Category: notebooks

The Art of Homage

March 11, 2018March 11, 2018 ~ Jillian Burt ~ Leave a comment

THE ART OF HOMAGE not FAN ART. The David Bowie Instagram account is posting images from the fan art section of the exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Nick Cave has booked “talk to the audience” shows on the East Coast of America. Within the photographs and videos she’s posting from backstage and during soundchecks for … Continue reading The Art of Homage

A NOTEBOOK THAT’S AN HOMAGE TO NELS CLINE’S LOVERS ALBUM : PART 1

February 3, 2018February 4, 2018 ~ Jillian Burt ~ Leave a comment

For 25 years Nels Cline dreamed of making the Lovers Album, an orchestrated portrait of the shadings on love’s spectrum from yearning to euphoria to regret. A mix of jazz standards, film music, rock songs and his own compositions. When it was released on Blue Note in 2016 it concluded with “The Bond”, composed for … Continue reading A NOTEBOOK THAT’S AN HOMAGE TO NELS CLINE’S LOVERS ALBUM : PART 1

Reflections from the intersection of rock music and architecture, particularly within living, evolving cultural buildings.

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INSTAGRAM AS A MUSIC MAGAZINE ... @thisispattismith has started posting almost every day the kind of reflections she published in her memoir M Train, which was written mostly in notebooks while she was sitting in the cafe near her home in New York. . Having coffee at the Bar at the End of the Wharf at the @sydneytheatreco in Walsh Bay yesterday this Patti Smith quote hand-stamped onto the coffee cup made me think how comfortable she’d likely be there. Its furniture is even similar to her favourite table and chair, given to her when that New York cafe closed. . . #notebook #pattismith #rocknroll

The photo is a still from Solange’s video for “Cranes in the Sky “ She’s standing on the roof of Robert Bruno’s Steel House in Lubbock, Texas. This house was also used a few years ago as the location for a @voguemagazine fashion shoot based around Google Glass. “I wanted to showcase how we’re always moving in these spaces, and distracting ourselves with all of these worldly things,” Solange said. . . The song was written at a transitional time for her when she had become a mother, was moving back to her hometown of Houston and writing songs. Miami had long been a haven for her, but on one visit during a development boom she was overwhelmed by the amount of cranes in the sky. . . “I remember looking up and seeing all of these cranes in the sky. They were so heavy and such an eyesore, and not what I identified with peace and refuge. I remember thinking of it as an analogy for my transition—this idea of building up, up, up that was going on in our country at the time, all of this excessive building, and not really dealing with what was in front of us.” . . It’s the 100th anniversary of Jorn Utzon’s birth tomorrow and tributes naturally focus on the brilliance of the Opera House when it was in construction. But I wonder if the 200th anniversary of his birth might consider his legacy in a more nuanced way with the Opera House as a continually evolving living thing. Still physically beautiful but also an enduringly powerful part of the life of the city. . . I’ve been looking forward to seeing how Solange will respond to the Opera House during @vividlive and also thinking about the “heaviness” she alludes to in a construction boom. Sydney is in transition. I spent most of the nights last week caught up in the delays of the train system and waiting for shuttle buses while track work halted the trains on my line. And by day walking past the hoardings of new transport development and construction projects. I’m tired of waiting for “tomorrow’s Sydney” and wish for a little respite in order to enjoy today’s Sydney. . . @saintrecords @sydneyoperahouse #midcenturymodern #jornutzon @sohmusic @benmarshall_sydneyoperahouse #solange #rocknroll

When Stephen Hawking died I immediately thought back to his appearance in hologram form at the Sydney Opera House in 2015, where he was interviewed by fellow physicist Paul Davies. It was a novel use of technology, with a charming Star Trek twist as he was ‘beamed out’ at the end of the interview, but it was no longer science fiction. . . My book begins in 2011 with the early phase of a Building Information Management System that is steadily increasing in scope to unite the functional aspects of the @sydneyoperahouse ’s operations and maintenance with the technical aspects of performances and the website and digital displays around the building and precinct. And the building was slowly switching over from analogue to digital systems, from the basement on upwards, where beautifully steampunk brass display monitors on the system pumping seawater through the building as a cooling mechanism were being switched out for computerised display monitors. . . The first Vivid Festival, in 2009, had a “smart light” component, stressing sustainability and digital infrastructure presented in an arty way. The following years focused on gee whiz lightshows that seemed to have a presentiment of their rapidly encroaching quaintness. The Jenny Holzer digital artwork on a cross-brace of the Richard Rogers building in Chifley Square and the year round Badu Gili projection on the Eastern Roof shell of the Bennelong Restaurant have brought a year round Vivid sensibility. . . In 2011 the static posters along the lower concourse walls, and on the upper level, outside, underneath the monumental steps, were replaced by screens. They’ve been mostly static with small pieces of embedded video, and special effects ... the cape of a static dancer ruffles as if moved by wind. . . The testing of a poster size interactive screen isn’t gee-whiz technology but maybe suggests a scaling up to life size of digital effects. The idea of a human size holograms, emanating light rather than made of light (as in Blade Runner 2049) engaging with visitors and maybe replacing the clunky displays of cast and show information in the Western Foyers, now seems plausible. . . #sydneyoperahouse #hologram

At the Sydney Opera House for a concert by Robert Plant. The bar area of the Northern Foyer shows Peter Hall’s vibrant colour scheme and the John Olsen mural. . . @sydneyoperahouse #sohmusic #robertplant #midcenturymodern

View of the Sydney Opera House from the site of @operaaustralia ‘s Opera on the Harbour at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair on opening night of this year’s production of La Boheme. . . A construction crew of 100 takes one month to build this temporary grand performance venue that includes open air seating and a three level restaurant and bar complex. . . The upgrade of the infrastructure of the Joan Sutherland Theatre aimed for perfectly ideal conditions for staging Opera at the Opera House. The outdoor concerts require a different kind of ingenuity, infrastructure that is temporarily hospitable enough but that also must be bolstered against wild weather. And odd small caveats of use ... don’t leave food in dressing rooms in case it invites possums in. . . In @the.australian today conductor Brian Castles Onion describes how the structure functions for the musicians. . . “The orchestra will be ensconced in a custom-built pit at water level directly below the stage, out of sight of the performers ... The pit is a tight fit and each instrument is individually miked. Yes, you can hear the water lapping at various times of the night when the tide is in and a ferry passes by ... it’s just big enough for the 70 musicians and is perfectly air-conditioned. Musical instruments are expensive. Some are valued at more than many of our houses, and they can be seriously affected by humidity. The logistics in getting an expensive harp , tuba or a double bass over the floating bridge tends to make one feel a tad tipsy.” . . #opera #operaontheharbour #operaaustralia #classicalmusic #midcenturymodern #sydneyoperahouse #engineering @sydneyoperahouse

HIEROGLYPHS & HERALDRY. Ice Cube at the Sydney Opera House during Vivid Live. The photo is a terrier motif from Keith Haring’s graffiti from the 1980’s turned into an art print. . . A book about a living building is never finished. At best it can capture an entire life cycle. Solange’s concerts represent a peak, poetic kind of responsiveness to the Sydney Opera House by a performer, an end of a cycle. Something new is developing. . In my book about the Sydney Opera House (link in bio. It has illustrations by Reg Mombassa)I cover the Sydney Opera House becoming an iconic rock venue. . . The new cycle that I’m seeing developing is in @benmarshall_sydneyoperahouse ‘s interlocked portfolios of Contemporary Music, Vivid Live and The Graphic Festival. Ice Cube’s concerts at Vivid Live this year could have just as easily been a part of the Graphic Festival. . . As I write this Instagram is prompting me with an ever expanding set of emoji. These emoji laden posts and text message speak ( not to mention an aggressively annoying spell check & word substitution function on my iPhone) are part of an increasingly visual and a.i. assisted language. . . This made me think of the generation of rappers Ice Cube sprang from (the supreme N.W.A.) that turned their names, logos & jewellery into an emoji language that’s part hieroglyph / part heraldry. . . And then further back to the generation of graffiti artists (jean Michel basquiat as well as Keith Haring) that tagged New York’s built environment and subway trains at the same time as Grandmaster Flash was setting the musical foundation for the next generation of rappers & d.j’.s. Plus providing a finely tuned urban commentary. . . The Graphic Festival is both celebration and primer, and with commissioned shows as fascinatingly experimental as some of Vivid Live’s shows. . . @vividlive #sohmusic #nwa #icecube #graffitiart #keithharing #jeanmichelbasquiat #grandmasterflash #terriersofinstagram

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Architecture Australian music bibliostructures city design Engineering jazz Journalism Manufacturing Materials modern dance movies Music notebooks Paper print on demand publishing Robert Ballard robotics Sydney Opera House