Tatyana Storm - De cross gaat door

NB: the weekly whimsy thread is a stoush-free zone

You can condemn anything except old Cuban dudes in cool hats.

You can condemn anything you like except Sarah Blasko.

You can condemn anything you like except the soundtrack to The Hunger.

Only 10 songs on the hottest 100 list were made by a band who had any women in it, ever (if we include Massive Attack, who, technically, only ever had female guest vocalists); the highest of these was placed at no. 20 (The White Stripes, “Seven Nation Army”). The only two songs with female lead vocals are the two by Massive Attack. Finally, no solo female artists at all made the list.

John Gunders has some speculations as to why this happened at The Memes of Production:

the absence of women from recent, mainstream rock music is troubling. I want to argue that there are two, interconnected reasons: the first has to do the masculinist nature of the “rock myth”, and the second is the increasing commercialisation of what we used to call “alternative music”.

There’s a third factor. As Mel Campbell argues at The Enthusiast, these sort of lists form part of a self-reinforcing cycle which diminishes the presence of female and women fronted bands on radio playlists.

Bah to JJJ.

Elsewhere: Rosanna Ryan.

Update: Lauredhel at Hoyden on the Hack segment, who also has lots of links in her post to other commentary and discussion.

For not-so-surprising reasons, I’ve been thinking lately about lifecycles. My AFR op-ed today (partially written with a newborn babe in the crook of my arm) is on age and creativity.

[The prompt for his reflections, by the way, is explained here.]

Leigh’s piece reports, inter alia, on the work of the American economist David Galenson. Galenson has developed a binary typology of two forms of innovation – conceptual and experimental. Interestingly, this classification is applied to both economists and creative artists; and a taste of what he’s getting at is easily discerned from this excerpt:

What marks a conceptualist from an experimentalist? In art, Galenson distinguishes conceptual artists (Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch) whose work aims to communicate specific ideas and emotions; from experimental artists (Edgar Degas, Wasily [sic] Kandinsky) whose ideas are vaguer, and often regard the artistic process as a journey.

I don’t know about that. Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art has recently been republished, and it’s freely available online. It seems to me either a gross simplification, charitably, or just empirically wrong to suggest that his ideas are vague. I’d also want to quibble, I think, with the other visual artists cited, and I suspect some holes could be shot in the application of the typology to other artists in different forms named.

That’s the problem with a binary classification – it sacrifices explanatory depth for conceptual neatness, because it accentuates some qualities but forces far too many phenomena into a polarised typology that’s just too simple. It’s not difficult to make the obvious point that Galenson might have been better off doing a little more experimental work before leaping into the conceptual. It’s also a bit difficult to see the connection with the later arguments made about shifts in the type of knowledge produced over the life course, and it’s completely unclear what critical judgements underpin assertions such as “Kandinsky painted his best work around age 50″.

There is some fascinating humanistic work published about shifts in style in the creative arts over time and with age. For instance, in classical music and literature, Edward Said’s very interesting and suggestive On Late Style. I’m not sure what underlies the assimilation of the work economists do to that of creative artists, but sadly, I think once again we’re seeing – in Galenson’s oeuvre – the all too predictable results of an imperialistic profession which – far too often – simply refuses to credit the work of other disciplines and knowledges. All too predictable, and not very creative at all, but more exemplary of this big a Age than Galenson himself would probably credit.

You can condemn anything you like except The Michael Garrick Sextet. I do condemn myself for not blogging for ages!

Folks might remember I talked a while back about the ‘Creative Brisbane’ event we’re presenting tonight as part of the Brisbane CitySmart Innovation Festival. The response to both this conversation and to the BrisCulture concept has been really exciting. I thought, therefore, I’d post a quick notice to let people know details of the event, should anyone who hasn’t already responded to our rsvp be interested in checking it out. Details are available at the BrisCulture website, and on the Facebook event page. Over the fold, I’ve posted the programme for the evening.

Well, the day has arrived! BrisCulture’s ‘Creative Brisbane’ event takes place tonight at the Old School of Arts, 166 Ann Street (in the Bleeding Heart Gallery) courtesy of our partners The Eidos Institute.

I thought it might be useful if I gave a quick run down of how the event will proceed.

The bar, cafe and gallery space will be open from 5pm. If you’re coming after work, please feel free to join us for some refreshment and you may also wish to enjoy the exhibition in the Bleeding Heart Gallery – a truly wonderful space.

We will be commencing our conversation in the gallery at 6pm. Professor Bruce Muirhead of Eidos will be chairing the event. The seminar will begin with a brief opening presentation from me about the BrisCulture concept, and then be thrown open to a discussion between the panelists and audience around the themes of ‘Creative Brisbane’. At the conclusion of proceedings, I will talk briefly about where we intend to take BrisCulture in the future.

There will be an opportunity at the close of the session for participants to register their interest in future events and projects and leave written comments.

We expect to conclude around 7.10pm, at which point we invite and welcome attendees to share a drink and some tapas on the front deck. There will be a cash bar and some free nibblies. All proceeds will go to support the ongoing gallery and community work of Bleeding Heart. The bar will be open until 8.30pm.

We’re extremely excited about our inaugural event, and are looking forward so much to seeing many of you there, meeting and interacting with you, and beginning to shape a sustainable cultural future for our town together!

Update: Some initial reflections on the evening have been posted at BrisCulture.

Update: Tony Robertson has posted his photos of last night’s event to Picasa.

While literature about Creative Cities abounds, every city has its own urbanism and its own distinct culture. A ‘one size fits all’ model doesn’t map neatly onto the specificities of place. While Brisbane is now on the arts map with new cultural infrastructure capable of attracting visitors in the hundreds and thousands to major exhibitions and events, what of the sustainability of the city’s everyday lived cultural experience and production? Our town has proved its value in fostering distinctive and innovative forms of cultural practice – the germination of the music scene in the Valley or the arrival of grunge lit being notable moments in time. But much of this activity takes place ‘underground’ – it bubbles up alchemically from below; drawing energy from serendipitous connections and a sense of locale. Although we welcome the era of government support, public art and creative industries policy, we contend that embedding, celebrating and fostering emergent practice is a task still to be thought out.

That’s the task we’ve set ourselves. It sounds ambitious, but it’s realisable because we’re approaching it as an exercise in making connections and fostering the art of public conversation and collaborative policy making. You can read about the project at BrisCulture and stay tuned for our first event. As part of the 2009 Brisbane CitySmart Innovation Festival, we are hosting a joint event with The Centre for Policy Development, and in conjunction with the Eidos Institute, on the 26th of May at the Old School of Arts in Ann Street, Brisbane – Creative Brisbane: Rethinking Innovation. This will only be the beginning – we’re conceiving BrisCulture as a rolling series of events, policy interventions, performances and conversations which exists in a virtual locale as well as in the spaces of the city.

If you’re interested in all this, whether as a Brisbanite, an occasional visitor, or just curious about the town, I’d encourage you to join our Facebook group, which will be utilised to keep everyone in the loop. I’m very excited about this project, and I think it will lead to some really interesting things!

Sadly, J. G. Ballard has died. An enormous literature has appeared online paying tribute to his life and work. Noteable, I thought, was an article in Salon by Simon Reynolds, who treats Ballard as a fabulist of ideas, and interestingly traces his current influence on post-punk and popular music.

[Image courtesy of blank [AT] null66913, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence. An extensive gallery of images of the “Autopsy of the new millennium” exhibition on Ballard’s work at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona can be accessed at Flickr.]

Update: A round up of tributes to Ballard.