The art of pop

[imomus]

I'm busy in the staff room today, so I'd like to leave you in the hands of a relief teacher. Class, this is Mr Cocker. Anything funny about that name, Louise? No? Thank you. Now, Mr Cocker has a very interesting presentation for you today. He's made a report on his tape-recorder about the effect of British art schools on British pop music. Let's just thread the spools, then you can listen to it. Mr Cocker went to Central Saint Martins, admittedly quite a while after he started his pop group Pulp. He was a bit ambivalent about the value of an art school education at the time: his thesis was all about how students would be much better off if all the art schools were closed down for five years. Which didn't go down terribly well with the tutors, obviously. But now he feels that what's valuable about these largely 19th century institutions is the eccentricity they foster. You'll hear, for instance, one tutor reminisce fondly about the year the staff of the sculpture department wore brown paper bags over their heads. No, Raymond, you may not put a bag over your head. We're not at art school yet.

All right, settle down, settle down now everybody and listen to Mr Cocker's report. I shall be back presently to ask you questions.

Comments

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Ah, the inimitable George Melly. I swear I could hear his suit.

I've taught design classes and lectured at art schools, although I never went to one myself. This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzxnVukR7kQ&search=soul%20train) was my art curriculum when I was young--much to be drawn from it. I should teach a course on it sometime.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Wow, what a great clip! Teaching it would be a bit like making architecture about dance, though, wouldn't it? I'd rather (try and) dance it!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

It would be much ado about the application of aesthetics, so yes, definitely a hands-on studio course. A new astounding look and new battery of moves would be mandatory for each class. Leigh Bowery and Sam Fosso would be covered, but mostly we'd get the kids accustomed to "putting it out there." It'd be like exuberance boot camp. It would be an object lesson in how inspiration is not something to wait passively for, but emerges from activity itself.

A old-school dance line formed at a wedding recently, and it was amazing how people who usually don't think of themselves as particularly creative started to employ their reserves of wit, improvisation and showmanship, and how each participant got immediate feedback from the other participants/spectators. First we had a young buck doing flips, then a middle-aged portly fellow came in and cooled things down and smartened things up by strutting down the walk, producing a comb and fixing his hair. I then came in, produced my moustache brush, gave a few strokes, then ended with my usual pimp float outro. Great fun.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Perhaps we should start a "line dance" right here in Click Opera's ether, a sort of exquisite corpse?



Let's take it on the floor...

[(Anonymous)]