Turner Prize-winning artist in politics, music and film Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992now appearing in Vinyl Factory: Reverb exhibition.
Jeremy Diller has interrogated and contextualized art, music, and politics through his work as a producer, publisher, filmmaker, collaborator, and archivist over the past three decades. The London-born Turner Prize-winning conceptual artist has explored everything from brass bands (Acid copper) and put the objection (Our hobby is Depeche Mode)miners’ strikeBattle of Orgreave(And the Iraq War)“This is what it is: talks about Iraq”.
The Vinyl Factory has a long history of collaborating with Deller to create numerous musical and artistic projects, from the 2013 Venice Biennale soundtrack produced by VF and recorded at Abbey Road to the co-commission of his film Bom Bom’s Dream which was featured on The Infinite Mix, co-presented by VF at 180 Studios in 2016. Over the years, Deller has released numerous recordings with VF including English magic“His cover”Voodoo Ray“, and cooperate with Adrian Sherwood and Cecilia Bengolia.
Vinyl Factory: ReverbThe exhibition showcases VF’s many artistic collaborations with artists we have worked with regularly including Deller. In his composition for the exhibitionEverybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992Diller dives back into the world of music; This time examining the social and political history of the “Second Summer of Love.” A film of a lecture Diller gave to a class of A-level politics students, the piece combines rare archival footage and an oral history that traces house music from its origins in Chicago and Detroit to its political presence in post-miners’ strike Britain.
We spoke with Diller about the importance of rave history, student response, and the relationship between art and popular music.
This interview was originally published on vinyl factory
How did the lecture come about?
I gave a lecture at a North London state school – just a normal art lecture and I was a bit wary. I had never given a lecture in front of a group of teenagers, but I had a great feeling from it. It’s funny when you’re giving talks, you know whether your audience is with you, against you, or engaged. These guys were engaged and asked funny questions. It was a laugh.
When I was asked to make a documentary about ’80s music, I thought, “Okay, I’m going to go back to that school because I loved being with those guys. I’m going to make a film that lectures about my perspective on music and society in the ’80s, and how dance music moved society forward and changed it.” the society.
How did the students react?
Many of them were students of politics, but this did not mean that they were studying contemporary history. Also, I think most of the students in the film, their parents were not born in the UK, so their parents had no experience of growing up in Britain in the 80s and 90s and there was no popular or familial memory of Britain at that time. These students were looking at this footage and some of these ideas for the first time.
Their reactions are very visceral and immediate to things like a miners’ strike, the Traveler Movement, or even just snapshots of a rave. They were fascinated and mystified by things, and in a sense, I was trying to show them a version of Britain that they might not be aware of simply because they weren’t aware of the history, but also of the complexity and surprising nature of some of the monuments. Aspects of British society and youth movements.
What is your research style for the lecture?
When you research something like this, you do some research from memory and read books. I went online and found a clip of the movie that I didn’t have before I thought about making the movie. It was a group of dancers in Detroit dancing to Kraftwerk which, to me, is one of the most stunning shots you will ever see.
It’s a revealing piece of footage. People dress up to look like they’re going to a wedding or something, and dance their hearts out to Kraftwerk. It’s the most amazing thing. I knew I wanted to use this clip, no matter what, I was going to use this clip. And then, of course, you look at other clips and you get online and you look at things and one thing leads to another.
When you saw the students working and experimenting with the musical equipment you brought, did it remind you of the experimental roots of the music you were talking about?
I felt like it was a reflection of a new generation. There is a moment when the guys are able to play on the equipment that was used in some house music recordings. I wanted a little fun, like a breakout session, because no matter how much you’re playing with something on a screen or computer, there’s nothing quite like putting your hands on a physical object and making sounds out of it.
I thought this was a likable and important part of the movie. In most secondary schools now, there is very little provision for music, which makes it seem like the right thing to do to give young people a chance to play this stuff and make a sound.
You can make something that looks good quickly and easily, and they’ll start playing with it. It’s great.
There is a large political theme throughout the lecture. Do you think contemporary dance music is as connected to politics as it was in the past?
I don’t know much about what’s going on now. I know a little, but I think the big difference between music then and now is that a lot of dance music now has very strong lyrical content whereas most of the big songs from the 80s and 90s were instrumentals with maybe repetitive lyrics.
What was political was that you were already in some field or somewhere you were not supposed to be. The context was highly political, even if the words were not. The fact that you were doing something in a place you weren’t supposed to be or gathering en masse was in itself a political act, even though it might not seem like it, it might just seem like a big party.
What happened was a disruption of the system and what was expected of you. Any mass movement after the miners’ strike, which ended in 1985, was viewed through the lens of being a problem. The government considered the mere collection of bodies together a problem.
Maybe it reminded them of striking miners trying to get to a picket or trying to get to a pit or something like that. There was a strange echo of what had come before, which gave it a political advantage. Of course, since the parties were not regulated, they were illegal to begin with, which meant the law had to change.
How important is it for young racers now to know about the history that came before them?
It’s always interesting to learn about history, not just dance music. It gives you context and perspective too. This movie is really about perspective. It was never intended to be a series of interviews with middle-aged men sitting in the recording studio or in front of their band, talking about how great it was that they went to parties and the drugs they took and reminisced. It’s not meant to be a sentimental film in that regard or a nostalgic film.
It’s a film that takes a few steps back and looks at the bigger picture of Britain at that time and how dance music changed the country and pushed history forward, maybe pushing it, you know.
There’s a saying by a French philosopher – “Music is a prophecy” – and in a way, house and acid house music was a prophecy of what the future could be in technology and how people relate to each other. He showed us the future and we took some aspects of it, both good and bad, I think.
It’s really a film about how music changes society and can intervene in history and move history forward.
Tell me about the diagram and images of Stonehenge that are also in your installation.
The sketch I made when I was 19 years old. I originally painted it in 1996 when I was creating a project where a brass band played acid house music calledAcid copper. It feels like a joke, in a way, and is meant to be a silly diagram drawing the relationship between these two musical movements. In a sense, the graph tells a story about twentieth-century Britain, as it moved from an industrial to a post-industrial culture. If you look at the chart, you can see the connections – they both face media hysteria and civil unrest through miners’ strikes, labor unions and brass bands.
It’s called world history, because for some people this is their world. The strange thing is that it serves as a screenplay for the film I wrote more than 20 years later. As soon as house music appeared in Britain and I was looking at it from afar I knew something important was happening in the country.
The other photo in the room is a negative of Stonehenge, taken during a fashion shoot I did there. Today or sometime this evening will be the solstice. Stonehenge appears in the film and every other documentary about Britain. Stonehenge has always existed in some sense. It is always present in our lives. There’s always something going on there that we’re thinking about. He represents us. I thought it was appropriate that Stonehenge was in the room watching us.
Do you think it’s important to showcase popular and dance music in art-focused venues?
Well, of course, I’m an artist, but this is probably the least-looking artwork in the exhibition. I would argue that it is a very traditional documentary but you can still see it as a work of art.
For me, what is important about performances like this – and something I believe in my work – is that music is an art form. Popular music and dance music should be taken seriously. It wasn’t for long and his reputation was tarnished. House music, in particular, has been denigrated in the media as merely meaningless.
It’s clearly full of meaning, especially for the people who loved it. It was their life, it was our life. Pop music and pop culture is something for artists to examine and consider. This should not make it serious because it is a very playful exhibition but it is an important topic because it is very special to people and full of meaning as well.
Music documents change society, and change societies. It’s the art form that does that more than anything else. It changes attitudes, but it can especially change histories and social histories.
He buysticketsTo The Vinyl Factory: Reverb at 180 Studios now.
180 studio
180 The Strand, London, WC2R 1EA
May 22 – September 28, 2024
10am – 7pm, Wednesday – Sunday
Watch the following: Patch Notes: Scattered listening
The post Interview: Jeremy Diller appeared first on Fact Magazine.