Illuminations

27/07/2024

Random thoughts on the Opening Ceremony as seen on BBC One (to which I might add through the day):

• good or bad, this is still a supreme television event - global, aspirationally epic, live, and viewed in the home over an extended period via a national broadcaster;; such collective experiences (the Euro 2024 final was another) deserve to be cherished;

• lots of naff stuff, inevitably, and the rain was certainly a challenge (including to the radio links of certain cameras), but there were great bits too - I loved the galloping horse speeding along the Seine, I would have followed mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel onto the barricades singing La Marseillaise along with her; the rising statues of famous French feminists were great; Juliette Armanet's 'Imagine' was glorious, although the flaming piano was a puzzle (any ideas?); the laser light show on the Eiffel Tower was 21st century modernity incarnate; goose-bumps for the glorious, grandiloquent balloon torch and that shot, pictured, uniting it with Eiffel's creation; and of course the magnificent Celine Dion;

• live television coverage of such an event, without a full rehearsal, is really, really hard, and the French team did pretty well, but...

• I was struck how tough it was to make the numerous transitions from live to pre-record and back convincing - screen grammar, image quality, sometimes the timings, and more created unproductive jumps;

• and I was truly disappointed by the BBC commentary team, who nattered on from the cheat sheets over the boat shots, and had next-to-nothing to say about the rest - was it because they had no advance notice whatsoever, no running order, no cast list, no notes whatsoever about the dense and delightful network of French cultural references? Even so, failing for example to recognise the figure from Phantom of the Opera, and countless similar lapses felt pretty unforgivable, and offering something entirely unconvincing about the French New Wave when the plot was clearly 'Jules et Jim', and then failing to follow up with something, anything about the library seducation by literature and philosophy leading to the joyful gender-fluid th*****me;

• no, it wasn't 2012, but it was a bold, progressive, youthful, contemporary take on French history, traditions and the world today - and the BBC could have helped us understand that better;

• although kudos to Andrew Cotter for his impromptu simultaneous translation of the speeches, even if he and Hazel Irvine failed (I think) to notice, along with much else, that the Olympic flag had been raised upside down.

21/07/2024

This is really terrific, from The New York Times [gift link]:

Test Your Focus: Can You Spend 10 Minutes With One Painting?

I've tried several times to interest a broadcaster in a variant of "slow looking" at paintings, but never with any success. Mostly, when I've suggested this, commissioners have looked at me as if I'm slightly deranged - but then generally that has been a pretty common reaction from the esteemed gatekeepers.

It’s very hard to slow down and look closely at something. You may find it’s worth it.

05/07/2024

Thank you for the music

I know there's other stuff going on, but I want to talk about ABBA Voyage (my keyboard can't cope with the reversed "B'), which I saw last night. And which is truly extraordinary, redefining - as so many others have said - what a "live" performance can be. I'm going to start with a few reflections here, and then I want to try to write something more considered (and I'd definitely be up for contributing to a workshop or min-conference about it).

Warning: contains spoilers; also, I may add to this later, and I'd love to get the reactions of others who have been. I also haven't really read anything about it, but I now want to search out everything I can find - recommendations very welcome.

The large arena is purpose-built, just by Pudding Mill Lane DLR station. The audience, and it was a sell-out, was overwhelmingly white, predominantly middle-aged, and maybe 2/3s women. There are banks of seating around an "arena'/dance floor, and Clare and I were right towards the back of the central seating area.

Before the show there's a triptych video projection of a vaguely scandi forest with a light snow fall and ambient music. After a request/warning about no photos or recordings (and the staff spend much of their time telling people off for using, or trying to use, their mobiles), the 90-minute show plays continuously - and for much of the running time is truly spectacular.

The ABBA avatars are "on stage" for maybe half of the show, perhaps a little more, and I'm surprised about this. Otherwise we get, variously and for several full numbers, video of the avatars as if in a very complex promo clip; video of their Eurovision win performing 'Waterloo'; two lengthy sequences of a frankly risible anime-type animation, with a vaguely oriental young mythic hero travelling through a forest and then a castle, searching for something, and then finally being transfigured into a glittering star - I had no idea what this was about; and a LIVE BAND.

The band was the biggest surprise, with three singers and maybe a dozen musicians (guitars, keyboards, percussion, sax), stage right, accompanying (or were they?) some of the numbers, and having their own spot when ABBA "themselves" take a break. All of this adds another layer of complexity to the inevitable questions of "the real" / liveness / (co-)presence.

As for the avatars, I have to say I found them, for a fair distance of course, strikingly "real" - solid, truly three-dimensional, bright, absolutely believable. Indeed they look more convincing as living humans than the figures in the image below, which still have a sense of the digital about them.

For many numbers the movement of the avatars is precisely co-ordinated with large-scale video images, many in large close-ups, projected behind and to the sides, as if they were being filming in real time. But there are no cameras! All of this is in some way digitally generated.

Then the same thing happens with the live band, so that we see "live video" images of them performing. But again it appears as if there are no cameras, so are they choreographed to the pre-recorded images?

Another surprise is that the avatars are not presented as young figures, but rather as Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Benny and Bjorn
perhaps were around the age of forty. They look great of course, but I find this decision especially fascinating.

There's some hokiness in terms of talking to the audience, jojkes about costume changes, and giving the sense that what is taking place is an actual live show. And the audience definitely treats it as such, dancing, singing along, waving their arms in the air, and applauding widely after each number. (Reader, I joined in too, although not so much with the applause, which seemed ridiculous to me.)

All of it takes place within a dazzling immersive light show, with projections and mirrors and strings of bulbs hung from the ceiling. The density and depth and detail of the light world for 'Dancing Queen' especially was breath-taking.

Then at the end, two weird things happen. As the avatars sink down below the stage, we're left with a seemingly endless, diverse line of singers right at the back, completing a chorus in full voice. I thought they were "real", but Clare was convinced this was a film projection - but this shows you how the whole thing plays with your perceptions (and I like to think I'm pretty savvy about what's real and what's digital).

And finally, ABBA as they are now come on to take the applause and the audience's love, both as avatars of their aged bodies and as video images. Extraordinary.

In a way, I loved it, and while I'm a very long way from a fan, I've seen the stage show and watched the two movies with my family numerous times. I truly enjoyed (most of) it - I'd definitely cut the animations - as a spectacle, and at the same time I had a professional/academic fascination with it all. So I kept slipping into and out of - to some kind of critical distance, or at least wonderment - the performance.

I came away with a host of questions, including what on earth Siegfried Kracauer would have made of it all?

Experience ABBA on stage in a ground-breaking concert in a custom-built arena in London, UK. Embark on your ABBA Voyage in 2024. Buy concert tickets now.

20/06/2024

Only two more days to see it, but Donmar Warehouse The Cherry Orchard is sensationally good: hilarious and moving and cruel, so cruel, and surprising and moving and dangerous. Kudos to adapter/director Benedict Andrews, and a great cast led by wonderful Nina Hoss.

I saw Benedict Andrews' Three Sisters Young Vic Theatre more than a decade ago, and this is just as good as that brilliant show.

I'm curious if some of it is improvised, within a tight structure. Some lines felt so fresh, as did some of the cast's reactions, that I wondered if this was the first time they were saying and hearing them.

I guess it's not starry enough to earn a transfer, but it's absolutely among the very best theatre I've seen this year.

★★★★★ “Benedict Andrews hits Chekhov gold again with this endlessly imaginative, boundlessly yearning revival… you wish it would last forever.” Time Out ★★★★★ “Revelatory… utterly captivating.” Evenin…

20/06/2024

Postcard from St Louis

Welcome to the fifth Postcard (with two more scheduled) from my and my wife Clare Paterson’s recent mid-west road trip, in this case embracing our visits, for two nights in each city, to Indianapolis and St Louis.

John Wyver writes: welcome to the fifth Postcard from my and my wife Clare Paterson's recent mid-west road trip (with two more scheduled), in this case embracing our visits, for two nights in each city, to Indianapolis and St Louis.

17/06/2024

Concert-going etiquette

Just out of the first half of the concert of Philip Glass' 'Cocteau Trilogy' given by Katia and Marielle Labèque. Perfectly pleasant music and bravura musicianship. But I was faced with two dilemmas.

One: during the first 20-plus minutes the teenager seated next to me munched his way through a sandwich, followed by two further items of his supper. He tried to do this somewhat discreetly, but that was tricky when it involved rummaging around in a rucksack, and then bringing the food up to his mouth time and again, only to rest his hands in his lap between bites. After finishing, he fell asleep.

That was irritating enough in itself, but the performance is supposed to feature 'a fragrance design by Maison Francis Kurkdjian' with three scents diffused through the auditorium. I'm not sure if this was active in the first half, but all I smelt was my neighbour's supper.

He was accompanying a slightly older woman, who was much more attentive to the performance. So what to do? Express my feeling that this inappropriate, and perhaps (or not) shaming him in front of his companion? Inform front-of-house? Or what?

Two: just in front of me were a couple who, ignoring the clear and polite prohibition spoken at the start about filming and recording the performance, were filming parts on the woman's mobile phone (the red button was lit up) and considering together, silently, the result. Again, what to do? Tell on them to front-of-house? Ask them to refrain in the second part? Or what?

In both cases, I did nothing - apart from scratching out this grumpy post, and electing not to return for the second half.

Legendary sibling pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque present their recent collaboration with American minimalist composer Philip Glass: arrangements for two pianos of his Cocteau Trilogy.

17/06/2024

Postcard from Columbus the second

Continuing the chronicle of my American mid-west road trip, this instalment is all about the town of Columbus, Indiana and its remarkable architecture.

John Wyver writes: with apologies for the hiatus in delivering these, welcome to the fourth Postcard from the mid-west road trip that Clare are taking across the mid-west. The first three Postcards are here, here and here.

10/06/2024

Very good from Dorothy Byrne, but...

"In today’s market, the BBC should stick to what it does best: news and current affairs, children’s programming, documentaries about the UK, religious and ethical programmes, local radio and other key genres that commercial broadcasters and streamers have no interest in."

Maybe THE ARTS comes into her final category, but we really need to focus on how meagre and shrunken BBC Television's arts output has become.

Also, of course, the BBC will say that to keep the legitimacy of the licence fee the Corporation has to be a major player in the high end drama market, which is now eating up so much of the annual budget.

But maybe that should be one of the hard questions Dorothy Byrne is looking for all of us to ask.

Public service broadcasting has been threatened by a hostile government for years. A Labour win offers the chance for a reset, says Dorothy Byrne, a former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4

31/05/2024

Postcard from Columbus the first

John Wyver writes: We are on the road! Having left Chicago, we drove to Fort Wayne and Sidney, Ohio (day one), on to Columbus, Ohio (day two) and then to Columbus, Indiana (day three). Not that it’s been entirely great, although it very much mostly has.

26/05/2024

Postcard from Chicago, part two

John Wyver writes: A second missive from the mid-West, following on from Postcard from Chicago, part one. And let me begin with a tale of two campuses (campi?). One morning this past I explored the low-level lay-out of the Illinois Institute of Technology, conceived and begun by Mies van den Rohe in...

26/05/2024

... and we've just arrived in Sidney, Ohio, to see a building I've wanted to visit for simply aeons: Louis Sullivan's The Peoples Federal Savings and Loan Association, 1917-18 - more to follow, but suffice to say now that it looked absolutely glorious in the late afternoon sun.

https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/OH-01-149-0063

26/05/2024

As an addendum to my first Postcard from Chicago, here's perhaps the greatest painting I marvelled at in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago: Paul Cezanne's The Basket of Apples, about 1893, along with six details.

26/05/2024

Postcard from Chicago, part one

John Wyver writes: Although posts of this kind are not directly related to the company's operations, I occasionally scratch out accounts of my travels and other doings. In this case, my wife Clare and I are now on a long-planned holiday, with first of all a week in Chicago and then a 10-day road tri...

05/05/2024

The Sunday dozen
with the late Frank Stella, Hiroshi Shimizu, John Ford and Bertolt Brecht, the ideas of the CBSO - and the reaction, the gold standard, Art Tatum and more

John Wyver writes: welcome to this week's selection of stuff that I've enjoyed and been enriched by over the past week.

04/05/2024

Placed around town for the launch of BBC4, these (spotted today outside the Hayward) feel like fossils from a long ago age of public service broadcasting. I wonder how many survive.

06/01/2024

A day early, but hey

The Sunday dozen

something like normal service is resumed this week with a numerically specific number of recommendations of articles and other stuff that I have been engaged and amused and challenged by over the past week.

31/12/2023

2023: 50 reasons to be cheerful

John Wyver writes: Two years ago I compiled a list of stuff - books, films, journalism, television, exhibitions, online elements - that I had enjoyed, appreciated, learned from and generally been cheered by over the previous twelve months. Herewith, this year's selection (and instead of a Sunday Doz...

26/12/2023

I'm so sorry to learn this - David was a lovely man, really smart and funny and generous and warm. It was his biography, co-written with his wofe Caroline, of Lionel Bart that was the basis for our BBC Four film, directed splendidly by Mick Conefrey.

Other lives: Comedy writer and broadcaster who created the Guardian’s weekly Staffordshire Bull column

24/12/2023

The Christmas dozen.

Merry Christmas to one and all.

A tiny present in the form of a short selection of readings and listenings, some seasonal and some not, that caught my attention over the past week.

10/12/2023

The Sunday dozen

It's a long time since I compiled the weekly 'Sunday links' - indeed it's a long time since I wrote anything substantial here. But with the changing circumstances for the company, I'm minded, if I can find the time and energy, to start again. So for this weekend anyway, under a new title, here is a selection, supplemented by what I hope are useful additional links, of just twelve articles, downloads, broadcasts and podcasts that in the past week I found surprising and engaging and challenging.

John Wyver writes: It’s a long time since I compiled the weekly ‘Sunday links’ – indeed it’s a long time since I wrote anything substantial here. But with the changing circumstances for the company (see News, below), I’m minded, if I can find the time and energy, to start again. So for t...

02/05/2023

As sales of our digital content continue to grow, we are reducing our range of arts and culture DVDs. This is a fantastic opportunity to purchase our wonderful films on disc at a cracking 50% discount while stocks last.

Our As Seen on TV range includes films such as London Orbital, directed by Iain Sinclair and Chris Petit and was made in conjunction with Sinclair's book on the M25. Art of Faith, three films that explore the link between architecture and the three Abrahamic religions. And Azects, presented by Antony Gormley and explores the art of the Aztecs and was filmed to compliement the 2002-3 exhibition of Aztec culture at London’s Royal Academy.

As sales of our digital content continue to grow, we are reducing our range of arts and culture DVDs. This is a fantastic opportunity to purchase our wonderful films on disc at a cracking 50% discount while stocks last.

Our As Seen on TV range includes films such as London Orbital, directed by Iain Sinclair and Chris Petit and was made in conjunction with Sinclair's book on the M25. Art of Faith, three films that explore the link between architecture and the three Abrahamic religions. And Azects, presented by Antony Gormley and explores the art of the Aztecs and was filmed to compliement the 2002-3 exhibition of Aztec culture at London’s Royal Academy.

https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/film-shop/broadcast-films-documentaries/

21/04/2023

As sales of our digital content continue to grow, we are reducing our range of arts and culture DVDs. This is a fantastic opportunity to purchase our wonderful films on disc at a cracking 50% discount while stocks last. https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/50-off-arts-and-culture-dvds/

Included in the offer are our films and documentaries produced for broadcasters such as BBC, Channel 4, and films produced in partnership with some of the UK's most important institutions, galleries, and museums.

Other titles include: theEYE, 26-minute accessible profiles of contemporary artists that offer a rare insight into creative influences and ideas; The Art of... series, 50-minute films exploring the lives of works of exceptional artists including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Francis Bacon; Art Lives, documentaries on artists such as Vermeer, Warhol, Hockney et al; as well Art21, Masterworks, and Architectures.

24/02/2023

The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam has pulled off the unthinkable, mounting an exhibition of almost all of Johannes Vermeer’s paintings. The exceptional nature of the show was not lost on art lovers, with every single ticket being sold out before opening. For those feeling they’ve missed out on this genuinely once in a lifetime opportunity, we would like to point you in the direction of our excellent film on Jan Vermeer.

The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam has pulled off the unthinkable, mounting an exhibition of almost all of Johannes Vermeer’s paintings. The exceptional nature of the show was not lost on art lovers, with every single ticket being sold out before opening. For those feeling they’ve missed out on this gen...

13/01/2023

Our film Vivienne Westwood offers a fascinating glimpse into how she worked and tells her story with the help of Malcom McLaren and numerous fashion experts and insiders.

We look back at her life and legacy over our at our blog. Read here https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/vivienne-westwood-1941-2023/

25/12/2022

Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker! pre-order offer.

Nutcracker! has aired on the BBC today. Now we're offering you the chance to register for a pre-order offer of 25% off for when the DVD and digital version is released in 2023. This is our sixth collaboration with Matthew Bourne's New Adventures

Click link here https://mailchi.mp/bb5e95b1a4ea/matthew-bournes-nutcracker

Illuminations wishes you all a Merry Christmas!

04/11/2022

We’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of London Orbital by releasing the film digitally alongside a new interview with the filmmakers Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair. This launch is in partnership with DEEPER INTO MOVIES, which has launched a new streaming service.

London Orbital is an extraordinary and visionary film released in 2002 and produced in conjunction with Iain Sinclair’s book of the same name documenting his year-long journey around the M25 motorway on foot. The film follows Iain Sinclair’s walk, while Chris Petit drives a road with no end and no beginning.

https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/20th-anniversary-of-london-orbital/

02/11/2022

John Wyver remembers Macbeth with Antony Sher. Click the link to read his blog post. https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/remembering-macbeth/

24/06/2022

"Amazon.com has never had any earnings” Jeff Bezos. Watch the full clip of our interview from the late 90s with the Amazon founder, originally part of our series "The Net" over at our blog. https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/amazon-com-has-never-had-any-earnings-jeff-bezos/

The final blog post for our 40th anniversary is an interview with Jeff Bezos circa 1998. This is the first time we’ve made this clip available and it’s a fascinating glimpse of when Amazon was ‘just’ a bookshop but also shows how much Amazon’s outlook remains relevant even now in 2022. Thi...

21/06/2022

Continuing our series of highlighting key moments in Illuminations' history, we present to you one of the rare filmed interviews of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol that has gone on to have a life of its own. Read more about it and watch the clip on our blog.

Continuing our series of key moments in Illuminations’ history, we are sharing our famous clip of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol together with their collaborative paintings at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York in 1985. It was filmed as part of our State of the Art series which was shown on...

20/06/2022

Just a little over 24 hours to enter our competition to win a copy of The Car Man https://form.jotform.com/221603184046347