Here comes the summer! You are planning to travel this summer. In your everyday working life, it is the most fantastic and entrancing moment when you’re biting into your sandwich during your lunchtime and searching for the tourist agents. You haven’t yet decided where to go. You may go for an ancient temple in the east, a gothic castle in the west, an emerald sea in the south or even a beautiful mountain in the north. In front of your computer monitor, you’ve found the right tourist agent, but suddenly the advertisement of the tourist agent is slightly changing. All the words from the advertisement make a billowy wave that starts spinning in your mind.

Dual Mirage Part 2

Tourists Dream

Dual Mirage Part 2: Tourists Dream begins by presenting the moment when we are dreaming of travelling somewhere and what the engaging free and enchanting moment interprets in the global society. The place that we want to travel is somewhat in-between idealised and practical space, artificial and natural space. The moment longing for somewhere else other than here is as an instantaneous escape and is done in search of other utopia. It is presented as future and nostalgia. It is a mirage.

Tourists Dream also explores the mirage generated at the point at which the service industry circulates, within the ‘transitional space’. This is achieved by considering industries such as the tourism and hospitality industry, financial sector and real estate business, all of which are highly entangled with each other.

Dual Mirage Part 2  Tourists Dream Contributors: Mora Bendesky, Hyunjoo Byeon, Oksun Kim, Uin Kim, Jungmin Kwon, Eunu Lee, Jeong-Hoo Lee, Sôm Lee, Hyemin Son, Gee Song, Juhee Youn

Part 2 Event

The event of Dual Mirage Part 2 consists of the launch of the book and also the video screening. The launching of the publication of Dual Mirage Part 2: Tourists Dream will be introduced by artist Hyemin Son. It is then to be followed by the video screening Tourist’s Dream by the invited curator Hyunjoo Byeon. Both the book and the video screening share and develop the idea of transitional movement in various aspects of global society, reinforcing the theme of tourists’ dream.

Artists: Kyungah Ham, Yang Ah Ham, Stuart Hawkins, Adrian Paci, Lisl Ponger, Jaye Rhee, Hiraki Sawa, Bo Kyung Suh
Curated by Hyunjoo Byeon

Accompanied by the launch of the book Dual Mirage Part 2: Tourists Dream, the video screening Tourist’s Dream draws into varied tourists’ dreams and the underlying political, cultural and socio-economical elements that construct the migratory movements in this age of global mobility. Through the artworks by eight international artists, Tourist’s Dream navigates how global mobility transforms the way to perceive the world and expands geographies by positioning oneself in a space away from everyday life; examining also the effects it has on the diverse migratory movements in our time. In addition, it explores mirages which tourism provides by rebranding spaces in a capital-saturated society and interrogates a fantasy to consume a given culture.

The artists emerged from their common interests in the issues surrounding today’s migratory movements such as tourism, the tourist industry, territoriality, cultural identity, mobility, dislocation, migration, and global communication initiate an essential convergence in Tourist’s Dream. Kyungah Ham’s Travel & Journey (2003-05) investigates a fantasy to experience exotic cultures and cultural hierarchies in tourism by exploring the phenomenon of theme parks in Asia which replicate the symbolic monuments and landmarks of Europe and America. In her Tourism in Communism (2005), Yang Ah Ham travels to the only possible tourism area in North Korea, Mount Kumgang, developed by South Korea’s Hyundai Group. The artist depicts that tourism can be only a superficial exploration which is isolated from ordinary life, as the video was also shot on a touristic horse-drawn carriage. Stuart Hawkins playfully illustrates the artificiality of a touristic approach through her journey in search of the anthropologically perfect native CoCoMan in Souvenir (2006).

The journey reveals the pervasiveness of globalisation that is profoundly connected with the media culture, and it has caused a strange reaction in that it seeks out notions of pure cultural authenticity. Lisl Ponger´s déjà vu (1999) captures our desires for distant lands with its documentary sequences. This collective cliché of exotic otherness, combined with a series of narrations in various languages without subtitles, exposes the western-centered mode of perceiving the world and its hidden colonialism, consequently raising the awareness of our limited perception of reality. In Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (2007), which is named after an Italian refugee camp, Adrian Paci transforms an airport, a symbol of global mobility in our time, into a displaced space. A group of people standing on an aircraft boarding staircase represent migrants who are stranded “in between”, yearning for a better life, and thus an inhumane side of our ever-globalising world is revealed. Whilst Paci draws into the harsh reality of migratory movement in this age, the tiny humans and animals wandering around in the artist’s flat in Hiraki Sawa’s Migration (2003) poetically represent a restless journey in our lives and portrait our nostalgias in the global age. In Mediterranean (2009), Jaye Rhee creates her own Mediterranean setting in her studio with objects which embody images of the location of the Mediterranean. Rhee discloses how tourism and its industry construct common desires through distributing a signified image by envisaging the place with objects that can be found in daily life. In the work Citydel (2005), two separate videos parallel the passers-by looking at a girl in a bikini and a girl who enjoys her vacation on the artificial island in the Han River, which is located in the middle of Seoul. By creating a subtle rupture between them, Bo Kyung Suh questions what we dream for through traveling and where mirage exists.

Project Space 2:
Friday 6 August 2010, 6-9pm
Rivington Place
London EC2A 3BA UK

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In each of these periods parts of the world have tasted the sweetness of the fruits (abundant products and accumulation of wealth), while others have had to endure various forms of exploitation, inequality and depletion of natural resources.

Since World War II,  what is known as ‘Globalisation’ is supposed to be the result of planning by certain world leaders to eliminate borders and facilitate trade, thus creating interdependence and reducing the chances of conflict. Initially triggered through international treaties and regulations, Globalisation is assumed to function as an engine that pursues coexistence and global prosperity through free trade, exchange of technologies, people and ideas, while simultaneously diminishing the imbalance between strong nations and the so called “underdeveloped countries”.

After decades of modern Globalisation, are we on the way to achieving peaceful coexistence and true global prosperity?

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He threw in a rap voice and some great lyrical talent to pretty much complete his threat. Is it fair to say that he has the potential to be, not just the largest selling Canadian Hip Hop Artist, but simply, the most known Canadian hiphop artist ever?

The reality is this ; I have heard more about Drake from the States than I have from Canada’s own. To claim that any other artist north of the boarder has received as much buzz and anticipation for a debut album may be unsound compared to Drake. If you glance at the most successful Canadian artist, you will find some great emcees : Maestro Fresh Wes ( The Godfather of Canadian hip hop ), Saukrates ( Multi-dimensional musical genius ), Kardinal Offishall ( ambassador of Canadian hip-hop ), K-os ( easily one of Canada’s premier emcees ). With all of this talent, it might be hard to figure out how or what Drake has that should shoot him to the top.

The answer is straightforward. Lil’Wayne. Drake has not only hip hop’s biggest star at his disposal, but music’s largest star. Whether he makes a decision to ride the coat-tails of Weezy’s success is up to Drake, but it seems like he already has enough of a buzz going with him under Interscope without even putting out an album. With over eighty thousand mixtape downloads of So Far Gone ( with a selection of download links the number might be higher ), I find it terribly difficult to say that any of the previously mentioned Canadian artists, not to mention an artist of any area code, could pull that off. I still remember when he put out two joints alongside younger brother ; he was hardly a final thought notwithstanding his huge amount of potential and talent. Now, the problem is not talking about him and fitting him into that Weezy style of always being a subject of conversation.

Sure, while those formerly discussed artists have had tremendous success across the boarder, some fizzed out too soon ( Maestro ) and some took some time to get there ( Kardinal ). Drake seems to have once been as loud as ever without ever making any noise. I don’t want to come across like I am riding this fellow ( or take anything away from those Canadian hop hop legends ), I’m sure the ego is maybe boosting on the daily, but I think like notwithstanding the quality of his music he is going to be on top or at least round the top for a while for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with music.

Canada is stuffed with talent, and if you have noticed, KevinNottingham.com has been hard at work promoting some hip hop from America Junior, as Homer Simpson calls it. Unfortunately , I will say that Drake probably won’t have that Canadian Artist- Drake label attached to him for too much time, like how K’naan has been developing in Europe and Asia and even in parts of the US. The small bit of it all is that if and when Drake does release an album, we are able to potentially expect BET’s countless countdown lists to feature him, for all of the girlies to go nuts, and for all of the dominating male hiphop heads to give him his daps. He’s a ton of appeal and will certainly develop among even the tiniest hip hop fans, just like his clear partner in crime, Weezy, has.

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A year ago, the festival Jazz Britannia was such a success that the Barbican along with BBC Four are bringing to us this year, a 3 day festival which celebrates the evolution of British folk music from the end of the Second World War right up to its modern day revival. From the 2nd to 4th February ‘06, the Barbican holds a series of live events encompassing three themed concerts, free music, films and talks. Tying in with the event is BBC Four’s very special three-part documentary series of the same title that engages with the disparate and sometimes argumentative elements of the contemporary folk scene.

To kick off on Thursday 2nd February, Which Side Are You On? is a night that features two of the biggest names in folk music of the British Isles and will be hosted by the force that is, Billy Bragg. The monumental Scottish firebrand singer-songwriter Dick Gaughan, will take to the Barbican Hall stage alongside Martin Carthy, a mainstay of the English folk scene.

Daughters of Albion on Friday 3rd February brings together some of England’s finest female folk artists and singer-songwriters in a themed concert to sing songs of experience. The set list places ancient folk ballads alongside West Country trip hop and 21st Century R’n’B. All performances will be accompanied by an ensemble featuring ex-Pogue and master multi-instrumentalist David Coulter, guitarist Neil MacColl and Van Morrison’s drummer Liam Bradley, all arranged by MD Kate St John. Artists include June Tabor, Sheila Chandra and Norma Waterson.

The final night, Into The Mystic celebrates the current resurgence of interest in the psychedelic, mystical, neo-folk of the late 1960s and early 1070s. It explores how this renewed interest has been reflected on a new generation of artists today. It will feature artists from pioneer bands such as Pentangle, The Incredible String Band, Donovan and Vashti Bunyan.

Meanwhile, the BBC 4 series will be divided into three one hour episodes which chronicles how the music was coerced into a revolutionary soundtrack by the Left in the 50s, how the hippie generation bent it into progressive folk-rock in the 60s and 70s only for punks like The Pogues and Billy Bragg to bring things back to basics in the 80s and 90s. The story of folk will be told by a stellar cast of musicians, live performances and archive footage and the debates that arise in its argumentative world will be discussed.

www.barbican.org.uk/music

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Tom Hunter tells these stories using carefully staged, large format photographs, restaging them in compositions that often directly refer to classic paintings of the past, many of the paintings to which Hunter has referred for his compositions can be found in the National Gallery. Using his friends as models, Hunter directs them to use gestures, body language and facial expressions in the same way as the characters seen in paintings by historic artists.

Left: The Fight between the Lapiths and the Centaurs piero di cosimo c. 11500-15 (The National Gallery, London)

Hunter first came to public attention in 1998, when he won the John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award, with a photograph entitled Woman Reading a Possession Order. With its meticulously arranged composition and sensitively captured light, it is a direct quotation from Vermeer’s painting, A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden). Hunters reputation was further established with a series of engaging, puzzling and compelling photographic re-workings of other paintings from the past. They provoke thoughts about issues that are relevant in our everyday lives, however shocking.

Girls’ Sex Acts in Club: Court. Cop ‘It can only be described as having sex through clothes’

Living in Hell and Other Stories continues Hunters’ interest in the stories of inner-city life that take place in his own locality, having lived in Hackney since the age of 19. Tom Hunter is not a photo journalist. His photographs are not literal reconstructions of the actual events. It is not the specific details of the story that attract him; rather it is the idea of a story that is provoked by the eye-catching headline. The idea of turning to his local press as a source for inspiration was suggested by the example of Thomas Hardy. Thomas, like hunter, was born and brought up in Dorset and would trawl through back copies of his local paper to find the stories of public hangings, wife selling and other unlikely events that he eventually wrote about in his novels.

Murder: Two Men Wanted

‘Living in Hell’ was the headline printed in The Hackney Gazette above the story of a 74-year-old woman whose house was infested with vermin. Borrowing from the National Gallery’s Four Figures at a Table by the Le Nain brothers, Hunter composed a photograph with the help of a retired actress and several hundred cockroaches bought over the internet. The Le Nains’ paintings of around 1643 show a woman and children in a modest peasant interior. She has the expression of a care-worn older woman tempered with a quiet sense of self-respect; in Hunters 2005 version the woman has no companions, she is alone. She sits wrapped up against the cold, the electric heater switched off. The sofa is filthy and worn, decaying food lies uneaten. A naked electric light bulb illuminates the room and shows literally hundreds of cockroaches crawling over every surface. This harsh lighting starkly reveals her shocking fate. The Le Nain’s dignified poverty is ripped from its original 17th century context and in 2005, becomes brutally undignified.

A Satyr mourning over a Nymph

National Gallery paintings depict the eternal themes of love, sex, violence, life and death and Tom Hunter has used these and reflected on them in an uncompromisingly contemporary way. He has turned newspaper headlines into commentaries on both the modern world in which we live and the classic themes seen represented throughout the National Gallery.

Cupid complaining to Venus by Lucas Cranach the Elder, c.1525
(the National Gallery, London)
Girls’ Sex Acts in Club: Court. Cop ‘It can only be described as having sex through clothes’

Tom Hunter : Living in Hell and Other Stories
Until 12 March
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London, WC2N 5DN
Tel: 020 7747 2885
www.nationalgallery.org.uk
Admission Free

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Having recently released “Power to the People and the Beats: Public Enemy’s Greatest Hits”, to document their immense and far-reaching legacy to the development of hip hop music, how did Public Enemy catalyse the transition of rap music from minority interest to establishment juggernaut?

Public Enemy have released a ‘Best of’ compilation of their music after near on twenty years of beats and rhymes, to consolidate a rich and pertinent legacy to the development of hip hop that helped to kick-start the whole Gangsta Rap sound and, indirectly, the co-option of hip hop by the music industry. In 1987, when Public Enemy’s impact was first heard with a resounding boom-bip, Rap music was a minority interest, either derided or patronised. Their sonic and verbal militancy caused a major shit-storm in the media, engendering the kind of outrage and moral panic that tends to surface on slow news days, and enabled hip hop music to carry the mantle of bête noire that it used so successfully to market itself beyond the urban streets to the callow youth of suburbia.

The concerns of hip hop music have now shifted from politicisation to accumulation; from rebel to label. Chuck D memorably coined rap music as the “Black C-N-N” whereas now it has become the “ghetto QVC” – from radical to superficial in twenty short years, leaving the once mighty PE irrelevant in its wake.

Hip hop music began in New York in the mid-to-late seventies when disco was still at its height and party music was the order of the day. (MC’s rapped over R&B music backdrops to create a feel-good vibe amongst the revellers, the music had many parallels with reggae toasting and indeed, may have been inspired by it). It was an underground, D.I.Y. music that was a world away from the mainstream.

Rappers Delight by the Sugarhill Gang changed everything. Released in 1979, probably as a novelty single, it became a surprise hit and is still a favourite of a lot of people (mostly blokes) who are obsessed with being able to recite it word-for-word throughout its fifteen minute running length. It was fun, funny but, most of all, it was funky and served notice to the hip hop music community that this kind of record could sell. The many early conquistadors of rap and hip hop music came, saw and conquered the shit out of the nascent form, introducing a number of innovations; Grandmaster Flash, Mantronix, Kurtis Blow, Afrika Baambaata, Kool Herc, Sugarhill Records, Whodini, Keith LeBlanc, Stetsasonic, Marley Marl, Eric B & Rakim, LL Cool J, Ice T and Run DMC all pushed hip hop forward in terms of lyrical form, cutting, scratching and sampling at a time when soul music was becoming increasingly mediocre.

The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was another landmark, pushing the lyrical content further than any rap record had done so far. Released in 1982, and sounding like an electro update of Stevie Wonder’s Living for the City, it was a stone cold classic relaying, in forensic detail, the lives of society’s bottom-feeders, tingeing its stories with anger and despair. The delivery of the lyrics was by-and-large less bombastic than other rap records (excepting Melle Mel who could sound dramatic reading out a shopping list) with the rappers preferring to be downbeat, cementing its documentary realism with dense passages of pithy prose (“my son said, daddy I don’t wanna go to school ‘cos the teacher’s a jerk, he must think I’m a fool, and all the kids smoke reefer, I think it’d be cheaper if I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper”) and still keeping the rhyming right on point. The Message lived up to its title, providing dancefloor beats for the head as well as the feet. hip hop had now begun to carry the torch of the socially conscious agenda of 70′s soul that had been blanded out by disco and bedroom R&B.

So, rap music was considered a novelty that occasionally spiced up the charts but was still expected to die out after having been assimilated. Constantly criticised for its apparent lack of musicality, hip hop continued to break through with minor hits until Run DMC officially staked rap’s ground in the mainstream with the extremely radio-friendly Walk this Way. It’s a record that I can barely stand to hear nowadays, because of its middle-of-the-road commercialism and the fact that it was played to death, but it created the first rap superstars (if you didn’t know who Run DMC were, you needed to check in to the nearest coma ward) and ensured that hip hop would continue to have a voice. That voice would continue to speak to the party hardy, but was also the voice of the street incorporating braggadocio, bedroom entreaties and stories from urban realities.

In 1987 rap found a revolutionary voice that laid the foundations for the golden age of hip hop. Rebel Without a Pause was a milestone, signalling its intent with its opening sample declaring “brothers and sisters, I don’t know what this world is coming to” before slamming into a squealing saxophone break over thunderous ‘funky drummer’ beats. This was the sound of hip hop entering its maturity, refusing to give a shit about mainstream sensibilities, the Public Enemy sound, as produced by the Bomb Squad, had an edge so sharp that it created an instant love-or-hate-it divide; blowing open Pandora’s Box for a whole generation of Black artists. The furious, dissonant mixture of beats and samples was dubbed “music’s worst nightmare” by Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad and as such, it played right into the hands of those who would decry Rap for its lack of musicality. Except their opinions didn’t matter anymore; the Bomb Squad’s confrontational sound created a rallying point for the future of Black music.

As shocking as the music was, it was matched by the emceeing of Chuck D; polemical, urgent and declamatory he took no prisoners as he cut a swathe through all the forces that would rail against him. He delivers the Public Enemy manifesto with his authoritative baritone, building thought upon thought and rhymes within rhymes, never looking back, never standing down.

Politically aligning himself with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, the radicalism was there for anyone who would care to listen. It was an untamed new voice full of righteous anger and intelligence that delivered its message in tones reminiscent of Black political leaders from Malcolm X to Stokely Carmichael to Farrakhan himself. Through Chuck D, hip hop had found a political voice that was not only lucid but embraced the radical politics of the, decidedly non-mainstream, Black Power movement.

The album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back followed up the promise of Rebel Without a Pause covering the politics of the Black experience thoughtfully and uncompromisingly with practically every tune a classic. This was their second album – their first, Yo! Bum Rush The Show, released only a year earlier seems almost primitive in comparison, with its beats less furious and bragging emceeing reminiscent of LL Cool J – and is now considered the greatest hip hop album ever. Flavor Flav played the fool to Chuck D’s straight man, delivering off-the-wall material that felt in perfect counterpoint to the harsher realities of Chuck D but was still weird nonetheless, often spouting complete, almost surrealist, nonsense with his own inimitable enunciation – although Flavor Flav is probably as responsible for inspiring as many emcees as Chuck D – oddball rappers abounded in the years after Nation of Millions all the way to Eminem today. – They released the almost perfect Fight the Power in 1989 as part of the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing – containing what is probably their most famous lyric soundbite – “Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me” – before releasing the much anticipated Fear of a Black Planet. Flav came into his own on this album, delivering top-class tunes such as 911 is a Joke and Can’t Do Nuttin’ For Ya Man, while Chuck D pushed the manifesto message even further with tunes like Burn Hollywood Burn and Welcome to the Terrordome. The Bomb Squad, again, provided beats and samples that were pant-shittingly good.

Following up the work started by Public Enemy, a group emerged in 1988 called Niggaz Wit Attitude (or N.W.A. to give them their less provocative acronym) who displayed their anti-authoritarian rage with the release of their single Fuck Tha Police. This was as incendiary a statement of intent as has ever been delivered in music and N.W.A.’s notoriety was assured. Although they were less politically astute, their tales of urban resentment were still cloaked in Black Power rhetoric, warning of the consequences of creating a large Black underclass whilst revelling in the lurid violence and misogyny of their position. Gangsta rap was born and set out to hijack the mainstream through its explicit and shocking imagery both on wax and on the streets.

Hip hop’s greatest creative period followed, with several hip hop legends-in-the-making beginning their careers. The diversity of acts that came in the wake of Public Enemy was immense with a new act born practically every week. The roll-call of artists coming up out of this period (from 1987 to 1997) included Big Daddy Kane, Young MC, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, The Jungle Brothers, KRS-1, Gang Starr, Naughty By Nature, Cypress Hill, House of Pain, EPMD, Pete Rock, The Pharcyde, Black Moon, Mobb Deep, Jeru The Damaja, The Roots, Xzibit, Outkast and The Wu-Tang Clan. Many of these records were commercially successful and hip hop fashions were changing constantly. The various political agendas of these groups tended to revolve around the notion of Black Power and the disaffected underclass, whereas the more explicitly political groups took the liberal high-ground. The voice of rap was being dissipated amongst a multitude of talented individuals, each with their own take on society and their place therein.

However, the one dominant voice during this time was that of Gangsta Rap with its East Coast-West Coast beefs and explicit lyrics providing the better stories, and which sound-tracked the racial unrest in America that ignited 1992′s LA riots. Its leading exponents were Ice T, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre -the latter two embarking on solo careers, having once been part of N.W.A. – but while the Ices were embroiled in the business of authority baiting, Dr. Dre took his old George Clinton records to put together The Chronic, a hip hop masterpiece, on which the main guest rapper was Snoop Doggy Dogg. The Chronic sold extremely well and created a real anticipation for Snoop Doggy Dogg’s solo project which, when Doggystyle was released in 1993, went stratospheric. The future was here and it was wearing a bubble-perm. In the post Doggystyle years, hip hop gained wider acceptance and progressively wore the mantle of mainstream mediocrity (niggas, bitches, violence, sex and bling).

Public Enemy’s output continued (Apocalypse 91: the Enemy Strikes Black, Greatest Misses, Muse Sick N Hour Mess Age, Chuck D’s masterly solo album The Autobiography of Mistachuck, He Got Game, There’s A Poison Going On, and Revolverlution) but the Bomb Squad were no longer taking complete control over production duties and, while the deeper and bassier production was anticipating the West Coast sound, the edge was being lost as hip hop moved on at breakneck pace. Chuck and Flav were still magnificent but were becoming increasingly irrelevant as the acts that came after them commanded more of the attention. Having put rap at the forefront of innovation, Public Enemy found they were falling behind in terms of a public that was constantly searching for the next new thing; they also lacked the killer tune that might have put them back into the limelight. At the time when hip hop was joining the mainstream, Public Enemy quit their record company and began releasing records independently, thereby leaving them without the money and marketing that might have led to a successful reinvention – their brand of agitation and polemic was no longer useful to an industry that was becoming as apolitical and bland as soul had become in the eighties.

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Few masterpieces came out of that strand but vintage Serie B or Z movies completely outdated and so much visually enshrined in their time. The wacky special effects and the non-existent acting or dialogues were there to reinforce the feeling of uselessness those films carried throughout their non-glorious runs in theater. Although a mostly US phenomenon, Japan had its own version with the ‘Godzillas’ and only the maverick and young Turks of the late 70′s, 80′s with the likes of Lucas (Star Wars) Cameron (Terminator, Alien ) Ridley Scott ( Blade Runner, Alien) really took the genre seriously enough to invest the time and funds to create proper storyline and build new worlds…

It is hopefully the start of a wider campaign towards the recognition of sci-fi comic books, like Marvel, DC Comics… who can now command serious power in tinsel town, but have been overlooked by the art and literature establishment for decades. A good sci-fi movie is as good as his aliens or robots…should be the premise of any Do’s and Don’t of the Sci-fi rulebook. We had them in the top room with what seemed to be spaceship of a different order. Shinny made of metal pieces, jewellery and shinny artifacts…it does verge on the tacky but hey you are watching a spaceship here, so who is to say what is tackiness in the future? A wide range of artists, with the expected reference to Star wars and… Zapata…the Mexican revolutionary and his sidekick the under-commandant Marcos Downstairs… A few films, some paintings … a not homogeneous lot but a common thread that should enthuse a young and hip audience in search of space frisson. I recommend it if you are wandering towards the Mall on a dark afternoon. Just do not forget that laser beam of yours and those thigh-hugging Lycra pants.

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His name has made the crossover to mainstream media and begun to symbolise a new breed of architect, one whom is at the forefront of young British architecture. He is very much a star in the ascendant and at 38, has already become an architect of international renown despite his youth.

Having set up his own practice in 1994 it was not long before he developed a strong reputation for quality modern design, with an architecture that is easily read and therefore accepted by the general populace and not lost in an egotistical intellectual vagueness. In the 12 years of his practice, his oeuvre has built up from small-scale private commissions (private houses, cafes, bars) on to a wide range of high-profile public buildings, which include libraries, art galleries and theatres. His current project list continues to include his iconic individual residences but now also has an impressive array of all manner of civic and cultural buildings across the globe, a portfolio of work that no doubt is looked on with envy by not only his contemporaries but also the established names, both at home and abroad.

Adjaye’s designs are often radical yet in a manner that allows his buildings to sit well in historical contexts, with designs that provide a new generation of building that is a world away from the pastiche and shallow commercialism that sadly blights much of today’s ‘standard’ architecture.

Adjaye has a uniquely intuitive design approach that allows him to root a building not only to its immediate context but also to imbibe a cultural and historical link that manages to anchor his work to local communities in a familiar and un-patronising manner. A strong sense of materials, texture and light and their interplay, absolutely critical to successful architecture, are all components present in his work.

As an architect he has many artist friends, one of the most prominent of which is Chris Ofili, for whom he designed the artist’s studio (also in the east end of London) and who has collaborated with Adjaye on a number of projects. Much of Adjaye’s work has an artistic flair which is not only due to these close links with the art community but also no doubt from his having studied a fine arts foundation course prior to studying architecture.

Despite his rapidly increasing fame and international stature, Adjaye is rooted in the east end of London and several of his seminal early works (Elektra House, Ofili’s studio) and of late the Whitechapel Idea Store, not to mention his own office, Adjaye Associates, are to be found in the area. As such, the opening of a new two month exhibition (his first major show in the UK) at the Whitechapel Gallery is an absolute must-see.

Key building by David Adjaye:
Idea Store, Whitechapel, east London

New Buildings by Adjaye/Associates:
Timber-frame prefabricated house, de Beauvoir Town, Hackney, east London
2007

Rivington Place, Rivington Street, east London – 2007

Manchester gallery project, northern England – 2007-
David Adjaye with Maurice Shapero + Stephenson Bell
£55m: Apartments, gallery, retail, market, bus station

Stephen Lawrence Centre, Deptford, southeast London – 2007

Bernie Grant Centre, Tottenham, east London – 2007

inVIA – Institute of International Visual Arts, London – 2007

Museum of Contemporary Arts, Denver, USA – 2007

Buildings by Adjaye/Associates (alphabetical):
Dirty House, Shoreditch, east London, UK – 2001-02

Elektra House, Whitechapel, east London, UK – 1998-2000

Idea Store, Chrisp Street, Poplar, east London, UK – 2001-04

Idea Store Whitechapel, Whitechapel, east London, UK – 2001-05

Nobel Peace Center – Exhibition Centre, Oslo, Norway – 2002-05

T-B A21 Olafur Eliasson Pavilion – Art Installation, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy – 2005

Adjaye/Associates – Stirling Prize nominated 2006 for Idea Store
Client: London Borough of Tower Hamlets

David Adjaye reformed his studio in 2000 as Adjaye/Associates

David Adjaye – Teaching Positions:
Architectural Association, London : unit tutor

Previously:
Royal College of Art, London : lecturer

David Adjaye – Awards:
RIBA First Prize Bronze Medal : 1993

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Meeting at the UK Pavilion. Dealing with passes and accreditations. Sorting out the usual mumbo-jumbo required to cruise through the festival.

‘Volver’ from eternal ‘enfant-terrible’ Pedro Almodovar is on show and has the usual red-carpet treatment. Penelope Cruz – gorgeous in a white Balanciagga dress, or is it? – and Carmen Maura, the co-stars are with him. Penelope returns to our first director and says: “There is one and only one Pedro, he is my priority in all fields. He writes for women who are 14, 35, 50 or 80 years old, this film is perfect example; there are lots of female characters of all ages in his films. I’m sure that my career wouldn’t have been the same without Pedro, my life wouldn’t have been the same without him. I hope that in the future that this will continue. I am very grateful to possibilities given to me somewhere else, it is interesting, one can learn a lot, but I worked in the United States for seven years, and in Europe for about fifteen, but Pedro still remains truly exceptional for me.

As for Pedro Almodovar. You can’t help but feel that each film is a complex description of his obsession for his mother…A bit like Woody Allen and his New-York or Spike Lee and…well New-York too… This is what the master had to say: In Volver, I speak of the women around me when I was a child. I was brought up by women, the men being in fields, whom I practically never saw. Volver speaks of the way I grew up, listening to these women. I would hear them singing whenever I went along the riverbanks with my mother; I accompanied her from my very earliest age. That’s how I learnt a lot about dramatic art, there are many roles that I have written which were inspired by my sisters or my mother, by characters firmly anchored in reality, even if they belong to the realm of fiction. They are characters who spin extraordinary tales, which has always immensely impressed me.”

Another Palme d’or favorite is: Fast Food Nation which casts a critical eye on the fast food industry in the US, via the destinies of three main characters: a marketing executive of a fast food chain, an employee of the same chain, and a clandestine immigrant working for slaughterhouse. For this movie, Richard Linklater has been able to recruit A-list cast with Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, Patricia Arquette, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Patricia Arquette and Bruce Willis.

Apparatchiks aplenty in sight for the tribute paid to Russian filmmaker Sergei M. Eisenstein yesterday with the screening of two of his films – Bezhin Meadow and October – Headed by the Cannes Film Festival President Gilles Jacob, the director of the Russian State Archives for Literature and the Arts Tatiana Goriaeva, the director of the Eisenstein Memorial Naum Kleiman, and the vice-president of the Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Igor Tolstounov, a stellar night devoted to the director of the masterpieces The Battleship Potemkin and Ivan The Terrible.

20th & 21st May

We have been given a lot of business cards and collected a more impressive number. As always in Cannes, during the festival, we have late, late nights and early mornings (12:00 AM). The mix of sleep depravation, the crowd, the expectation, open the floodgate to a huge array of emotions from fascinating to scary, to fun, dull, exciting all in one. The mood changes minute by minute. Survival is the key here.
Samuel L. Jackson was dining in the Majestic on a table next to us. Al Gore on the red carpet… Otherwise you do see lots of people you think might be someone but you can never really be too sure. But that is not why we are here: We have to sell our projects and establish contacts/bridges with the industry.

The first French Film in the running for this year Palme d’Or, was Charlie Says It does re-introduce us to the films of filmmaker-actress Nicole Garcia, who was a Jury Member in 2000. Nicole Garcia returns to an essentially male world, twelve years after having directed the trio Gérard Lanvin/Bernard Giraudeau/Jean-Marc Barr in The Favourite Son. This time, the film revolves around a quartet of actors – Benoît Magimel, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Benoît Poelvoorde and Vincent Lindon – and a child – the famous Charlie embodied by the young Ferdinand Martin – whose destinies appear to criss-cross on screen. Not in a ‘crash’ way as Benoit Poelvoorde will put it: “This film is so ‘Nicole’. She is the one who entirely carries the film, the actors are relieved of any pressure. That’s why we clown around!” – Benoit stole a few grins with that one.

Nicole has made over the years, her business of filming complex male interactions and stories. Charlie Says could be another stone brought to her body of work:

“Men have this photo genius, this blend of robustness and fragility which fascinates me. They bear in them contradictions which make us wonder what they are going to become. It is these contrary tendencies which interest me. In Charlie Says, it is a question of variations on various kinds of men, about corpulences and various psychologies. This is a territory which I wanted to explore.”

After Wesh, Wesh (2002), a highly remarked debut feature film, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche introduces us to ‘Bled number One’ in the section Un Certain Regard, the “follow-up” (or prologue) entitled Bled Number One. “The end of Wesh, Wesh,” he explains, “ends with a shot of a pond after a car chase between a cop and Kamel. We then hear a gunshot but we don’t know if Kamel has been killed or not. The only thing which I do know is that Kamel was a victim of the double punishment, therefore we could make a second film: double punishment, double film! We already foresaw a follow-up by making Wesh, Wesh. Whether it takes place before or after is of little importance. Why always consider time as something purely chronological?” Kamel is barely out of prison and is expelled to his country of origin, Algeria. This forced exile obliges him to cast a critical eye upon a country in full effervescence, transformation, torn between a youthful desire for modernity and tradition.

Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche wanted to show: “The energetic manner of filming can recall that of documentary cinema, but it is true that we aren’t for all that dealing with current events. It is another relationship with time, when it isn’t necessarily a question of filming some immediate reality, in realistic way. It is simply a proposal, just to present things, not to bear judgment. (…) To write Bled Number One, I didn’t return at all to Algeria to capture something about today’s youth there. I wrote this story based my holiday memories. But it is also because I felt that things hadn’t really changed, that time passes differently there. You have the time to reflect and be, faced with the elements. (…) A film is a gesture, a burst, a job, an enterprise, an action. An action in life, a pure lesson of life. It is here that we seize something alive. For it is necessary to remain alive, no matter what happens.”

Which leads us to what Cannes, has been famous for the world over; Parties…’Snooty’ French can do parties too: The Cannes Mix program has a DJ set headed by Fred Elalouf at the Beach Cinema.

The Menu? :

- Soundtracks of French films of the 60s and 70s
- Made in Bollywood

This didn’t give us enough opportunity to find our beds. We swapped showers for after-shaves and headed the next day. – After a brunch at the Majestic….always Brunch there if you can afford it! – for the international village, where we crossed the borders from Maroc to the Netherlands and back again. It reminded to some of us, the town of Basel in Switzerland where you can cross three borders within walking distances (France, Germany, and Switzerland). We also saw a film by Daft Punk. Very interesting.

We were also moved by Nanni Moretti’s The Caiman…Great filmmaker always seem to have that obsession, they tend to film time and time again. Nanni is no different. He again speaks about politic and democracy, but avoid acting in it, which is a first, five years after having won the Palme d’Or for The Son’s Room. It’s his 10th feature film, and the 5th presented in the Official Selection. Released in Italy in the middle of the controversial elections, a few days before Romano Prodi’s victory, The Caiman is the story of a young filmmaker (played by Jasmine Trinca, also in The Son’s Room) who wants to make a film about Silvio Berlusconi, and appeals to a producer in crisis of serie “Z” movies (Silvio Orlando, Moretti’s old buddy) to finance her movie. Moretti says: “The Caiman is a love story, a homage to cinema and a political films,” resumes the director, who clarifies his intentions: “I tried to tell, using the means of the motion pictures, a reality which we are no longer able to see or perceive. I think that our problem is one of habit: we’ve become used to characters and situations however truly incredible for the sake of democracy.’

Another particular highlight of the day was the last piece of a trilogy about China The Orphan of Anyang (2001) and Night and Day (2005). This time, the filmmaker allows his camera in the life of a schoolteacher close to retirement, who set out to search for his son. His wife, gravely ill, would like to see their son one last time before dying. He hasn’t given any news for a long time. The father will be welcomed by his daughter who does shifts as a hostess in a nightclub…Brace yourself for a solid family drama with confrontations aplenty.

“Luxury Car,” explains Wang Chao, “falls within the continuance of the reflections and criticisms already expressed in my first two films, on the reality and historic and political allegories of contemporary China. Here, the gap between the rich and poor, the distance which separates people from happiness, the contradictions between the social system inherited from past and the burden of the present are so many problems which I myself, as a full-fledged member of the people, feel all the weight and intensity. That’s why it made me decide to shoot the picture.”

On the party radar, at the Cannes Mix. The new wave soundtracks are honored. Can’t wait for my suit and sunglasses and rehearse my JL Godard ‘A Band apart’ moves…Which implies another night without sleep. I know, I know…

22nd & 23rd May

The ‘babe’s battle’, Halle Berry and Rebecca Romijn: Sublime visions of nature’s most famous achievement on the red carpet. For your eyes only…Their presence allegedly being required for the promotion of the third X-Men movie… As for the film, wait for the DVD release, or PSP, or Podcast, or Palm, or…On a more serious note, ‘Bamako’ by Abderrahmane Sissako. Born in Mauritania, raised in Mali, read film at the prestigious VGIK in Moscow before releasing his first work in 1990 (Le Jeu). After string of international awards (Fespaco, Perugia,…) Cannes awaited to be seduced in 2002 by Waiting for Happiness. ‘Bamako’ is out of competition…As is the seminal film about French ‘demi-god’ Zinedine Zidane. Helmed by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, acted by none other than double Z or ‘ZZ’ himself. The film celebrates the bizarre cult of Zidanemania, shot in real time during a Madrid game supported by no less than 17 high-tech HD cameras, aimed solely at the artist Thierry Henry refers to as ‘the man who do stuff with his foot, you could only dream of doing with your hands’…It’s a pity the film didn’t really try to develop a narrative we would follow but rather lays on the technological foundations pitched to us beforehand. But if you enjoy seeing master at work, be my guest!
To the International village and another trip to Germany and Canada, then South Korea…That’s where the buzz is at the moment…
Kidulthood by Menjah Huda from the UK was also screened over there at 12:00 PM…Couldn’t make it, but should be up for DVD viewing, back in London…

ON THE PARTY RADAR: For two nights, the Didier Riey Group, a gypsy jazz collective will take over the Cannes Mix programme opening for the outdoors screening, made of a selection of twelve animation-shorts by Canadian Norman McLaren, featuring Horizontal Lines, Stars and Stripes, and The Grey Hen. On Wednesday, The Holy Mountain a tale about a quest for immortality by Chilean director/artist Alejandro Jodorowsky. A student of the mime Marcel Marceau (other prestigious alumni include Michael Jackson….), friend of the surrealists Topor & Arrabal. ‘El Topo’ his first mainstream movie, became a cult classic in 1970. When work dried out in films for the Chilean director, he went into comic books, working with fellow cult author Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud – Lieutenant Blueberry, adapted for the silver screen by Jan Koonen of ‘Doberman’ fame in 2004 – Van Hamme, Gal,…achieving cult-status within the comic book fraternity when releasing l’Incal and working on its follow-up: ‘The Meta-Barons saga’. If you want to grasp his influence in modern western comic-books, you would have to speak of him in the same breath as a Hayao Miyazaki(Nausicaa), Akira Toriyama (Dragonball), Katsuhiro Otomo, (Akira) or a Chris Claremont (X-men)…

24th & 25th May

TELEGRAM:

Was in Monaco. /Stop/ couldn’t be bothered to be in Cannes. /Stop/ had a few business dealings to handle. /Stop/. Didn’t have time to blog lately, sorry. /Full Stop/

Telegram, heh? What a funny thing…How many of you remember what it was to send a telegram at the other end of the world? Here we are taking this world for granted. Anyone who’s been on the French Riviera during that period of the year is aware of the fact that we are reaching the high points of the season with the Monte-Carlo tennis tournament, the Cannes festival, the Monaco grand prix, then Avignon festival in Provence, (equivalent to the Edinburgh theater festival…) and so on…We stopped in Grace and St-Tropez too…bumped into Michael Stipe, Robin Aubert, the director and lost our lawyer inside a casino…in Monaco…also known as the ‘Millionaire’s playground’ …
Formula One is the toy here…The noise, the smell, the gas, the sheer pollution it creates and with the little amount of overtaking opportunities, due to the tight confines of the roads, the Monaco Grand Prix must be an ecologist idea of hell.

With preparations in full swing it is quite difficult to drive through the city. Remember, the Monaco grand prix is the last of its kind, as the race track is made of the principality’s own streets. It’s the world’s most famous street track…

An open city as was Rome in January 1945 when the remnants of the German army occupying the ‘eternal city’ are about to surrender …A priest and a communist worker, the two pillars of post-war anti-fascism in Italy will join together to defeat Nazism. The movie buffs among you will recognize the pitch for ‘Rome, open city’ and the birth of Italian neo-realism. Black and white movies, with strong ‘real’ characters shot in the streets, as Cinecitta the babylonesque studios built by Mussolini had been bombed during the war. Serge July, editor of left-wing daily newspaper Liberation, directed a short-documentary called ‘Once upon a time…Rome open city’ showing in Cannes…

Another graceful vision, Barbie Hsu. Her sensual and timeless interpretation left very few moviegoers untouched. The actress is the lead in ‘Silk’ by Taiwanese director, Chao Pin Su: “We tried to make the best possible feature film on all levels,” explains the director. “Usually, in all Taiwanese films, the action is relatively slow and the atmosphere rather dark. I believe that we impose limits on ourselves due to various points of view, even when due to creative talent. This time, we had the good fortune of securing solid financing, which allowed us to develop our ideas with complete serenity. The entire crew is very satisfied with it. This picture is really different from the rest of Taiwanese productions.”
As for Barbie: “It was a true challenge to take on this character, I had a lot of fun playing her. Furthermore, there are terrible deaths in the film, which I greatly enjoyed from this point of view. Not to mention the end, it really touched me.”

Another timeless vision, but this one celebrates a movie dynasty. Like the Douglas, the Van Peebles, etc…Here come the Coppolas! Sofia, the daughter of Francis is back in Cannes with Marie-Antoinette (Her third movie after ‘Virgin Suicides’ – Director’s fortnight – and ‘Lost in translation’). The film charts the life of. ..’Marie-Antoinette’, queen of France during the 1789 revolution and famous for answering to a starving crowd asking for bread: ‘Let them eat cake!’
For me, Marie Antoinette has remained, first and foremost, the symbol of a totally decadent style. I didn’t realize to what point these people, who were called upon to govern a country, were in point of fact no more than teenagers. Daily life in the Château de Versailles is also, for these adolescents, a form of apprenticeship set in a tense, difficult environment. It is this position and the complexity of the character of Marie Antoinette which interested me.” (Sofia C.)
A few recognizable faces in the casting like Steve Coogan (yes…I know!), Marianne Faithfull, Kirsten Dunst and Aurore Clement…However, Sofia is adamant she never tried to make a political statement: ‘I wasn’t making a political movie about the French Revolution, I was doing a portrait of the character Marie Antoinette and my themes are in the film. She was a symbol of decadence. It was very interesting to read and research more about Marie Antoinette, more about the human experience of this young girl who went to Versailles when she was 14 and how she developed in the Cour de Versailles. I thought she was an interesting character. I have always been attracted to the 18th century in France. I knew so little about the personal side of her. The story is about teenagers in Versailles so I wanted it to have the energy of youth, a teenage feeling to it.” I am making one if I tell you that the movie is adapted from a book written by Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham also known as CBE lady Antonia Fraser…?

Anyone who’s been on the French Riviera during that period of the year is aware of the fact that we are reaching the high points of the season with the Monte-Carlo tennis tournament, the Cannes festival, the Monaco grand prix, then Avignon festival in Provence, (equivalent to the Edinburgh theater festival…) and so on…We stopped in Grace and St-Tropez too…bumped into Michael Stipe, Robin Aubert, the director and lost our lawyer inside a casino…in Monaco…also known as the ‘Millionaire’s playground’ … Formula One is the toy here…The noise, the smell, the gas, the sheer pollution it creates and with the little amount of overtaking opportunities, due to the tight confines of the roads, the Monaco Grand Prix must be an ecologist idea of hell.

With preparations in full swing it is quite difficult to drive through the city. Remember, the Monaco grand prix is the last of its kind, as the race track is made of the principality’s own streets. It’s the world’s most famous street track…

An open city as was Rome in January 1945 when the remnants of the German army occupying the ‘eternal city’ are about to surrender …A priest and a communist worker, the two pillars of post-war anti-fascism in Italy will join together to defeat Nazism. The movie buffs among you will recognize the pitch for ‘Rome, open city’ and the birth of Italian neo-realism. Black and white movies, with strong ‘real’ characters shot in the streets, as Cinecitta the babylonesque studios built by Mussolini had been bombed during the war. Serge July, editor of left-wing daily newspaper Liberation, directed a short-documentary called ‘Once upon a time…Rome open city’ showing in Cannes…

Another graceful vision, Barbie Hsu. Her sensual and timeless interpretation left very few moviegoers untouched. The actress is the lead in ‘Silk’ by Taiwanese director, Chao Pin Su: “We tried to make the best possible feature film on all levels,” explains the director. “Usually, in all Taiwanese films, the action is relatively slow and the atmosphere rather dark. I believe that we impose limits on ourselves due to various points of view, even when due to creative talent. This time, we had the good fortune of securing solid financing, which allowed us to develop our ideas with complete serenity. The entire crew is very satisfied with it. This picture is really different from the rest of Taiwanese productions.” As for Barbie: “It was a true challenge to take on this character, I had a lot of fun playing her. Furthermore, there are terrible deaths in the film, which I greatly enjoyed from this point of view. Not to mention the end, it really touched me.”

Another timeless vision, but this one celebrates a movie dynasty. Like the Douglas, the Van Peebles, etc…Here come the Coppolas! Sofia, the daughter of Francis is back in Cannes with Marie-Antoinette (Her third movie after ‘Virgin Suicides’ – Director’s fortnight – and ‘Lost in translation’). The film charts the life of. ..’Marie-Antoinette’, queen of France during the 1789 revolution and famous for answering to a starving crowd asking for bread: ‘Let them eat cake!’ For me, Marie Antoinette has remained, first and foremost, the symbol of a totally decadent style. I didn’t realize to what point these people, who were called upon to govern a country, were in point of fact no more than teenagers. Daily life in the Château de Versailles is also, for these adolescents, a form of apprenticeship set in a tense, difficult environment. It is this position and the complexity of the character of Marie Antoinette which interested me.” (Sofia C.) A few recognizable faces in the casting like Steve Coogan (yes…I know!), Marianne Faithfull, Kirsten Dunst and Aurore Clement…However, Sofia is adamant she never tried to make a political statement: ‘I wasn’t making a political movie about the French Revolution, I was doing a portrait of the character Marie Antoinette and my themes are in the film. She was a symbol of decadence. It was very interesting to read and research more about Marie Antoinette, more about the human experience of this young girl who went to Versailles when she was 14 and how she developed in the Cour de Versailles. I thought she was an interesting character. I have always been attracted to the 18th century in France. I knew so little about the personal side of her. The story is about teenagers in Versailles so I wanted it to have the energy of youth, a teenage feeling to it.” I am making one if I tell you that the movie is adapted from a book written by Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham also known as CBE lady Antonia Fraser…?

Left the sea, s… and sun…for gritty, rainy London. But Cannes is not over yet. I have to give you a few tips for the ‘Palme d’Or’ …This year’s festival has been very ‘serious’ and has featured movies with ‘gravitas’. The president of the jury is Wong-Kar-Wai filmmaker renown for his uncompromising style. Two films spring to mind, when thinking about the Palme d’or or Jury’s prize. The two have wars at their core: ‘The wind that shakes the barley’ by Ken Loach and the excellent ‘Day of glory’…

The movie is about the Algerian, Moroccans, and Tunisians, Senegalese soldiers or goumiers dead and forgotten during the Second World War, who liberated France from Nazism. The director, Rachid Bouchareb, has assembled a stellar ensemble cast, made of some of France’s finest actors: Sami Bouajila, Rochdy Zem, and the two icons of French’s suburbs youth culture, Sami Naceri (Taxi 1 to 3) and Djamel Debbouze (Amelie…).

Rachid Bouchared, the director knew straight from the get-go what would be the major stumbling block for such a movie and forecasted it in his approach: the cinema is a vehicle for encounters and emotions, perceived by audiences first as feelings, even if it gives them more to discover. It was only in this way that I could carry the story and creates a tie with the audience,” he adds. “I didn’t want to be didactic, which serves nothing. We developed the screenplay over two and a half years. We needed 25 versions to be able to step beyond history and concentrate on the human subject matter, on all the tiny details of daily life which reflect life far better than any speech.”

Sami Naceri as always very intense, took the bait with hesitation first, before putting ‘a lot into this film, to the point of even learning Arabic. I literally charged into the story. It isn’t a vindictive picture, nor political. But those in school should learn that these North Africans were the first to fall under German bullets for the liberation of Marseilles, Toulon and Corsica.” Djamel Debbouze, who is considered as one – if not the one – of the most bankable actor in France at the moment had to chip in to get the project going: ‘On the one hand, we come up with budgets in the several million euros to produce comedies where audiences want to see me slipping on banana peels, and on the other hand, I see that a project such as Rachid’s which was non-stop revised downwards. France still has difficulty in coping with its own past.”

Djamel Debbouze, the actor has fulfilled most of his dreams emerging as a disabled kid from the suburbs to one of France’s most recognizable face but the producer was looking for a strong project to sink his teeth in, refusing the usual farces, he is now renowned for: ‘ After Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, I received a multitude of scripts of the kind Asterix vs. the North Africans or Rabin Hood, and I was extremely skeptical. While Rachid’s film presented pleasant and noble challenges to be defended. It was therefore perfectly normal and logical to go all the way for such a film. As co-producer, I am proud that Days of Glory is presented at Cannes, it’s all the better for us. To put together funds for this film, I was even compelled to go meet Sarkozy, which really taught me a lesson!”

R. Bouchardeb went one step further, by asking rai icon Khaled (worldwide hit, ‘Didi’) to score the music for the film, despite early reservations: ‘in normal times, I sing of love and peace, so I was somewhat taken aback when Rachid suggested to me working on the music of a film about war. He then explained to me that it wasn’t really a war picture, its goal was rather to honor those people who helped lead to the Liberation and who brought us the joy of doing certain things. It is out of respect for his people who died for us that I joined Rachid.”

From one master to another: Sydney Pollack, the American director and actor with more than 40 years in the trade and 20 films under his belt. His filmography includes ‘Out of Africa’, ‘Three days of the condor’ and as an actor, the last Kubrick’s work ‘Eyes wide shut’. The night is called ‘A Film master class with Sydney Pollack’. His first words were: ‘I just have to say that anything I am presenting that has the name” master class ” is enough to ring every alarm bell in my brain,”. A master-raconteur, Sydney Pollack cruise through the night dispensing words of wisdom like: To be absolutely honest, I don’t think of myself as a visual director. That’s an area that I work very hard in because it’s my weaker muscle. My stronger muscles are with performance. Because I feel that I am stronger in performance, I try to concentrate as hard as I can on the visual aspects of the movie because it isn’t my forte. There are great visual styles that I admire immensely like Bertolucci. The danger with somebody like me who comes from the theatre as an actor is to follow along with two-people talk scenes and I like to do those. My films are full of them.” Sydney Pollack was also presenting out of competition ‘Sketches of Frank Gehry’, the patron of the arts and founder of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao among other things…

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John McLaughlin, quite simply, is an eloquent. A guitarist whose musical vocabulary is both fluent and succinct; a musician who has proved he can work on equal terms with players from around the world and in any context. The language of music has rarely been expressed better.

He is also the guitar hero’s guitar hero; admired by Johnny Marr, Jeff Beck and Robert Fripp amongst many others – there are very few serious guitar players who cannot have been influenced by his virtuoso technique. John is currently recording a new album, with a group of invited musicians, which will incorporate ideas from Asian underground music that originated here in the U.K.

“Asian music and culture have played a pivotal role in my life, whether from a musical or philosophical/spiritual viewpoint. About 12-15 years ago, Jungle music appeared and coincided with a very strong retrospective movement in Jazz. I was never a fan of retrospective music, and I became intrigued by Jungle only to find out that it had its roots in Jazz-Rock, Reggae and Indian music. Drum ‘n Bass is a derivative of Jungle, but for my ears Jungle is more unpredictable and consequently more enjoyable.

“Asian Dub Foundation, Nitin Sawhney, and Talvin Singh have experimented with either Jungle or Drum ‘n Bass, and in addition have introduced a vast array of Indian percussion with it and Indian vocalists. I’ve even heard Shakti influences in some of their recordings.

“Some of the recordings they have done are very interesting from the conceptual point of view, and the sometimes very tasteful use of synthesizers.

“With these artists, there are some really interesting groups such as D Note and Lemon D, who have also made some excellent recordings.

“Now while the music might not be as ‘rich’ as jazz music, for me, some of them are more interesting musically.

“The other aspect of ‘Underground’ is the world we live in, insofar as it is now extremely industrialised. We live surrounded by the sound of industry, and my idea is to incorporate this ‘industrial music’ into new forms of music. That’s the tricky part. The other part is putting together some of the world’s finest musicians, from East and West, and placing them in a musical situation where their particular musical conventions might not work. In other words it makes them think in different ways, and then putting all of this together.”

Born in Yorkshire on January the 4th 1942, John McLaughlin grew up in a musical family but was essentially self-taught as a guitarist and took on various influences from blues, flamenco, jazz and classical music. His love of music informed his dedication and has led him to being one of the foremost talents in the world today.

“On my iPod I have a selection from:- Miles (early & late period), Coltrane (early & late period), Bill Evans, Charles Lloyd, Cannonball Adderly, Joshua Redman, Brad Meldhau, Sly and the Family Stone, D Note, Lemon D and other UK ‘underground’ groups, Bluth, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Vinnie Colaiuta, Massive Attack. The list is endless.”

He emerged publicly during the British blues revival of the Sixties, featuring in bands such as Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames and the Graham Bond Organisation, before cementing his reputation in avant-garde jazz with the similarly brilliant John Surman and Dave Holland. Drumming legend, Tony Williams picked John to play in his group Lifetime, with Jack Bruce and Larry Young, after hearing a tape of his playing and soon after Miles Davis came a’ calling. Miles was moving into his Jazz-Fusion period and was sweeping up the cream of young musical talent to join him; even though Miles risked alienating Tony Williams, a man he respected and admired, by asking John to join him on the recording of In A Silent Way, his move was vindicated by John’s beautiful, soulful playing on what has now become a landmark recording. John continued to perform with Williams and Davis but soon formed his own band, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, playing jazz-rock fusion that was by turns muscular and contemplative. John’s career since then has found him in varied musical environments with a succession of dazzlingly accomplished partners from the screaming jazz-rock of his work with Carlos Santana to the exhilarating indo-jazz of Shakti to the exuberant flamenco work-out of his trio guitar work with Paco DeLucia and Al DiMeola. John gives the impression that, like Miles, he never wants to sit on his laurels.

“My first band was formed while I was still at school. After that I became a kind of permanent side-man until 1970. I had just played a gig with Miles and we were speaking together in the band room. All of a sudden he said ‘John, now’s the time to form your own band’. Since he was the most honest man I’d ever met, and my hero since the age of 15, I had to justify his faith in me, even though at that time I didn’t feel ready to be a leader. Since then I haven’t stopped. As far as ‘feeling comfortable’ is concerned, I love all great musicians and great music wherever they may come from so I’m delighted to play with Spanish, Indian, Western musicians, whatever. However, in a way I am against being ‘comfortable’ in music. I need to be provoked in music, and of course I also provoke in my turn. For me, it is somewhat dangerous to be too comfortable in music. Human nature quickly becomes indolent.”

The list of partners that John has chosen to collaborate with has been a catalogue of the world’s best and most innovative artists: Billy Cobham, Jerry Goodman, Zakir Hussain, L. Shankar, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Jan Gabarek, Trilok Gurtu, Kai Eckhardt, Joey DeFrancesco as well as the aforementioned Carlos Santana, Paco DeLucia and Al DiMeola. Also, John’s work as a “side-man” has enabled him to work with the last great Miles-influenced generation of jazz legends (or “Miles’ Boys”) including Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Dave Holland, Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, and Airto Moreira.

“Music is a communicative art: firstly amongst the musicians performing, and secondly with the audience. One of my main criticisms of the ‘Retrospective’ Jazz I spoke about earlier, was the lack of interactionbetween musicians which is to me one of the principal criteria in good Jazz, or good music in general. Jazz and Indian music are essentially collaborative or interactive musics because improvisation plays such an important role – the most important role. What this means is spontaneity, but there’s no spontaneity without other humans to be spontaneous with.

“I will never be able to repay my debt to Miles for his ‘influence’. Since the age of 15 he has been influencing me in the most marvellous way musically. Being able to play and record with him was critical for me in being able to learn his way of playing and leading, recording, whatever. His way was simply masterly. ‘My Goals Beyond’ half of which contains several, quite exceptional, acoustic guitar pieces was an exception to what I’ve just written, but of course, there is always room for the ‘solo’ artist to produce great works. Since this was the only ‘solo’ recording I ever made in my life, this is indicative of my interest in solo work.”

The work for which John may be most fondly remembered, certainly on the Indian Sub-Continent, is his collaboration with Indian classical maestros who formed the heart of Shakti. John found himself in conversation with the powerhouse talents of L. Shankar, Zakir Hussain, and T.H. Vinayakram (and later, the sublime Hariprasad Chaurasia) and was completely at ease in this exalted company. The Shakti recordings sum up everything that is good about music; the breadth, subtlety and shades of emotion that are contained within are, quite simply, breathtaking. Shakti are the only Indo-jazz fusion group that has gained widespread acceptance in India and is a testament to the universality of the musical language that exists with great musicians and to John’s musical honesty that he immersed himself entirely within an idiom that other western musicians find difficult to engage with except on a superficial level.

“My relationship with Asia in general, and India in particular has been very long and until now, a wonderful adventure. My life, and as a consequence, my work also, would be dramatically different without these influences. Actually unthinkable!

I don’t agree entirely that western musicians engage superficially with Indian classical music. Yes it’s true that lots of the new ‘World Musicians’ use the sounds of Asia simply for effect and to add colour. This is unfortunate, but then again, there are lots of people who want to hear this kind of music, whether for ambient sound or otherwise. It’s not at all demanding. Joe Harriott was certainly an exception. To say clearly what drew me to Indian music or to Indian culture for that matter, is unknown to me.

“However, from a musical point of view, there is a deep connection between jazz and Indian music. They are the only two schools of developed rhythmic improvisation on the planet. The foundations are different since the western way is harmonic, but since the advent of modal music by the late 1950′s (Miles again), and the outstanding work done subsequently by John Coltrane in modal music, we have even more in common.

“My work with Shakti is not to learn how to play Indian music, (though I have studied it seriously for many years), my work with Shakti is simply the desire to play with these absolutely fantastic musicians. I am first and foremost a western musician, but I have benefited in countless ways from my association with these musicians.”

John’s relationship with Eastern philosophy began in the early 70′s, when he became a disciple of Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghosh (Sri Chinmoy gave John the name Mahavishnu), and John’s spirituality can be felt quite clearly in his work. Music has always been able to express emotion with more fecundity and nuance than the spoken word will ever be able to bear or, to put it another way, a jazz musician’s job will always be to make a tune sound not like itself but himself. Like Miles, Coltrane, Rollins, Bill Evans and all the other greats too numerous to mention, John expresses a profound emotional resonance and beauty through the notes he plays that is served by his astounding technique rather than enslaved by it; he has never reduced himself to the empty verbosity that technical expertise can engender in less articulate musical linguists.

“We may think that music operates only on the emotional, spiritual and aesthetic levels, but politics and the intellect are there all the time. The reverse is also true insofar as the world’s politicians are concerned only with the economic and political ramifications of their actions. As a result, they forget, or are unconscious, of the corrosive influence they have generally on the hearts and minds of people by ignoring these essential aspects of human existence.”

John McLaughlin has been at the peak of his creative powers for over 30 years and a generation of guitarists are beholden to him in demonstrating the splendour that lies at the heart of the instrument and an indefatigable spirit that keeps him moving forward.

“There is so much left to do, and I really don’t know what keeps me going creatively. Passion???”

Jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin has recently released an educational box-set about improvisation called This is the Way I Do It.

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