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A design for life

A design for life | Jon Savage on the history of the Smiley symbol: Watchmen, Acid House and beyond.

Brian Eno: Imaginary Landscapes

From Eonism back to Eno with Imaginary Landscapes, a 40-minute documentary from 1989, directed by Duncan Ward and Gabriella Cardazzo. As usual it’s good to see BE discussing his ideas about music and art although I’d have preferred less of the atmosphere shots and more talk. The film is available to view in a streaming version here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Thursday Afternoon by Brian Eno
• Moonlight in Glory
• Tiger Mountain Strategies
• Generative culture
• My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Metronomes

An automated performance of György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes at Ubuweb.

Since its world premiere in the Netherlands in 1963, Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes has been very rarely performed in public. The complicated scenographic staging, the detailed preparation by hand, the need for around ten technicians to activate more or less simultaneously the 100 metronomes, makes the demand for performances limited. Thirty-two years after the premiere, the sculptor and installation artist Gilles Lacombe heard a recording of the work. Impressed, he decided to invent a machine able to perform the piece automatically. After six months, he set up this ingenious device. Ever since, Poème symphonique can be performed accurately, at any time, and in public. Please understand that at its world premiere in 1963, the concert was filmed by Dutch television. On that night, after the final tick-tock of the metronome, there was a heavy silence, followed by booing, screaming, and threats. The concert was never broadcast.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s not forget Man Ray’s Object to be Destroyed (1923) (aka Indestructible Object). Richard Cork looked at its origin and meaning for the Tate magazine.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Avant Garde Project

Hawk things

The Barney Bubbles revival continues with news of Space Ritual 09, a concert dedicated to BB by ex-Hawkwind members at the Roundhouse, London on March 8th. The headline band is a new version of Hawklords, notably sans Dave Brock who controls the Hawkwind name and hasn’t been too happy recently with Nik Turner’s revisionist activities. Quarrels aside it’s good to see them honouring Barney’s memory and the Roundhouse is the place to do it, being the venue where Hawkwind played a very stoned set in 1972 as part of the Greasy Truckers concert.

All of which had me searching in vain for a double-page ad from the NME for Hawkwind’s Urban Guerilla single; you can see the ad in a smaller vertical version on the original Barney Bubbles post. I was hoping to find the full thing and scan it for display here but it seems to have gone astray for the time being. As it was the search turned up these photocopies of some later Bubbles Hawkwind ads created for the band’s UK tour of winter 1973/74. A pair of typically meticulous ink and Letratone renderings and also another example of what you might call Barney’s interactive design since these instruct the reader to glue the masks to card, colour them in then cut them out and wear them to the gig. David Wills has featured some other examples along these lines, including this cut-out doll birthday card. Did anyone ever try wearing these masks? And if so, is there photo evidence?

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Sonic Assassins
• Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 2
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer

New things for February

More new work appeared recently although as usual this was something I completed a while ago. Einstein’s Getaway is a short album by Stranger Son of WB who play a kind of over-amped muscular harangue which you might call Post Rock if that wasn’t a very tired term by now. Mr Simon Reyonolds should give them a listen. Heavily rhythmic and bass-driven, this is as much Post Punk as anything, bringing to mind bands such as This Heat, The Pop Group and (in the vocal department especially) The Fall. I was responsible for the design of this release only, not the avocado suite backdrops, and you can see the rest of the layout here. This is one of the first releases on a new label, White Box, and I’ve already designed the next release in the catalogue.

Meanwhile, those of you addicted to mobile phones may like to know that {feuilleton} is now available via a mobile RSS feed. There’s a permalink at the top of the third column on this page although if you arrived here using a mobile network there’s a new WordPress plugin running which converts the site to a mobile feed automatically. I don’t browse the web with my phone very much since its capabilities are so limited it’s hardly worth bothering but this page does at least load the posts now without breaking. Not all of them work, however, since the images are far too big. WP creates thumbnails for each uploaded image so I imagine there’s some way of tweaking the feed to deliver thumbnails. iPhone users shouldn’t have any problem and the optimiser creates a feed just for them. Those of us who remain iPhone-less can experience a vicarious thrill here.