother, and in the midst of the violence, pointing insistently at the child. Yet the parents’ interactions are also not without tenderness: one of the few scenes in which the child is not present depicts the parents walking wearily down a deserted road, shivering and barely able to stand. When the mother is unable to go on any further and collapses, the father picks her up and carries her until they inexplicably reach a small blanket and pillow laid out on the empty road. Numerous other more affectionate moments between the pair would suggest that the violence the child bore witness to was metaphorical rather than literally indicative of an abusive relationship.

There’s a recurring theme of aimless, repetitive motion throughout the film. The parents walk along empty roads with no destination in sight, chase after the child in an unseen moving vehicle but never catch up, and attempt to bend a length of wire with no success. The whole family runs frantically through tall grass, pursued by an imagined enemy, and pounds on a door that nobody comes to open. These Sisyphean charades are haunting and discomforting viewing, evoking the sensation of struggling to awake from a lucid dream.

In terms of cinematography, Le Révélateur is a visually arresting affair, shot in high contrast black and white. Its stark and austere milieu is the very reason why it’s also hauntingly beautiful. Garrel was only twenty years old when he made Le Révélateur, but it’s clear that he already possessed a keen understanding of film as an aesthetic medium, seeing it not merely as a narrative device, but as a vehicle to express and to experiment with emotive, abstract imagery. If traditional cinema is akin to a novel, then Le Révélateur is pure poetry.

Le Révélateur is the sort of film that makes a lasting imprint on one’s mind, and as such it’s unsurprisingly considered something of an underground masterpiece by avant-garde cinephiles. If you can track it down, this hypnotic, unsettling, fever-dream committed to celluloid is well worth 67 minutes of your time.

Posted in Film
Tagged: films, French cinema, philippe garrel

The unholy ruins of Binyan Clal

February 20, 2018

If you thought Ramot Polin would have been the dystopian highlight of my trip to Jerusalem, that’s just because I hadn’t mentioned the Clal Centre yet.

What is it that attracts us to unsettling environments, and in particular, architectural dereliction? Joann Greco, writing about The Psychology Ruin Porn, cites the implied romance, nostalgia, wistfulness, and the provocative nature of abandoned places, as well as themes of time, nature, mortality, and disinvestment. I’d concur that most of that holds true for the Clal Center’s eerie appeal. The only difference is: the Clal Centre isn’t actually abandoned.

Built in the 1970s, the Clal Centre, also known as Binyan Clal (בנין כלל), was Jerusalem’s first major indoor shopping mall, and for the next decade or so was occupied by a large number of privately owned shops and offices, including those associated with government agencies. By the 1990s though, many of the centre’s occupants had moved or gone out of business, largely due to the relocation of government offices to the nearby Givat Ram neighbourhood, and shoppers’ preference for the admittedly much brighter and less intimidating-looking Malha Mall.

The Clal Centre’s reputation for being a suicide hotspot (so much so that safety nets had to be installed around the building’s exteriors, due to the number of people leaping to their deaths from the upper levels) didn’t help either, nor did circulating rumours that a criminal gang had murdered one of their rivals and covertly buried the body in the building’s concrete foundations. Some believe the Clal Centre to actually be haunted.

Stepping inside, it’s not difficult to understand why.

The rationale for the Clal Centre’s unique brand of eeriness lies in its straddling the boundary between the benign and the ominous. It’s not abandoned, but neither could it be said that it’s really operational, at least not in the traditional sense. The Clal Centre is in a coma. The small handful of shops that remain seem run-down, and a number of them happen to be sex shops, adding an edge of seediness to the centre’s already grim and creepy atmosphere. The ruins of shops that were abandoned without actually being cleaned out beforehand scatter about the periphery of the building’s otherwise cavernous hallways. A broken photocopier covered in tumbling piles of books and manuals collects dust outside of what presumably was once an office; nearby lies a pile of debris including more broken machinery, tangled wires and a ripped down Venetian blind. Around the corner, a male mannequin stands alone in an otherwise empty corridor full of closed shops, wearing a t-shirt but no trousers. The escalators are no longer operational, and although I’m not sure about the status of the elevators, I wouldn’t take my chances even if they were. Oddly, there’s virtually no graffiti inside. But it sure is grimy.

My friend and I encounter roughly ten people throughout the whole building in the hour that we were there, and this is at lunch time on a Tuesday. It all starts to feel quite apocalyptic.

What could be done with the Clal Centre now? The Muslala Arts Collective has some ideas. The group has taken to renovating the building’s top floor and rooftop as a communal green space with an organic urban farm and organic beehives, a dance and yoga space, café, and reading corner. A playground is also in the works. It’s a noble endeavour – but only time will tell if it’s enough to save the Clal Centre.

Posted in Architecture, Travel
Tagged: architecture, Israel, Jerusalem, photography

Secrets of an architectural Beehive

February 18, 2018

Whenever I travel, exploring a city’s architecture is always a top priority. I love modernism. I love inventiveness. In a nutshell: the weirder and more creative a structure is, the more likely I am to be fascinated by it.

The first half of my (far, far, far too short) trip to Israel last November had been spent in Tel Aviv, The White City, where I’d been mesmerised by a multitude of sleek Bauhaus-style buildings, shielded my eyes from the coruscant gleam of the Azrieli Towers in the midday sun, and stood in awe beneath the arches of the brutalist Great Synagogue on Allenby Street. Even the eerie, derelict central bus station seemed to have a certain charm about it.

In Jerusalem, I was a Proper Tourist, and spent a good portion of my time in the Old City with my best friend, a native Jerusalemite who kindly indulged my wide-eyed curiosity. We took the tour at the Tower of David, returned in the evening for the light show, and wandered through the markets, shopping for the perfect Hamsa to take back home. I went to the Western Wall, pressed a note into the cracks and cried, despite not being a religious person. I ate too much Halva, and have the cavities to prove it. Compared to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem seemed a city seeped in history and culture, rather than a modern architecture enthusiast’s playground.

But then I remembered Ramot Polin, a bizarre-looking housing project designed by Israeli architect Zvi Hecker in the aftermath of the Six Day War. And so we hailed a taxi, my friend explaining to the bewildered cabbie, in Hebrew, where it was we wanted to go. I held up my camera for him to see in the rearview mirror, in an attempt at a mute explanation why.

Ramot Polin was not as close to the Old City or downtown Jerusalem as I’d thought. It was one hell of a taxi fare away, isolated, at the top of a hill in East Jerusalem. But the moment I stepped out on to the street at the outskirts of the complex, it was clear the trouble had been worth it: Ramot Polin is truly one of the most uniquely bizarre feats of architecture I’ve personally encountered.

It’s hard to fully grasp the enormity of Ramot Polin from any of the entrances to the complex. The large clusters of prefabricated dodecahedrons (720 dwellings in total) lend to the appearance of a beehive built for humans. Each identical cluster of apartments is connected by equally identical paths, and wandering between them begins to feel a bit discombobulating after a while. It’s labyrinthine in the way that evokes a disconcerting lucid dream. But, I’ll be damned if the place doesn’t look really freakin’ cool.

The vast majority of Ramot Polin’s occupants are Haredi Jews, mostly families. We encountered a handful of children playing quietly in the maze-like areas between clusters of apartments, but none seemed too disturbed by our presence. One can only wonder what it must be like to live in such a complex, with its eerie silence and foreboding structures, and its isolated locale.

‘I’ve got a great idea for a dystopian novel, inspired by this place,’ I told my friend as we walked to the nearby bus stop, unprepared to pay that extortionate taxi fare again. ‘I’m going to name it after one of my favourite David Sylvian albums.’ She just laughed, knowing I’d never get around to it. Fair enough.

Posted in Architecture, Travel
Tagged: architecture, Israel, Jerusalem, photography

Touched by the hand of a godlike genius

November 1, 2017

It’s impossible to understate how important Johnny Marr’s music has been to me for the past couple of decades. In honour of his 54th birthday today, I thought I would highlight 54 underrated and/or lesser known songs that Johnny’s played on or written.

1. Lost In Sound (Malka Spigel, Everyday is like the first day, 2012)
Israeli musician/artist Malka Spigel is one of my favourite discoveries through Johnny’s myriad of collaborations. Dreamy and delicate with just a hint of melancholy wistfulness, Johnny’s gorgeous guitar complements Malka’s ethereal voice perfectly.

2. Get Me Wrong (Johnny Marr + The Healers, B-side, 2003)
I remain smitten to this day by every note played by Johnny in his Healers days, but this tune stands out to me as both particularly brilliant and criminally overlooked. It’s hypnotic and sensual, conjuring up images of dark, late, hedonistic nights. Best listened to with the lights out.

3. Heisenberg (Chris Spedding, Joyland, 2015)
An acoustic instrumental that conjures up mental images of the “old west”, there’s definitely a bit of a ghost-town feel to this song. One could even imagine this stunning composition standing alongside those of Ennio Morricone in a 1960s spaghetti western…

4. Exit Connection (Johnny Marr, B-side, 2015)
One of Johnny’s best B-sides, in my very humble opinion. It’s raw and spunky, and proof that Johnny’s never lost sight of his post-punk roots. My musical lexicon is sadly far too lacking to be able to adequately describe what I’m hearing around the 0:47 mark, but listen out for it. Pure magic.

5. Home and dry (Pet Shop Boys, Release, 2002)
Oh how this one tugs on the heartstrings… There’s just something in its bittersweetness that recalls many of Johnny’s own prettiest tunes, and so it came as no surprise to me whatsoever to discover that was his guitar I was hearing in it.

Top tip: If you’re a masochist like myself and enjoy listening to this on the plane home after a trip, have some tissues on hand.

6. Imitation of life (Electronic, B-side, 1996)
It’s probably rarely more obvious than in Electronic’s tunes how versatile Johnny’s work is. Great beat and synth lines, nice melody (once it kicks in), and yes, you can dance to it. What’s not to love?

7. Freeheld [Suite] (Johnny Marr & Hans Zimmer, Freeheld OST, 2015)
Though it tends to be eclipsed by their work on Inception, Johnny’s and Hans’ work on the Freeheld soundtrack is just as stunning and worth checking out. This piece in particular is painfully pretty – especially the guitar part starting around the 5½ minute mark – as well as very moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsl7_mYzHA

8. Lonely Planet (The The, Dusk, 1993)
Fantastic album track from Johnny’s second period of collaboration with The The. It’s both powerful and empowering, highlighted by Matt Johnson’s poignant lyrics. “If you can’t change the world, change yourself.”

9. The house I grew up in (Tweaker, 2 a.m. Wakeup Call, 2004)
What is Chris Vrenna’s secret? No, seriously – what magical spell must one be capable of casting to get both Johnny Marr AND David Sylvian to co-write songs for your album? My awe of Vrenna’s obvious charisma aside, Johnny’s contribution to the album is a breathtaking electro-ambient gem with a dark and haunting build-up throughout. Mystical, otherworldly, and utterly addictive listening.

10. Run in the dust (7 Worlds Collide, The Sun Came Out, 2009)
One of several brilliant Johnny-penned contributions to the 7 Worlds Collide charity album, there’s a slightly eerie and mysterious feel to this song, accentuated by Johnny’s smooth, breathy vocals. It reminds me of a hot, dry summer – in the best possible way.

Posted in Music
Tagged: inspiring people, Johnny Marr