This article follows on the theme of desert island art, where, as Anna Miles outlined in a previous article, eight items of art are chosen to accompany a seclusion on a desert island. In my case I have chosen eight works of writing, sound or visuals that have either influenced my own work or I have seen as important in some way.
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Night on Earth
Directed by Jim Jarmusch and released in 1991 this film has become one of my favourites.
Perhaps it is an unusual choice for a film sound designer, the sound mix is sparse and natural, empty and cold. There are no tricks, technically it is a subtle work although the music by Tom Waits is used to great effect, it throbs underneath like the sleeping heart of the cities in which the five different stories within this film take place. Really this film is a collection of short films on the same theme. All follow taxi drivers as they collect and drop off their fares in different cities around the globe.
The film begins at sunset in Los Angeles where we learn why a young female taxi driver (played by Winona Ryder) would rather be a mechanic than a film star. The film moves to New York later in the night where an immigrant clown takes us on an erratically driven journey through Brooklyn. In Paris there is the story of an African driver and his blind passenger, in Rome an irreverent driver (Roberto Benigni) shocks a priest into a heart attack before dawn finally breaks with the sad stories of a trio of drunks in Helsinki.
It is not because of any particular element that I like this film, the various parts that make up the art of filmmaking blend perfectly and simply to create a mood, an environment, a world in limbo between days, time passing, waiting, cold streets and sleeping cities. For me a film works best if I forget that I am watching it. I can forget how the tricks are done and just get caught in the story.
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George MacDonald / The Princess and Curdie
Born in 1824, George MacDonald is a contemporary of Lewis Carroll's. He is a writer of fairy tales, and while he wrote many books for adults, his best and most famous novels were written for children. His two books "The Princess and the Goblins" and "The Princess and Curdie" begin as normal fairytales but slowly become stranger.
A bored little princess lives in a castle high in the mountains. One rainy afternoon she discovers her strange and ghostly great great grandmother. The grandmother sits spinning a gift for the little girl and lives off pigeon eggs. Meanwhile deep below in the caverns of the mountains the goblins plot to capture the princess and marry her to their horrible prince. The miner boy, Curdie, discovers their plans and is imprisoned by the goblins only to be freed again by the princess following her mysterious grandmother's spider thread. Curdie and the miners then flood the caverns to thwart the goblins.
In the second book the princess lives in the capital. Corrupt courtiers are slowly poisoning the king in an effort to steal the kingdom so the grandmother sends Curdie to foil their plot. He is given magical powers and can tell what kind of animal a person is destined to turn into through the evil they do in their lives by touching their hands.
Like Lewis Carroll's works these books contain layers and layers of impenetrable symbols. People turn into animals, animals turn into people, grandmothers become ancient princesses or aged crones. The stories become increasingly bizarre forcing the reader to send their imagination on its own journey through MacDonald's craggy mountains, deep caverns, castles and cities of intrigue.
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Bill Drummond, Jimmy Cauty and the KLF
Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty formed the KLF in 1987 and I have never liked their music. It is cheap, nasty pop cynically hacked together using whatever samples they think may appeal to a mainstream record buying audience. However I do like what they have said of it later in interviews and writing. Drummond and Cauty are masters of the publicity stunt (or perhaps at least documenting them). Their careers make great stories. Two record industry types set out to point out the more ridiculous aspects of the music industry by creating a pop band in the early years of the sampler. Along the way they got sued by ABBA, made several hit records, funded the alternate Turner Prize for the worst artist in Britain, bought pink armoured cars and staged stunts using sheep and crop circles before pulling out of the music industry in 1992. They announced their intentions to stop making music while firing blanks from a machine gun into the audience at the Brit awards and later deleted and burnt their back catalogue of records and merchandise.
Their book "How to have a Number One the Easy Way" is recommended reading for anyone interested in producing pop songs. It outlines exactly how they made their hit song "Doctorin' the Tardis" in 1988 from song construction to dealing with record company executives. While it is written from a cynical perspective, its elements all ring true. They describe how to create a hit single with no money within a snapshot of the British music industry as it was in 1988.
Their attack on the music industry establishment slowly became an attack on the established art world. With their Turner Prize stunt of 1993 they presented the "worst artist of the year" with a £40,000 prize (as opposed to the £20,000 Turner Prize) while spending exactly £20,000 on TV advertising to announce their winner in the ad breaks during the televised event. BBC Channel 4 put up the money for the real prize so therefore the KLF could be seen as sponsoring both awards. The money was nailed to a blank canvas and presented to the winner of the two awards, Rachael Whiteread, and threats were made to burn it unless she came to accept the cash in person.
Today the pair have separate careers as artists. Bill Drummond has written several books. Part travel story, part autobiography, part art book, Drummond's writings are cynical, humorous, reflective, and somehow come to the heart of what it is to think about and make art. Reading his work reminds me of why and how I make my own art and music.
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Myst
Released in the mid 1990s this popular computer game was a revolution in experiencing three dimensional computer environments. Within the game the player is trapped upon a series of islands and must solve puzzles in order to travel onwards. Its beautiful calm settings, architecture, and mechanical design set a benchmark for other games and sculpture installation.
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Wendyhouse
From the 1990s this little NZ band has released a long series of small lo-fi pop songs. Born in the basement of the Elam School of Fine Arts their music is characterised by the use of the Casio synthesiser and the four track tape recorder. There is something charming about the happy accidents created by the musician or audio engineer learning the art and Wendyhouse capture the best of this in their early music. Their music contains a lot of humour that even listening back today hasn't lost its edge. I have lost track of what they are releasing at the moment, but last I heard their music hadn't become too slick or tired. Their greatest influence on me was when I first moved from tape recording to computers and began looking at the lo-fi possibilities of both.
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Remedios Varo
I came across Remedios Varo's paintings while at art school and I am still occasionally lucky enough to accidentally encounter them while browsing through an art book. Varo was a Spanish / Mexican illustrator and painter attached to the surrealist movement. Her paintings are full of symbols, little jokes, and strange cat-like people. Perhaps marooned on my desert island I can finally find time to give her paintings the attention they deserve.
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Headless Chickens
One of my favourite bands as a teenager, the Headless Chickens became a huge influence later as I became an audio engineer and music producer.
From their music I learned a lot about what to do and not to do when constructing a mix and writing a song. Their music also taught me a lot about the art of arranging little blocks of sound. Later we worked in the same studio for a while and I directed their music video for "Smoking Big Ted" - one of my favourite projects and possibly the last video they ever made. The Headless Chickens were characterised by strongly constructed sampling and percussive programming blended with multilayered guitars across which hung the dark lyrics of Chris Matthews. Working nearby I discovered how simple and random this process could be.
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Starwars
They might seem corny now, especially after the release of the last three films, but at a young age the Starwars films were a big reason why I became interested in filmmaking. The sheer spectacle, the craft involved, and the shot structure that moved the audience constantly forward through the story began my analysis of film and later influenced the storyboarding and shot lists within my own work.
Jeffrey Holdaway is an artist working mainly with the intersection of sound and moving image. Much of his work involves the intervention of textural and environmental sound within a narrative space, audio is carefully and subtly injected into objects and environments in order to tell a story or shift an audience's perception of what they are seeing with their eyes. Past work includes sound design for sculpture and installation as well as feature film and documentary. He has directed music video, dance film and has made several works for CD. Jeffrey is based in Auckland, New Zealand and has a Masters majoring in Sound Design and a Bachelor's Degree in Visual Arts. http://www. amplifier.co.nz/nzmusic/12959/dr_peril.html