From the Air, By the Sea

▶ K.D. LANG & THE SISS BOOM BANG: THE WATER'S EDGE

▶ LAURIE ANDERSON: FROM THE AIR 

"There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them. And married a seventh. God knows it was a tribute either to the shrinks' ineptitude or my own glorious unanalyzability that I was now, if anything, more scared of flying than when I began my analytic adventures some thirteen years earlier.

My husband grabbed my hand therapeutically at the moment of takeoff.

"Christ—it's like ice," he said. He ought to know the symptoms by now since he's held my hand on lots of other flights. My fingers (and toes) turn to ice, my stomach leaps upward into my rib cage, the temperature in the tip of my nose drops to the same level as the temperature in my fingers, my nipples stand up and salute the inside of my bra (or in this case, dress—since I'm not wearing a bra), and for once screaming minute my heart and the engines correspond as we attempt to prove again that the laws of aerodynamics are not the flimsy superstitions which, in my heart of hearts, I know they are. Never mind the diabolical INFORMATION TO PASSENGERS, I happen to be convinced that only my own concentration (and that my mother—who always seems to expect her children to die in a plane crash) keeps this bird aloft. I congratulate myself on every successful takeoff, but not too enthusiastically because it's also part of my personal religion that the minute you grow overconfident and really relax about the flight, the plane crashes instantly. Constant vigilance, that's my motto. A mood of cautious optimism should prevail. But actually my mood is better described as cautious pessimism. OK, I tell myself, we seem to be off the ground and into the clouds but the danger isn't past. This is, in fact, the most perilous patch of air. Right here over Jamaica Bay where the plane banks and turns and the "No Smoking" Sign goes off. This may well be where we go screaming down in thousands of flaming pieces. So I keep concentrating very hard, helping the pilot (a reassuringly Midwestern voice named Donnelly) fly the 250-passenger motherfucker. Thank God for his crew cut and middle-America diction. New Yorker that I am, I would never trust a pilot with a New York accent." [1]

"De railroad bridge’s
A sad song in de air.
De railroad bridge’s
A sad song in de air.
Ever time de trains pass
I wants to go somewhere.

I went down to de station,
Ma heart was in ma mouth.
Went down to de station.
Heart was in ma mouth.
Lookin’ for a box car
To roll me to de South.

Homesick blues, Lawd,
‘S a terrible thing to have.
Homesick blues is
A terrible thing to have.
To keep from cryin’
I opens ma mouth an’ laughs." [2]

TEXT [1] BY ERICA JONG, TAKEN FROM "FEAR OF FLYING;" TEXT [2], "HOMESICK BLUES" BY LANGSTON HUGHES; ALL IMAGES TAKEN FROM NORA EPHRON'S "SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE," 1993, PRODUCTION DESIGN BY JEFFREY TOWNSEND 

An Empty Death: Excess and Minimalism in Eugenio Zanetti’s “Flatliners”

“Schumacher, whose past films have varied from the Ross Hunterish melodrama of “St. Elmo`s Fire“ to the warm comedy of “Cousins,“ here seems determined to recombine the most excessive bits of Orson Welles, Ridley Scott and Andrei Tarkovsky. Working with cinematographer Jan De Bont (“Black Rain“) and production designer Eugenio Zanetti, the director has composed an almost entirely artificial environment, creating the fictional Taft University and its environs out of bits and pieces of Chicago, including the Museum of Science and Industry, the Damen “L“ stop and the lower Michigan Avenue bridge. There is no manhole cover in this world that does not produce sinister clouds of steam; there is no streetlamp that does not radiate a poisonous orange glow from its grotesquely distended globe.” [1]

“Because I wasn’t born in the USA, I’ll probably have a different idea—different expectations—for the so-called artistic achievement. In general. In America, if you get an Oscar, you could think you are somewhere in your career where you have achieved “success.” But even then, I honestly hope that the best of the creative aspects of my career are yet to come.

Let me better explain my understanding of what achievement is. First, I’m grateful for the possibilities I had. Having being born in a small town in Argentina, just the fact of having a career in the First World implies two things: one is a sense of destiny that we all should have; the other is a sense of who we are as artists. The 21st Century’s idea of the artist as some sort of tortured creature isolated in his or her creative dreams has passed, fortunately; but remnants of that thinking still impregnate our perception of art. The one aspect that I value most in an artist is the capacity to perceive—express things that are invisible to the eye. Many times those things are not necessarily what people expect.” [2]

“In the friendly battlefield that a film is, one has to choose all the time between the possible and the impossible. Ultimately, one has to sacrifice many things to be able to maintain some images one thinks are crucial to narrate the story. Many times a script has few or no description of the universes where the story takes place, so in reading it, one has to extrude the setting from the character’s dramatic arc. This is a process that is both conscious and unconscious. The conscious aspects include an understanding of the period, location and tone of the piece, as well as the budget and other practical considerations. The other is the way we connect with the material in that secret area we call ‘intuition.’ For an artist, intuition is key.” [2]

“A designer’s work is conceptual. We are storytellers; we should be. Design is poetic, visual storytelling. There is a great need when you are given material as a director or writer or painter or whatever area you work to maximize what is given to you. “Maximize” means using whatever intellectual, monetary, economic, time and space considerations available to express your concept in the best way. What counts is how well you develop your concept first. It should come from your heart, go to your mind, and come out through your experience. If there is no money, there should be ideas, and if there is not time to build, you should use the little time you have to destroy! Do whatever you need, but remember that you need to create images that will stay in people’s lives!” [2]

ALL IMAGES TAKEN FROM "FLATLINERS;" TEXT [1] TAKEN FROM "FLATLINERS SUCCEEDS WITH EXCESS" BY DAVE KEHR, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST 10, 1990; TEXT [2] TAKEN FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH EUGENIO ZANETTI FOUND ON FROMTHEHEARTPRODUCTIONS.COM

A Conspicuously Visible Xanadu: Versace's Casa Casuarina

[ED: Just a quick note to say I have an inaugural post on Gianni Versace's South Beach opus, Casa Casuarina, up on SHOWstudio.com here.]

Formative Moments in Modular Bedroom Design: Tim Noah

ALL CLIPS VIA YOUTUBE, TAKEN FROM TIM NOAH'S 1985 "IN SEARCH OF THE WOW WOW WIBBLE WAZZLE WAZZIE WOODLE WOO"; "MAKING OF" SET DESIGN VIDEO HERE

First as Tragedy, Second as Farce: Charlott Markus

Pygmalion; C-print, Edition 5, 2007

"In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides prostituting themselves (more accurately, they denied the divinity of Venus and she thus ‘reduced’ them to prostitution), he was 'not interested in women', but his statue was so fair and realistic that he fell in love with it.

In time, Venus (Aphrodite)'s festival day came, and Pygmalion made offerings at the altar of Venus. There he quietly wished that his ivory sculpture would be changed to a real woman. When he returned home, he kissed his ivory statue and found that its lips felt warm. He kissed it again and touched her breasts with his hand and found that the ivory lost its hardness. Venus had granted Pygmalion's wish." [1]

13 (# of the least); C-print, 120 x 96 cm, Edition 3, 2008

"my perfection isn’t mine
you invented it

I am only the mirror
in which you preen yourself
and for that very reason
I despise you."

- Galatea Before the Mirror, Claribel Alegría, 1993 [2]

Pygmalion; C-print, Edition 5, 2007

Pygmalion; C-print, Edition 5, 2007

Pygmalion; C-print, Edition 5, 2007

ALL IMAGES BY CHARLOTT MARKUS, VIA THE ARTIST'S WEBSITE; TEXT [1] VIA WIKIPEDIA, TEXT [2] CITED IN CAPTION